(6 of 6)
Obviously I agree with all sentiments, in these missives and the many others.
My bleachermate for the ultimate game will finally be my ultimate partner and beloved wife, Lucille, who was briefly described way back at the beginning of this ramble as "a seventh-game kind of fan." So she is, and here she is at last: Having lost an earlier chance to the rainout, she now enjoys a second opportunity. Just like Pedro.
Lucille and I ride the subway up to the Bronx. I'm still in my Cowboy Up duds, still minus the hat. As mentioned above, I don't necessarily believe in jinxes, but I'll dance with what brung me.
Section 57 is a tense place tonight, and juiced to a degree it hasn't been during the three previous games in the Bronx. My pal arrives and I introduce him to my wife, learning finally that his name is Billy.
There's no sense in recapping the game; you know how it unfolds. As for us, our evening is, for the longest time, not only tolerable but enjoyable. As opposed to The Brutal Game, this one is a delight — our guys on top, Pedro cruising, not an exciting game but moving toward a thrilling denouement, for perhaps we are indeed going to . . .
I don't believe in Curses, but is it interesting that the last time Lucille was by my side at a post-season baseball game was Game Six of the 1986 World Series in Shea, as we both gazed in awe as a ball went directly through our first baseman, Bill Buckner, and wound up in right field?
In any event: Yes, sure, Grady left Pedro in much, much too long, and I told Lucille that Grady was doing so even as he was doing it. But then, someone had to leave him in too long, or make some other equally egregious mistake.
In the ninth, Lucille and I aren't feeling too good, and we know pretty much how it will end. Billy still doesn't know I'm a Red Sox fan, and genuinely commiserates when I tell him that, hey, when you bring the wife, you've got to free up the nanny by 1 a.m. What can you do? We shake hands; he asks if I'll be there for the series. He means the World Series. The Yanks are there already, the way he sees it — and the way I see it, too. I tell Billy, my friend, that I just don't know.
We're heading up the Saw Mill Parkway, maybe about White Plains, when Boone hits the homer. Perhaps the car slows a bit, but there's not even enough energy in this fan to issue an expletive. And besides, this had already happened, hasn't it? Didn't this happen five minutes or an hour ago?
On the radio they're talking about the game as the most dramatic post-season win in the history of the Yankee franchise, because of all that attended it: the Sox, Pedro, the comeback, the finish. Maybe it is that. Who knows?
My five-year-old daughter Caroline, a newly committed Sox fan, asked me this morning to open her door and tell her who won, no matter how late I got home. I walk upstairs at 1:20 a.m., still feeling numb, beat up, tired but hopelessly unable to seek sleep. I'm trying to remember just now what I told her when she asked. Did I tell her, oh, Sweetie, I'll fill you in tomorrow? Or did I promise to open her door and whisper in her ear? Did I commit myself to committing her to this fanship? To this fate?
I'm typing because the longer I type, the longer I have before I decide what to do.