(NOTE: With Chip Ainsworth “on assignment” for a few weeks, we’re taking this time to run a few classic columns from his extensive vault — with his approval, of course. This column ran in the Saturday, Oct. 18, 2003, edition of The Recorder.)
Greetings! (Because it’s not a good morning.)
I was in the right place when Aaron Boone hit the home run that became latest chapter in Red Sox infamy — at a urinal on the upper deck of Yankee Stadium. If there was one small favor to the Thursday night/Friday morning fiasco, that was it. Surrounded by Yankee fans who began their elbow-poking and hair-tussling after Jason Giambi’s fifth-inning home run, I promised them I’d be back at my seat for the bottom of the 11th inning. “Unless I hear a loud roar.”
Exiting the men’s room, I heard that roar and saw the arms waving jubilantly, and knew that it was Denny Galehouse and Bucky Dent and Bill Buckner all over again. I sprinted down the ramps and out of the Stadium to where my car was parked, not wanting to stick around for any damn Yankees victory party. It’s easy for Red Sox fans to wallow in self-pity, but it’s really sort of delicious to say that we’re the Washington Generals of baseball; to put on Sinatra and start to cry.
This was supposed to be the year, just like it was supposed to be the year in ’99 and ’86 and ’78 and ’75 and ’67 and ’48 and ’46.
Just as in those games, jobs will be lost and careers have been tarnished. Manager Grady Little is a goner for deciding to keep Pedro Martinez in the game and allowing four straight hits to tie the game. In his defining moment, the Dominican fireballer spit the bit and failed to join the elite of the greats, like Sandy Koufax and Jack Morris.
It’s history now, but the seventh game of the ALCS attracted its share of Red Sox fans to the Stadium on Thursday night, people like Kathy Powers and Rhonda Emerson of Portland.
“It was spur of the moment,” said Powers. “My husband said, How’d you feel about going to the Red Sox game?’”
And so they and four other friends spent $2,500 to charter a plane and fly to the Big Apple. “We’re really nuts,” said Emerson. “These Red Sox are killing us.”
Little did she know. I felt sorry for the younger Red Sox fans, the people who are enabling this New England baseball misery to perpetuate itself. Like 24-year-old Mike Bosson of Canton, Conn., who flew in from his job in Denver and paid scalpers over $2,000 to watch every playoff game starting with the Oakland series.
“My boss told me either way I was gonna be happy, either they’ll lose and I’ll have a job, or I’ll be fired and they won the World Series.”
Ah well, at least Mike Bosson still has a job this morning. It was the young fans who’d dared to wear Red Sox gear into the park. They took the abuse and handled the “Go back to Boston, you —!” but they weren’t able to take the crushing loss. I observed several during my jog back to the car, even patted one of them on the back to cheer him up. It was no use. They were all zombies and New York had become the night of the living dead, afflicted by the Curse of the Bambino inside the House that Ruth Built.
During my escape from New York, the traffic was stalled on I-95 and I heard a couple of guys in an SUV give a half-hearted chant, “Let’s go Pats, Let’s go Pats.”
They’d seen the “Pat Patriot” decal on the back of my Jeep and were trying to commiserate. I looked over and said, “At least we’ve still got them.”
They nodded glumly and rolled their eyes.
I called my daughter April and told her, “Welcome to the heartbreak of being a Red Sox fan.”
Last Saturday we had been sitting in the third-base boxes when Derek Jeter sent a Martinez offering over the Green Monster and onto Yawkey Way. While he circled the bases, I asked the sort of question a father asks his daughter: “Do you think Jeter’s good-looking?”
“He’s all right,” she said. “He wouldn’t be half as good-looking if he wasn’t that rich.”
Great attitude. I’m proud of her.
Earlier that day, I’d taken a photo of former Red Sox reliever Dick Radatz. He was sitting at a foldout table signing black-and-white photos taken of him when he was a lights-out pitcher for the club back in the ’60s. A fan leaned over and said, “I was here the game when you struck out Maris, Mantle and Howard on nine pitches.”
“Ten pitches,” replied Radatz. “Elston got a foul off me.”
He looked up and added, “They’re all dead now, and I’m still here.”
Behind Radatz was a woman wearing a “Reverse the Curse” button and a diamond-studded Red Sox pendant. She was a friendly, even jovial sort, and I asked if she was related to Radatz.
“No,” she laughed. “I’m Babe Ruth’s granddaughter. There’s no denying the looks.”
She handed me her card with her name, Linda Ruth Tosetti, and a sketch of herself posing alongside the Babe.
She indeed had the Babe’s full, round face and solid frame, and fortunately the nose wasn’t as pronounced as her granddad’s. Her mother, Dorothy Ruth, was conceived by Babe and adopted by Babe’s first wife Helen. The Babe died in 1948 at age 53 and consequently Linda Ruth never got to meet her grandfather, but she said she’s an avid Red Sox fan.
“This is the year,” she told me. “And if not this year, then definitely next year.”
Spoken like a true Red Sox fan.
Outside Fenway at last Tuesday’s game, I bought some ballpark health food — a sausage grinder smothered with onions and peppers — and sat on the steps outside a souvenir store. A guy sitting next to me had wandered down from his hotel wondering what all the fuss was about. He was from the Netherlands and not a baseball fan. “All I’ve heard since I got here is Cowboy Up,’ Yankees Suck’ and Damn Yankees.’”
Now he’s hearing something else: Wait till next year.
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for four decades in the Pioneer Valley.