Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
Friday, October 22, 2004, Washington Post

A Series of Unlikely Events

Sometimes sports is more than just a game. Sometimes sports is so exciting, so thrilling, so full of stories that the games become like some fantastic book you can't put down, or a movie you will always remember.

But if someone had written the story of the recent Red Sox-Yankees series as a book or a movie, no one would have believed it. The American League Championship Series, in which the Boston Red Sox beat their arch rival, the New York Yankees, was truly incredible.

Do you like comebacks? The Red Sox have given us all a "never say die" comeback for the ages.

The Sox were down three games to none, and trailed 4-3 going into the ninth inning of the fourth game against Yankees star reliever Mariano Rivera. No one would have blamed the Bosox if they had given up. It looked as if their season was over. After all, 26 teams in the history of baseball had trailed in a series three games to none. None of those teams had ever come back to win the series.

Until the Red Sox. They scratched and clawed back one at-bat, one play, one pitch at a time. The Sox did something that had never been done in more than 100 years of baseball playoffs: They won four straight games to take a series, 4-3. Now when any Little League or youth soccer coach asks the team to keep playing against seemingly impossible odds, the coach can say, "Remember the Red Sox."

Players can come back, too. For six games, Sox center fielder Johnny Damon couldn't buy a hit. He looked lost at the plate, striking out or tapping weak grounders to Yankees infielders. But Damon didn't quit. And in the seventh game, Damon snapped out of his series-long slump and smashed two home runs into the New York night to lead the Sox to a 10-3 victory.

Drama? This series had plenty. There were two extra-inning wins by the Sox on the same day. That's right, David Ortiz hit a game-ending home run in the 12th inning in the wee hours of Monday morning. Then the Red Sox slugger came back Monday night to drive in the winning run in a 14-inning, heart-stopping classic.

Courage? Let's talk about Curt Schilling. The Sox' ace pitcher lost the first game of the series when an injured ankle would not let him throw his usual 90-plus-mile-per-hour fastball. Schilling seemed done for the year. But the big right-hander came back in the sixth game when his team really needed him and pitched seven innings on blood (his ankle bled right through his sock!) and guts.

Or how about the catchers, Jason Varitek and Jorge Posada? Those guys caught 26 innings in just over 24 hours. Catching is tough, dirty, exhausting work. But when their managers asked if they needed to rest the next game, both Varitek and Posada said "no." Of course they needed the rest, but they knew their teammates needed them more.

While we are talking about courage, let's give one final tip of the hat to the umpires. At a couple crucial times during this pressure-packed series, the men in blue got together to change the first call and make sure they got it right. Sometimes the greatest courage is admitting that you were wrong.

How will the World Series ever top this?