One of my earliest memories: I'm 2 and change and I'm toddling up to the family's black & white Philco, a good-sized piece of furniture with a tiny little screen. When I get to the TV, I try to pick one of they players off the screen.
It wasn't until I was well into my adulthood that I realized that my father must have told me to go up there and pick a runner off base. I can hear my father's voice now, "Go get him, Moe. Get that guy."
By the time I had my picking-the-guy-off-base epiphany, I could no longer get a confirmation from my father, who died when I was 21.
One thing he left me, though, was an abiding love of baseball in general, and the Red Sox in particular.
When I first began seriously following and rooting for the Red Sox, they were pretty awful. Yet they were my team. When the games were televised - weekends only - I was sitting there in the family room watching on a larger-screen but still b&w TV with my father. If it was a night game, broadcast on radio, I was sitting in the living room listening with my father on our piece-of-furniture radio that combined AM radio with a record player that played 78s and 45s, but not 33 LP albums, and had a cabinet that held old albums that were actually multi-disk albums that contained records like my mother's Nelson Eddy collection. (In the family room, we had a more modern stereo that played 33s, and it was there that I listened to (and memorized) the tracks of Broadway musicals like My Fair Lady, South Pacific, Oklahoma, and - still my favorite - West Side Story.)
When the game ran past bedtime, I was shooed off to bed. But my bedroom was just off the living room hall, and my nickname was "Radar Ears," so I kept listening until I drifted off to sleep.
I couldn't figure out why a team that had Ted Williams on it could be so terrible. After Ted retired - I got to see him play his last year - the Red Sox had Carl Yastrzemski. I couldn't figure out why a team that had Carl Yastrzemski on it could be so terrible, either.
And then, in 1967, the team that had Carl Yastrzemski on it wasn't so terrible, after all.
Mid-season, the team had picked up an infielder, Jerry Adair, who ended up contributing a lot during the Sox' pennant run. My father took a liking to Jerry Adair, and I can still hear him saying "When Adair is in there, the Red Sox are up there."
Well, when Adair was in there, our boys made it to the World Series.
It was quite exciting, especially as I was a freshman in college in Boston, living at the doorstep of Fenway Park.
When they won the pennant, all hell broke loose and, like every other college kid in Boston, I milled around for a while in Kenmore Square.
On the communal dorm TV, I watched six games of that World Series, but had the good sense not to watch the seventh game. Instead, I took a walk. The Red Sox lost to St. Louis in seven games, and thus began my unbroken streak-let of never watching the seventh game of the World Series if the Red Sox were in it.
In 1975 against Cincinnati. In 1986 against the Mets. I took to my bed. In 1975, I was living on a main drag, and could tell from the street noise - or lack thereof - that the Red Sox had fallen. In 1986, my husband watched in my stead, informing me when the game was over.
These were just the World Series big-swing-and-a-misses. There were too many almost, almost, almosts to count. (E.g., 1978, Bucky Fucking Dent, thank you very much. And Aaron Boone - those damned Yankees again - in 2003.)
And then there was 2004.
I liked this team. Pretty much everyone did. The team was funny, loose, tough, and had a good scrappy personality. Curt Schilling had not yet revealed his true, nasty self, so I even liked him.
But - here we go again - they were three games down to the Yankees in the American League Championship Series. And no team had ever come back from being down three games to zip.
I watched game three, which was a complete rout. 19-8.
Likable, maybe, but they sure did suck.
I decided to treat Game Four as if it were a World Series Game Seven and took to my bed. My husband checked in occasionally to report what was happening. I came out after Papi's dinger won the game in extras, even though it was well past my bedtime.
I did the same for Game Five, which went into even more extras than Game Four (14 vs. 12), and was again time for more David Ortiz heroics, this time a single that drove in the winning run.
For Game 6, I felt confident enough to watch. This was the Curt Schilling Bloody Sock game, in which Schilling pitched wounded. And won.
Game 7 was, to me, a foregone conclusion. Especially after Papi homered in the first, and Johnny Damon followed it up with a grand slam in the second.
That was 18 years ago tonight.
I don't remember if I called my sister Trish, or she called me. I do remember crying on the phone with her.
The World Series win - in four games, to St. Louis - was another foregone conclusion.
There was no way the Red Sox were going to lose after that brilliant ALCS comeback.
And there wasn't.
Sox in four games.
I went up to the State House for some celebration. A number of the team members were there. Manny Ramirez. Jason Varitek. I think they played Dirty Water, but I know that the Dropkick Murphy were there, and they played Tessie, which had become another Red Sox anthem during the 2004 season.
I missed the parade. I was knocking on doors for John Kerry up in New Hampshire. Kerry lost the presidency, but he did win NH by a narrow margin, no doubt thanks to my door-knocking.
The Red Sox had a pretty miserable year, but it's hard to complain, given that, since that amazingly wonderful 2004 season, they've gifted us with four World Series wins (2004, 2007, 2013, 2018).
None quite as amazingly wonderful as that ALCS win against the Yankees.
I watched a video of the highlights of that series the other night.
Still teared up. Baseball's like that. (So are ancient daughters whose fathers taught them to love the game.)
Well, when Adair was in there, our boys made it to the World Series.
It was quite exciting, especially as I was a freshman in college in Boston, living at the doorstep of Fenway Park.
When they won the pennant, all hell broke loose and, like every other college kid in Boston, I milled around for a while in Kenmore Square.
On the communal dorm TV, I watched six games of that World Series, but had the good sense not to watch the seventh game. Instead, I took a walk. The Red Sox lost to St. Louis in seven games, and thus began my unbroken streak-let of never watching the seventh game of the World Series if the Red Sox were in it.
In 1975 against Cincinnati. In 1986 against the Mets. I took to my bed. In 1975, I was living on a main drag, and could tell from the street noise - or lack thereof - that the Red Sox had fallen. In 1986, my husband watched in my stead, informing me when the game was over.
These were just the World Series big-swing-and-a-misses. There were too many almost, almost, almosts to count. (E.g., 1978, Bucky Fucking Dent, thank you very much. And Aaron Boone - those damned Yankees again - in 2003.)
And then there was 2004.
I liked this team. Pretty much everyone did. The team was funny, loose, tough, and had a good scrappy personality. Curt Schilling had not yet revealed his true, nasty self, so I even liked him.
But - here we go again - they were three games down to the Yankees in the American League Championship Series. And no team had ever come back from being down three games to zip.
I watched game three, which was a complete rout. 19-8.
Likable, maybe, but they sure did suck.
I decided to treat Game Four as if it were a World Series Game Seven and took to my bed. My husband checked in occasionally to report what was happening. I came out after Papi's dinger won the game in extras, even though it was well past my bedtime.
I did the same for Game Five, which went into even more extras than Game Four (14 vs. 12), and was again time for more David Ortiz heroics, this time a single that drove in the winning run.
For Game 6, I felt confident enough to watch. This was the Curt Schilling Bloody Sock game, in which Schilling pitched wounded. And won.
Game 7 was, to me, a foregone conclusion. Especially after Papi homered in the first, and Johnny Damon followed it up with a grand slam in the second.
That was 18 years ago tonight.
I don't remember if I called my sister Trish, or she called me. I do remember crying on the phone with her.
The World Series win - in four games, to St. Louis - was another foregone conclusion.
There was no way the Red Sox were going to lose after that brilliant ALCS comeback.
And there wasn't.
Sox in four games.
I went up to the State House for some celebration. A number of the team members were there. Manny Ramirez. Jason Varitek. I think they played Dirty Water, but I know that the Dropkick Murphy were there, and they played Tessie, which had become another Red Sox anthem during the 2004 season.
I missed the parade. I was knocking on doors for John Kerry up in New Hampshire. Kerry lost the presidency, but he did win NH by a narrow margin, no doubt thanks to my door-knocking.
The Red Sox had a pretty miserable year, but it's hard to complain, given that, since that amazingly wonderful 2004 season, they've gifted us with four World Series wins (2004, 2007, 2013, 2018).
None quite as amazingly wonderful as that ALCS win against the Yankees.
I watched a video of the highlights of that series the other night.
Still teared up. Baseball's like that. (So are ancient daughters whose fathers taught them to love the game.)
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