champagne on ice

they say that baseball is the intelligent man's sport. it's funny because i always felt like football was more difficult to understand. not the basic premise but all the freaking subtleties. after watching for years, i still can't tell you what the difference is between "encroachment," "off sides" and a "false start", or where defensive interference crosses the line, morphing into offensive interference. but baseball? it has always made sense to me. i think the intelligence part comes into play when a spectator looks at the game & only sees the obvious, but misses all the games within the game. it is nothing short of a work of art, a game that can be won or lost, not just on the field, but in any number of ways.

the season is long. baseball is not for the faint of heart or the weak of spirit. and if the 162-game marathon isn't enough to wear you down, if you're lucky--*very* lucky--you can extend the race with a series of up to three wind sprints. where we are right now is the second of the possible three. my guess is that as a Sox fan, you too experienced quite the cardio workout Thursday night. talk about awesome. and yet we know that there is still so much left to accomplish. to proceed to Game Seven, the Sox *must* win tonight. not just win, but win against a (shockingly) formidable opponent on their own (artificial) turf, a place the Sox have not been, shall we say, at their best. if i didn't know better, i would think the Yankees had dressed up early for Halloween, because this series feels more like a trip to the Bronx than one to Tampa.

at any rate, the statistics show the Sox have a shot at this. they say that the Sox are at their best in an ALCS Game Six, winning all seven times they have been faced with this particular challenge since 1903, four times at Fenway and three on the road. what's more, in reaching Game Seven, they even have a better than .500 record of winning the series (winning four ALCS and losing three) and finding themselves headed to the World Series. we use these numbers as our reassurance, though i suspect we would disregard them if they were not in our favor. either way, tonight we will watch with bated breath & accelerated heart rates & through-the-roof blood pressure, willing the team we love to fight with all they have to live another day.

we all have our rituals. some are in place from seasons past, some we've adopted more recently. i had almost forgotten about my 2007 ritual but was thankfully reminded of it prior to Game Five:

and i can tell you i will be watching it today as well. all doing our part to shift the molecules of the universe in favor of the boys from Boston.

i can't help but wonder what the outcome of this game will be. i know what i *want* it to be. i also know that this team is not the same teams that have done this in recent past, but are they ever? even with familiar faces, the details of the season can never be identical. the players are older, there are new pieces mixed in with the pre-existing ones, there are hot streaks & slumps & injuries to consider. but always the drive to win is there. the drive that never sees this team giving up. on Thursday, they had the roar of the home crowd urging them on, but tonight in enemy territory, filled with the never ending clanging of so many cowbells, they will need to dig deep & find that extra drive within. it is that drive that makes me believe there is a chance.

so much was made of the Rays shuffling their pitching around. Maddon was everything from called a genius to being accused of hurting his team with over-thinking. the one thing i couldn't shake was that, with your foot on the throat of your opponent, you don't give them even an inch. you certainly don't breathe even an extra ounce of life into them. and you *definitely* don't allow a team like the Red Sox, now infamous for their ability to come back to life, a taste of victory to whet their appetite.

The Joy of Sox essentially echoed my own thoughts: "Joe Maddon has altered his pitching rotation, not to go for the kill in Game 5, but to set his team up for a better Game 6 matchup. Big mistake, Joe. Big. Tito the Assassin knows that when you have your target lined up in your sights, you f***ing fire. You don't stop and check if your shoelaces are tied."

i was reading on Wednesday's off day: "The last 16 times that an ALCS went to 3 games to 1 in the series, 12 times the team with the 3-1 advantage has gone on to win the series. Three times the other team has reeled off three straight wins to take the series. The 16th time is this season's playoff scenario. The three teams to pull off the unlikely three-game heist of the ALCS you ask? The Red Sox...all three times. In 1986, 2004 and then last season after falling down by a 3-1 deficit to the Cleveland Indians." (Hacks With Haggs)

and then yesterday morning, back at The Joy of Sox: "Tampa Bay was seven outs away from the American League pennant -- and the Red Sox were down by seven runs. The Rays recorded only six of those outs -- and the Red Sox scored eight times to complete the greatest comeback by any team facing elimination and the second biggest comeback in post-season/World Series history and send this ALCS back to Florida."

at the Seventh Inning Stretch of Thursday night's game, i began my bargaining with the Sox, via Twitter:
(10:56pm) ok Sox. how about we just not get shut out? i want to see one more Sox run before we say good night.
(11:05pm) hey now! that was a pretty hit, Coco.
(11:08pm) Sox on the board! thank you Pedroia!
[Rays 7 Sox 1 -- Pedroia brought Lowrie home on a double]
(11:11pm) PAPI!!!!!!!
[Rays 7 Sox 4 -- long overdue 3-run bomb by Ortiz]
(11:14pm) if they go down tonight, they go down fighting. never say die and that is all that i ask of them.
(11:29pm) now THAT is what i call pitching with authority! there's the Papelbon i was missing!
(11:32pm) Pedroia just looked so intense in the dugout, i fear he was chewing his own teeth.
(11:33pm) JD DREW!!!!!!!
[Rays 7 Sox 6 -- 2-run homer for JD Drew]
(11:37pm) i. can't. breathe.
(11:46pm) what a battle by Coco
(11:48pm) TIE. GAME.
[Rays 7 Sox 7 -- Coco brings Kotsay home]
(11:58pm) i think i just swallowed my own tongue
(12:05am) appreciate the bunt attempt Papi!
(12:12am) i am rocking Tito-style now. wonder how many other Sox fans are doing the same...
[Youk reaches second on an error for Longoria]
(12:16am) COMMENCE PAPELBONIAN JIGGING!!!!
[Sox 8 Rays 7 -- Youk scores on a JD Drew walkoff ground rule double]
at which point madness & mayhem & revelry exploded in Fenway and across the World Wide Web in a giant ripple effect.

"I’ve never seen a group so happy to get on a plane at 1:30 in the morning in my life," said Francona. (Boston Herald) so much was made of the Red Sox "long trip back to Boston after such a heartbreaking loss at the Trop" in Game Two, but Maddon insists that the return trip was not nearly so traumatic for his team. all i know is that the Sox had to come back in one of the biggest come-from-behind wins in baseball history and if that doesn't fire a team up & give them some momentum, i don't know what does.

i'm taking nothing for granted. that ranges from assuming the Sox gave their final drops of life to win Game Five, leaving nothing in the tank for Game Six all the way to resting too heavily on the laurels of historic comebacks achieved in years gone by and thinking, even for a fleeting moment, that they mean anything here in *this* ALCS. the fact is that i have no idea what will go down in the Juice Box tonight--will Beckett's struggles continue or did the team find a way to inspire him to fight through whatever has been plaguing him? we just don't know until they play the game. but i will tell you this: i am grateful for every day of October baseball that i see my team play, knowing that there are other fans whose choices are to forego baseball all together or watch someone else's team play for a shot at the hardware. and i will tell you that i am proud of the way this team keeps playing ball, whether i see one more game or six more, and i will *be* proud of them, regardless of the outcome Saturday evening. and i will tell you, above all, that i believe, that this team makes me believe, in the possibility of improbability.

as i finally tried to fight off the rush of adrenaline to sleep, an hour after the game ended with its against-all-odds conclusion, i thought to myself:
we play one more. so keep that champagne on ice. there will be no going-to-the-World-Series celebration tonight. not in our house. not on our field. not where we make our magic.

tonight? we play.
GO SOX!