My Father's Game

When I was eight years old, my father took me to my first baseball game at Fenway Park. Dad was not one to drive into Boston -- he hates driving in cities -- so we took his Chevy Malibu into Melrose, a Boston suburb, where we picked up the T train. After a couple of switches, we exited at Kenmore Square, near Fenway Park.

When you're young, your senses are heightened and raw. Every perception makes a laser impression on your eyes, your ears, your nose. My first memory of that summer day is of walking towards Fenway, over a small overpass with the iconic Citgo sign in the distance. Back then, the sign was made of fiberglass, and it was absolutely huge. I wondered to myself exactly how big did a gas station have to be to have a sign that tall? Today, the sign's still there, except it's electric and lights up in neon red, purple, and white. Some things should stay the way they are. It was one of my first visits ever to a city, and I also couldn't believe how many people were walking around and how big the buildings were.

Outside the Park, on Lansdowne Street, vendors were everywhere, cooking up all these strange things I'd never smelled before. One of them was grilling sausages and peppers, which smelled amazing. Another was selling these roasted peanuts. I didn't even know you could roast peanuts. Still others were hawking baseball paraphernalia, and I whined to my father to buy me literally everything I saw: Red Sox hats, jerseys, keychains, pins, caps, baseballs, programs, you name it, I wanted it. Dad typically gave me the Heisman stiff-arm upon gratuitous requests like these, but on this special day, he was decidedly more generous. First he bought me a white painter's cap that had the name of every Red Sox player on it, and the number 8, for Red Sox legend Carl Yazstremski, on the top.

Then we walked into one of the enormous sports stores near the Park and I could not believe how much Red Sox stuff they were selling in there. They had everything the vendors had and more. Dad gave me the option of picking any player jersey I wanted, and I was torn between Yaz, his favorite player, and Fred Lynn, my favorite player. After considerable vacillation, and with the game start rapidly approaching, I went with Yaz at the very last minute because he had the number 8, which was my favorite number. Plus, I was 8 years old, and at the time, I felt an appropriate symmetry to my getting a jersey with the number 8 on it to commemorate my first baseball game. (Even back then, numbers mattered to me.) Plus, it made Dad happy, and well, you know, he ponied up for the tickets, so it was the least I could do.

Our seats were in the bleachers (the cheap seats, of course), but since Dad was a sentimental guy, he wanted my first vision of Fenway Park to be from behind home plate, just like the players saw it. So he walked me around the inside of Fenway to the entrance behind home plate. When we got to the ramp, he let me go slowly up the ramp by myself to the stadium entrance to take it all in. As I walked up the ramp, the field slowly opened before me, getting bigger and bigger in front of my eyes. When I finally got to the top of the ramp and walked into Fenway Park for the first time, I remember how in awe I was. It was as if I'd entered a holy shrine. I'd seen it on t.v. before, but it was so much bigger in person. The sky was a brilliant blue, with a high afternoon sun that reflected off the bleacher seats in right field, where we would soon be sitting. The thing I remember most is the grass. It was the greenest grass I'd ever seen. Certainly greener than the dried out patches in front of our house in New Hampshire, which Dad had always struggled to maintain. The Fenway grass was imbued with a deep forest green and it extended everywhere. Since one of my chores at home was to mow the lawn, I took particular notice of how nicely trimmed the Fenway grass was, and how they'd inlaid it with a nice criss-cross design. Didn't even know you could do that. Then I saw the infield, and it too looked much bigger than it did on television. I couldn't fathom how a third baseman could make such a long throw to first with such accuracy. And last, turning to my left, I saw the Green Monster, which looked as high as a mountain to my eight-year old eyes.

My Dad let me take it all in, before showing me a few things about the park I wouldn't have noticed. He pointed to a seat in right field that Sox legend Ted Williams once hit with a home run many years ago -- the longest one ever hit at Fenway Park. Today, in Ted's honor, the seat is colored red and surrounded by a sea of blue seats. Before our visit, my father had told me that my initials, T.E.D., were given in Ted's honor. My father was a huge fan of Ted's, not only because he was a great baseball player, but also because, like my father, Ted was a military man. In fact, TW missed four of the best years of his career serving as a jet fighter pilot during World War II, and he still set records that have yet to be broken.

Eventually, we made our way to the bleacher seats, and for the next three hours, we watched the Red Sox play the Chicago White Sox, who wore these hideous black jerseys with collars (collars!), that looked ridiculous. Their uniforms paled in comparison to the old school bright red and white of my Red Sox. For the record, that day I recall eating 2 Fenway Franks, 1 cotton candy, 1 bag of peanuts, and washing it all down with one or two Cokes. Healthy fare, to say the least. While I remember what I ate, for the life of me, I can't remember if the Red Sox won or lost. I think they may have lost -- they always lost to the White Sox back then -- but it didn't matter. I'd seen the Red Sox play, I'd seen Fenway Park with my father, and that's all I cared about.

In the long years since, I suffered along with my father as we watched the Red Sox approach the door to the Promised Land, a World Series title, only to have it slam on their fingers time after time. Each year, like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain, some obstacle, some unexpected turn of events, would interfere with a surehanded victory. The boulder would roll backwards at the most inopportune time, flattening my team and crushing my dreams.

In 1978, it was light-hitting Bucky Dent's corked bat home run, which just barely reached the top of the Monster, that killed the Red Sox in a one game playoff against the Yankees. That year, they'd held a 14-game lead over New York as late as July. That game was the first time I realized that I wasn't following a normal baseball team. The Red Sox could rip your heart out.

Probably the worst disappointment, of course, was in 1986, when I was 18 years old, and the Red Sox looked like a team of destiny. When Boston went up 3 games to 2 in the World Series against the Mets, the result seemed assured. It was going to happen. At the time, I was in college in Worcester, Massachusetts. I watched Game 6 with a bunch of my friends in a tiny dorm room. A bunch of Mets fans from New Jersey were watching the game in the adjoining room, and every time something good happened for the Red Sox, we would beat on the cinderblock wall with an aluminum baseball bat to rub it in. Whenever something good happened for the Mets, my colleagues in the next room reciprocated in kind.

The game went into extra innings, and, in the top of the 10th, Boston went ahead on a 2-run home run by Dave Henderson, to take a commanding lead. In the bottom of the 10th, the Red Sox got two quick outs, the second coming on a fly ball to Henderson, which he caught one-handed and nonchalantly, as if to say "Yeah man, I'm a stud, and this game is O-V-E-R." At that moment, I thought back to my Dad's admonition in Little League whenever I would try and catch the baseball one-handed: Two hands! Always use two hands when you catch the ball!!! (The danger was, the ball could pop out of your glove by accident, and if you didn't have another hand covering the front of the glove, you'd drop it.) When I saw Hendu catch the ball with one hand, something in my mind said He should've used two hands. Something isn't right. And that old Calvinist doubt began to claw its way out of my cerebellum and into my consciousness.

Still, it was a faint doubt. Like everyone else in the room, I still thought the Red Sox were going to win the World Series for the first time since 1918. "I can't believe it, I can't believe it," we all kept saying. Superstition did not stop us from whacking the hell out of the adjoining wall with our trusty aluminum bat. When Boston got within one strike of winning the game and the Series, one of my friends pulled a bunch of Budweisers out of the mini-fridge under the television and distributed them to everyone in the room. We all wanted to have a cold one in our hands when the Red Sox finally won the whole thing. We wanted to celebrate the long-awaited victory by metaphorically drinking the blood of the vanquished. We were ready. The scoreboard at Shea flashed "Congratulations Boston Red Sox -- 1986 World Champions." We were close. So very, very close. My right hand was on the pop-top of my can of beer, so I could time it with the final out.

The next sound I remember hearing after Hendu caught out number two was the pfffffft of some jackass prematurely opening his beer. Not good. This was extremely bad luck. Extremely. We all yelled at him, because as any Sox fans knows, you do NOT fucking celebrate too early. That's just stupid. That's just raising a middle finger to the Baseball Gods and saying, "We don't need your stinkin' help. Fuck you." It's fine to give up on your own team too early -- in fact, eighteen years later, I'd learn that doing so can help turn bad karma into good karm. But you do NOT celebrate until the last zombie is dead. It's baseball fan 101.

The rest of the game is a bit of a blur. I remember back-to-back hits by Gary Carter and Kevin Mitchell. I remember us taking all of our beers and putting them back into the mini-fridge, even the a-hole who opened his too early. I remember the distinct sound of an aluminum bat from the next room hitting our wall repeatedly. I remember Calvin Schiraldi, the rookie Red Sox pitcher with deer-in-headlight eyes being replaced by Oh-Shit-Here-Comes-Gasoline-On-The Fire-Bob-Stanley. I remember Mookie Wilson fouling off a bunch of pitches and the Red Sox being one strike away 10 times before Mookie dodged a wild one from Stanley that got past the catcher, Rich Gedman. Mets score, tie ballgame. (A lot more aluminum bat from the next room.) I remember Mookie hitting a ground ball to first base. I remember Bill Buckner, an old ironhorse at the tail end of his career, who had chronically bad ankles and knees, bending over at the waist like a diseased tree to pick up the easy grounder. I remember the ball going underneath his glove and into right field. I remember the announcer Vin Scully's nasally voice saying "Little roller up along first... behind the bag! It gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight, and the Mets win it!" I remember the Mets going nuts.

To this day, the sound of Vin Scully's voice makes me nauseous.

That night, I left my friends' dorm and walked back to mine feeling like someone had cut my guts open with a pocketknife. I was crying, that's how bad it was. An eighteen year-old crying like a little girl over a baseball game. Sad. Once I got back to my dormroom, I called my father. He was incredulous himself and extremely pissed, which made me feel better. He reminded me that these were the Red Sox, and he'd suffered a long time too, but there was always Game 7. They'd bounce back. They'd win Game 7. I was nowhere near as optimistic as he was though, and of course, he was wrong. After a psyche-twisting debacle like this, Game 7 was a foregone conclusion. Boston lost. Again.

The Red Sox didn't get that close to champagne again for a long time. In fact, they wouldn't get that close to a World Series for another 17 years. In 2003, I was 35 years old and living in New York. Ironically, I'd fallen in love with the city of the team I grew up hating with a passion. (Truth be told, I grew up hating New York City too. But once I got here, I discovered that her ass looks great in a thong and she's pretty damn good in bed. So I got over it.)

During my time here, I'd had to endure the resurgent Yankees winning four out of five World Series between 1996 and 2000. The Yankees were the opposite of the Red Sox. They had 22 World Series rings when they started in the 90s. By the end, they had 26. They were a force, and they made winning look easy. In 2003, Boston had put together a great team, one that was arguably better than the Yankees, and they were facing New York again, mano-a-mano, in the most important game between the two teams since that one-game debacle in 1978. I was a nervous wreck the entire series. Couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. It's fine for Boston to lose in the playoffs -- I almost expected it -- but please, please, please, do not let it be to the fucking Yankees. Why did this have to happen? Why did they get stuck playing New York, of all teams? It just wasn't right.

Of course, the series went to a Game 7. Another one-game playoff, except this time, the stakes were bigger. The winner got to go to the World Series. To my utter surprise, Boston actually took a 5-2 lead into the eighth inning, with Pedro Martinez, one of the best pitchers in the game, on the mound. I was pacing my apartment like a man possessed. Six more outs, six more outs, six more outs, I kept chanting to myself. I sounded like a baseball Rain Man. I could not sit still. Friend P. had called earlier, when Boston was well ahead. He sounded confident, happy. He felt good. "These are the Red Sox we're talking about," I'd said. "Don't get your hopes up, there's a lot of game left." He agreed and we promptly got off the phone.

I won't recount the entirety of what happened in the eighth inning, but Boston blew its three-run lead when the manager left Pedro Martinez in the game too long. The Yankees tied the game and ended up winning it in extra innings on a home run by Aaron Boone. After the game, I felt like someone had kicked me in the balls with steel-toed combat boots. My angst surprised me. I'd actually started believing in them again, and they screwed me good, again. This time though, I was thirty-five, not eighteen, so instead of crying like a baby, I swore a blue streak for about two hours and went to bed. Living in New York really sucked right about then, as Yankee fans were partying like it was 1999. All night long, I heard horns honking and people yelling outside my apartment. To Red Sox and Yankee fans, beating the other team in a Game 7 playoff is baseball nirvana. A sports orgasm, if you will. It simply does not get any better. Except maybe winning the World Series.

In 2004, everything somehow changed. I don't know what karmic forces reversed themselves, or why they did, but they did and in dream-like fashion. In a repeat of the prior year, the Red Sox faced the Yankees again in the ALCS and promptly lost three games. The last game they lost in Boston by a score of 19-8. They got pounded. I thought it was over. Everyone did. But it wasn't. Boston came back to win the next four games. They beat the Yankees and got to the World Series. It was unbelievable. It was historical. And it was payback. To see the Red Sox jubilantly dancing on the grave of the pitcher's mound at Yankee Stadium after Game 7, as stunned faces of Yankees players and more importantly, Yankee fans, looked on, was... just... precious.

Then, THEN, Boston swept the St. Louis Cardinals in four games to win the whole thing. They finally did it, they won the World Series. So close, so very close, so many times, and it finally happened. It was surreal. So surreal in fact that there was a total eclipse the night they won.

Afterwards, I did not know what to feel. Have you ever wanted something so badly to happen that seemed totally impossible, like the gods were against it, and then it finally happens, in the most improbable way, and you're like, holy fuck, it just happened. I can't believe it. It's like you've grown up your whole life thinking you had a certain place in the universe, that you were a serf, a slave, who's not supposed to achieve anything more than your station, and there's this big ass giant in front of you who cracks a whip on your ass to remind you of the order of things every single time you get a little uppity. And then, one day, one of the serfs who's sick of it all and can't take it any more, takes a slingshot out of his back pocket that he's been saving for a rainy day, puts a rock in it, pulls the band back, and lets it fly right at Goliath's forehead. And down he goes. The giant is dead, the boulder is finally resting peacefully at the top of the hill, and now what? You finally get what you want in life, and it feels like an out of body experience. At least that's how it felt to me.

Tonight, the Red Sox are on the verge of winning the World Series for the second time in four years. I was happy with one, I never thought I'd see two. Strangely, they've become a lot more like the Yankees now. Gone is The Curse of the Bambino. Gone is expecting to lose. Now we expect them to win. Some of the media are saying how funny is that today's young Red Sox fans are oblivious to the many disappointments experienced by older Red Sox fans before 2004. Today's youngins are only used to winning. They don't know what it's like have their team lose important games. They're used to seeing Ortiz hit clutch home runs, and Pedro, Beckett, and Schilling dominating the opposition That's all they know. Bucky Dent? Mookie Wilson? Bill Buckner? Who are they? The youngins have no recollection of the Red Sox losing the World Series in 1946, 1967, 1975, and 1986, all in seven games. They're used to the Red Sox winning World Series games. They're used to four-game sweeps!

The older generation (uh, I guess that's me now) know better. They know to take nothing for granted, still, and that nothing is a given with this team, still. The older ones are leaving room for the possibility that Colorado can still come back in this series, may still come back, and that it's not over until it's over. Everything is conditional until the last out is made.

But if (when) the Red Sox win tonight, or tomorrow night, or on one of the nights after, my first thought will be of my father and the first baseball game he took me to when I was eight years old. I'll remember how proud he was to introduce me to the Red Sox and Fenway Park in person. I'll remember how big the field looked to my young eyes and the sweet, pungent smell of grilled sausages on Lansdowne Street. I'll remember how, on that day, my father cemented my love for an amazing game, where every pitch matters, where there is no clock, only outs, and where, just like in life, there may be disappointments along the way, but sometimes the impossible can and does happen. And when it does, it's a beautiful thing. It makes all the bad times worth it.

When Boston wins, I'll remember all of this. And then I'll call my father.