Johnny Damon got the Sox off to a good start (Boston.com photo).
Red Sox 3 – Cardinals 0 (Red Sox win series 4 to 0)
WP: Derek Lowe, LP: Jason Marquis, SV: Keith Foulke
7:26PM – I am sitting in the Baseball Tavern with my best friend. In my pocket is a cigar I had bought ten years ago on my one trip to my father’s home country of Cuba. The rest of the box had been smoked years ago but this cigar had been saved for the day the Red Sox won the World Series.
7:27PM – On the fourth pitch of the game Johnny Damon slams one into the bullpen for a 1-0 lead. The Sox have now scored in the first inning for the fifth consecutive game.
8:18PM – Trot Nixon rips a 3-0 pitch off the right-center field fence. Two runs score and the Sox have a 3-0 lead. Tim McCarver says he missed a homer by five feet, Jerry Trupiano says it is eight feet. I don’t care, I am going out of my mind.
As the game carries forward I run into a system, every other inning I go to the men’s room. For the only time in my life I return to find my bar stool untouched. No one in the bar is changing anything.
9:50PM – We have a total lunar eclipse. Bonnie Tyler jokes are made by everyone and it is universally accepted that this is a good sign for the Red Sox.
11:22PM – Larry Walker pops to Orlando Cabrera. The Red Sox are three outs away.
11:36PM – Albert Pujols singles to start the ninth. At this point I can barely watch.
11:37PM – With one out in the inning half the TVs in the Baseball Tavern go out. I may have taken my own life if I did not see the final out.
11:39PM – Edgar Renteria stands in.
Just catch it Dougie!!!! (Boston.com photo).
11:40PM – Joe Castiglione, do you have any thoughts you would like to share?
Swing and a ground ball, stabbed by Foulke. He has it. He underhands to first. And the Boston Red Sox are the World Champions! For the first time in eighty-six years, the Red Sox have won baseball’s World Championship. Can you believe it?
In his essay about the 1985 Kansas City Royals Bill James talked about the way it felt like everyone in the ballpark was drunk after the final out. It was the same disorienting feeling, your head spins, you can’t stand up straight, you are dizzy and out of control. He absolutely got it right.
I leapt off my barstool and jumped onto my friend’s back. Had I not been holding onto him I would absolutely have fallen on the floor. We went bananas. I hugged more people in the next hour than I had hugged in the other 34 years of my life at that point. We paid our tab and stepped out onto Boylston Street.
I lit up my cigar. It was old, it was stale and it was the best cigar I have ever had. There is a wonderful picture of me at that moment. I have a smile that is ear to ear and my face is bright red. I look like I have just run a couple of marathons. Every bit of emotional investment in this silly baseball team is etched on my face in that photo.
Boylston Street and all of Kenmore Square was organized chaos. Everywhere you looked there were smiles. People were carrying brooms and signs. There was some guy dressed as Mr. Peanut for some reason but hey, it made sense at that moment. A friend called from Atlanta and said “what did I just see?” We walked and walked celebrating with everyone.
After an hour or so we got in my car. WEEI played an audio clip of some song that I assume is called “Believe” interspersed with radio calls of great moments and interviews from the season. My friend and I met our parents at a family friend’s house as we had after the ALCS win. We shared a glass of champagne from a bottle my friend’s dad had had since turning 18 (the legal drinking age at the time) for this occasion. Around 2:30 I returned home and watched over and over again the replay of NESN’s coverage finally falling asleep around 5AM.
The next morning I picked up my friend and dropped him at work next to Fenway (his car was blocked in from the road closures the night before). The line at the souvenir store went down Yawkey Way, around the corner and down Beacon Street.
Finally I could say what I had dreamed of saying, the Boston Red Sox were World Series champions.
