Sharp Tools

They sure don't make it easy.

Mets, Red Sox, anybody playing the Yankees. That's the preference ladder in this part of my house. Ask my Dad, gleefully calling me those first three games of the ALCS, then grumpily refusing to leave the dinner table during game 7. When I was a small (well, okay, young) boy in NYC, say around six, Dad would refuse to go out walking with me because I had on my Red Sox T-Shirt that I'd gotten from my last trip to Boston. My uncle, who lived there, would take me to games with him, and thus was my love for this particular hard-luck case born.

But they don't make it easy.

Kudos to The Idiots for Game 3; congrats to Pedro for settling down and finding his rhythm, and pats on the back to all. At the end of it, just to remind us that they are, after all, the Sox - a Cards home run in the bottom of the ninth. Foulke, however, did what so many Sox have not over the years; he refused to collapse, sticking to a strategy of throwing strikes despite having just had one boomed over his head for a run. He still had a three-run lead, with no one on and one out to go, and he was clearly refusing to allow baserunners on via hit or walk even if that meant risking that solo HR. But giving it up didn't rattle him into changing his play, he just kept throwing strikes, and it paid off, taking down the final batter to end the game with that signature frisson (I love that word) of cardiac hiccup that The Faithful have come to associate with Sox wins; it just ain't the Sox without that last-minute panic.

One more, men. One more.

Posted by jbz at October 27, 2004 1:17 AM | TrackBack