Everything comes down to this: just one swing of that bat. Just one swing, and David Ortiz sent us on to the ALCS. To the ALCS. I didn’t think it was possible this year. I saw the Red Sox play the Twins June 24th and I thought the team looked dead, lifeless. Even though we played a good game and lost, the spark that had been there last year just wasn’t there. I gave up on the Red Sox shortly after that. We just kept falling further and further behind the Yankees. And, to be quite frank, we sucked on the road. The team wasn’t red, it was grey. Not pin-stripped, just grey. And then Theo Epstein did the one move that would change everything. He traded one of my favorite players away. He traded Nomar Garciaparra.
I remember when I found out that Nomar would be gone. I cried. I actually cried. I went to family dinner that Sunday and got consolatory hugs from everyone in Rob’s family. I didn’t really care who we got for him, the only important thing to me was that he was gone. I’d gotten so used to watching his ridiculous dance at each at-bat. He’d become, for me, the symbol of the Red Sox. Ever since I started watching the Red Sox back in 2000 (it was one of the best things I got out of my last relationship), Nomar’s been there. When he wasn’t there, the team inevitably faltered. And now, suddenly, Theo Epstein was telling me that Nomar would be gone, probably forever, and was telling me that he traded Nomar for guys I’d either never heard of, or barely heard of. Well, thank you, Theo for breaking my heart.
Except he didn’t, because somehow after Nomar was gone, we got our spark back. Suddenly, we went from being 10.5 games behind the Yankees in the AL East to 2.5 in a period of 2 weeks. Suddenly, the season wasn’t over and the flicker of hope that I’d concluded to be dead earlier revived itself within me to become a full-fledged dream. Last year, I watched Aaron Boone’s homerun fly off his bat and watched my dreams crushed. I watched my step-grandfather, a life-long Red Sox fan, die without seeing the Red Sox win the World Series in his lifetime. I remember the agony created by that one hit. But I still dared to dream, because maybe this year would be different. Maybe this year, it wouldn’t be agony I’d feel, but joy.
The end of September approached, and we had cinched the AL Wild Card. But that wasn’t good enough for us. Nearing the end of September, we were only 3.5 games back of the Yankees in the AL East. Imagine that, I thought, if we could overtake the Yankees in the AL East: if the Yankees could lose a 10.5 game lead to us! The final week of regular season play came, and we were still chipping away. It came down to the 3rd to last game before the Yankees cinched the AL East. We put them on their guard right up until the end of September. The Yankees won the AL East, but they saw us chasing behind them each and every day of September. I’m sure their fans would deny this, but there’s no doubt that we put up a good fight.
October began, and with it the AL Division Series. We were to play the Angels in a series of five games. Tuesday night when the cheesy introduction music played by ESPN started, my eyes watered. I sat down in front of the TV excited and terrified. I watched Curt Schilling throw pitch after pitch, the first game I’d ever seen him pitch. We had a 1-0 lead going into the fourth inning, which made me nervous. 1-0 really isn’t much of a lead, and certainly wouldn’t guarantee us the win. But then Washburn got knocked up in the fourth, leaving us with an 8 run lead. That made me relax just a little bit more, but the thought was always there: what if our bullpen faltered? these are the Angels, they did win a World Series just two years ago. But our bullpen didn’t falter, and we won that game 9-3. Tension relieved, I slept well that night, dreaming of my darling Sox.
© Tatiana Hamboyan Harrison