Bambino's Curse

Clinging to history

With the Yankees doing everything imaginable to make your jaw drop in this World Series, we Red Sox fans can still take pride in being part of in ''the greatest game in the history of the game,'' Game 6, Reds vs Red Sox, Oct 21-22, 1975.

That was the night/morning when Bernie Carbo's three-run pinch-hit homer with two out in the eighth inning elevated Boston from three runs down and 6 feet under against Cincinnati's invulnerable Big Red Machine; and Carlton Fisk's 12th-inning poke at 12:34 a.m. just inside the left-field foul pole, indelibly punctuated by the catcher's arm-waving directional signals for the ball to stay fair and exultant leap around the bases once it did, saved the Sox' season for another workday, 7-6 (Duffy, The Boston Globe).

I was 11 years old at the time and in the 6th grade, but I can remember the school yard chatter the morning after like it was yesterday. I remember my friend Andy Audet replaying his father's actions while watching the game the night before: ''And here comes Doyle to sprinting toward home and my dad jumps out of his chair yelling 'SLIDE! SLIDE!' and my dad slides right across the floor and into the TV just like this,'' while Andy would reenact his father's passion. By midmorning, Andy's corduroy pants looked every bit like Denny Doyle's.

I also remember that in the previous spring of the same season, while in 5th grade, my mathematics and social studies teacher, Mr. Cushing aka ''Cush,'' a real sports nut and coach of the junior high football team, rolled a TV into the classroom on Opening Day in April so we could watch the Red Sox. Talk about teachers making an impact on your life! In those days, as a Little Leaguer, my every moment was dominated by baseball. To have my love of the game and the Red Sox sanctioned by the school system was and still is beyond words.

Growing up an hour north of Boston in the 70s was an amazing gift of fate. And these daily writings are my small way of trying to give thanks.

Quotable

''Ice is what we put in our drinks,'' says former pitching great Warren Spahn referring to the normal situation in his day of pitching on 4 (rather than 5) days rest and not even bothering to ice his arm after an outing. Now that is certainly one hell of a quote.

Why don't we get more of pitching on 4 or even 3 days rest today?

. . .[T]here is considerable evidence that today's pitchers can't do it. Prior to last night, there had been 15 postseason starts by pitchers working on three or two days' rest since 1999, and those starters compiled an aggregate record of 1-9 with an ERA of 9.73. The average start lasted less than four innings. Sox fans might remember Bruce Hurst trying to pitch Game 7 on three days' rest in 1986. Hurst started strong, but faded in the sixth inning (Shaughnessy, The Boston Globe).

Still I can't help but wonder if we don't over-hype and/or over-romanticize ye olde days of yore? I'm being somewhat facetious but in those days wearing seatbelts was seen as effete and we'd thinking nothing of blowing up islands with hydrogen bombs. (What's a little radiation in the atmosphere? Toughen up, kid.)

Let's face it, Randy Johnson is a pretty tough ol' bastard whether he pitches on 4, 5 or 6 days rest. And he's not alone. Today's game is today's game not yesterday's. Apples and oranges and all that . . .

First Pitch Strike

Regardless of how you might feel one way or the other about George W. Bush, you've got to admit the guy has the right stuff with regard to baseball. Did you see the first pitch strike he threw in last night's game? That was fantastic. If you're going to steep the game in patriotic fervor (excess?), it's damn important that the President is able to walk the walk or pitch the pitch. And he delivered on this occasion.

(OK. And I am overlooking how he basically robbed the taxpayers in Texas to get the Ballpark in Arlington built. His relationship with baseball is not 100% laudable.)

And, of course, Yankees fans came through again with a most excellent chant:

''Hip - Hip - Jorge!"

Can you believe this?

What is the opposite of to choke?

The Yankees have been here before. Five times, the Yankees have lost the first two games of a World Series on the road. Four of those five times -- against the Dodgers in 1956 and '78, the Braves in '58 and '96 -- New York came back to win the Series. The last two times they did it, they didn't even need a seventh game. The only team to win the first two at home from the Yankees and then take the Series was the 1976 Cincinnati Reds, arguably the greatest team ever assembled (Kaufman, Salon).

I knew about the series with Braves in '96, of course, but the Yankees have done this seemingly impossible kind of comeback 4 other times! Wow.

Now I'm stuck

How the heck did I get into this mess? I don't want Arizona to win the World Series. (Note I didn't say I want the Yankees to win. It's a linguistic subtlety, but an important one nonetheless.)

Yet the Yankees are in the hold 2 games to none and Roger I've-got-a-hangnail-in-Game-6 Clemens, the player I most loathe, he for whom one must never root for, he who can't ever win the big ones, he who mailed it in his final seasons in a Red Sox uniform, is on the mound when the Series resumes in New York.

Meanwhile, I wondering if I'm such a jinx (and deep down all Red Sox fans think they themselves are part of the 83 year old problem) that by not rooting for Arizona I've somehow sealed the Yankees fate. Evidently, I'm not the only one who has had this thought.

Baseball for Dummies?

At times like these it's best to stand aside and let the master of sports cynicism take the game ball.

. . . I picked up Friday's edition of the Arizona Republic and there it was, the granddaddy of all yahoo features: a primer on ''Baseball 101.''

I could tolerate a swimming pool beyond the outfield fence in right-center. I could get over the fact that the Diamondbacks have been in existence only four years and their fans haven't paid enough dues to deserve hosting a World Series. Five uniform combinations, all including purple? Knock yourselves out. Eating chimichangas between innings? Make my day. It was even OK (sort of) that they couldn't sell out some Division Series and League Championship Series games.

But not this. Not Baseball For Dummies. Any town that needs this feature in the local daily shouldn't be allowed to play host to the World Series and certainly doesn't deserve to win the thing. It was bad enough when the Florida Marlins won the Series in their fifth year of existence in 1997. As least the Miami Herald didn't feel obligated to explain the meaning of the term ''base hit'' (Shaughnessy, The Boston Globe).

Need one say more?

Is this just bitterness over the fact that the Diamondbacks are in and the Red Sox are not, again? Oh, yeah. Sure is. As Red Sox fans, we cling to what we have: History. Oh, boy, do we have history.