God I Love Baseball

What more could you ask from the Boston-New York series? Although Game 6 didn't have the extra-inning cliffhanging of 4 and 5, it didn't lack for drama.

We got Curt Schilling pitching on guts and a bum ankle, his sock sopping up blood. We got clutch at-bats from Varitek and Bellhorn, the latter going the other way for a three-run homer. We got two excellent examples of why umpiring is better now than it was just half a dozen years ago. We got a bunch of angry Yankees fans and the deployment of riot police. We got a maddening but clutch closing job by Keith Foulke.

And now we get Game 7.

I can't do any justice to Schilling's performance. I thought I was appreciative until about the fifth, when Fox showed a closeup of his ankle bleeding. Athletes perform with a lot of pain quite often, but I think we tend to take that for granted. I have no idea how Schilling managed to do what he did. Same goes for Sheffield, who's been working with a bum shoulder -- and dove on it to make a spectacular play to rob Bellhorn.

Alex Rodriguez's swipe at Bronson Arroyo was clearly the act of a desperate man. As the ball rolled down the line I was on my feet, yelling at the screen. I don't know what was more maddening, the act itself or Jeter's and Rodriguez's reactions. Going by them, you would have sworn A-Rod had doubled down the line instead of meekly tapping a 60-footer and acting like that overdeveloped jock you hated in ninth-grade gym. (And it brought to mind Reggie Jackson's cha-cha between first and second in the 1978 World Series.) The guy who's getting off easy right now is Mientkiewicz, who made a terrible play, putting himself in no-man's land and blocking the first-base ump's view of the play. Even better ... if Rodriguez doesn't slap at Arroyo, Mientkiewicz is standing right in the baseline and A-Rod might be the one interfered with. Funny note: Mientkiewicz was a defensive replacement. Thankfully, the umpires got together and made the right call.

Memo to Keith Foulke: That was pretty exciting, but it didn't have to be that way. Two-run lead and he walks the leadoff hitter. Can't be doing that, now. Once Clark got up there with two on and two outs, you just got the feeling that he was either going to look horrible striking out or he was going to knock one into the short porch. What I will say for Foulke is that he didn't look scared out there at all, unlike Arroyo, who seemed to have trouble breathing some times. And Foulke came through, getting Clark to end it. Whew!

Now all I need to do is hack my TiVo so I can save this thing on a hard drive.

Comments

[Jefferson]

This is maybe the most amazing series I've ever seen. There is NO way that Boston could possibly have forced a Game 7. They haven't played great, or even well most of the time. But inch by inch, they've clawed their way back and now it's as if the gods themselves have decreed that they'll finish this thing.

A-Rod is whiny little bitch and always has been.

[Josh from Hollywood]

I went to college in Boston and got to know Red Sox fans very well. Their basic creed is that if the Sox win today it's only so a loss tomorrow can hurt all the more. I guarantee you long-time Sox fans, while thrilled their team made this amazing comeback, are positive it is only so they can lose a heartbreaking Game 7 in Yankee Stadium for the second year in a row. And if you think they're torn between hope and dread now, just wait until they're up late in tomorrow's game. Bars all over Boston will be packed with people in Sox gear, praying for their team's victory while predicting just how they'll blow it.

[Nick Schulte]

Foulke must be pitching on fumes at this point.
50 pitches Sunday, 22 on Monday, and 28 on Tuesday. And you know he's pitching tonight.

Great job by Schilling, although I think they must of shown his ankle at least 43 times throughout the broadcast.

[kintetsu]

I will be pulling hard for the Sox tonight, though I agree with Nick. Pitching will be gassed...that offense better come through for about 12 runs. Best case, it all comes off Brownie. What a swell guy!

[J. Murphy Sachs]

I think the quote from the "Natural" was appropriate after the effort from Schilling last night.

Maybe Damon can start the game off with a double and get the ball rolling.

This would be a series to teach foreigners about the game of baseball.

[Rick]

Well put, Marty; it was quite a game.

And yes, Foulke could have dispensed with the histrionics. Throw some frigging strikes.

I don't know if I can really take a seventh game, though. I have no fingernails left, and I'd just as soon have Boston be plunged into darkness this evening.

It would be a shame to waste Schilling's performance on a Sox loss, though. If I were in the clubhouse, I'd make a speech about how I wouldn't want to be called out by Tim McCarver forever as the team that couldn't quite make it.