boston commoner.

welcome home

The Yankees have Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” to play when they win a home game. Boston has a song about dirty water. Somehow it’s fitting; somehow, we wouldn’t–couldn’t–have it any other way.

They did it. They DID IT!

It was a great commute today. I imagine everyone was just a little nicer, a little less pushy on the crowded city streets; people looked you in the eye and nodded ‘good morning’ to you on the sidewalk; even the sun seemed to shine a little brighter this morning, pushing out the recent gloom and streaming over the green side of Fenway Park–and the Sox’ logo–facing the turnpike.

This doesn’t happen everyday. Not in Boston, and not even in the history of baseball. To come back after a 3-game losing streak in the American League Championship Series, not just to WIN that series, but to go on and SWEEP the World Series and OWN the team with the best overall-wins record in the regular season that year? AND, for that winning team to be the Red Sox, who haven’t won a World Series since 1918? When people say they’ve been waiting their whole lives for this, most of them actually mean it. I don’t even know what to say about it, accept that, as one radio announcer pointed out, it’s indeed a “great day to be alive and to live in the city of Boston.”

I know, it’s just a game. And there are more important things. But these are simple joys we can be thankful for… So, Yankees? Cardinals? Deepest thanks from the heart of Boston!

‘Cause I “love that dirty water… Boston, you’re my home.”

Compared to games 5 and 6, last night’s final stand-off at Yankee Stadium was almost a snoozer. In the bottom of the 9th, when Sox victory seemed, at last, imminent, an announcer reminded us that our team had never managed to actually beat the Yankees when it mattered ; but for once, it was the Yankees in a funk, who couldn’t pull their act together at the crucial moment. They didn’t gleam like the winning machine they usually are; they fumbled. They seemed disoriented, like they weren’t sure why they were playing, after all. Meanwhile the Sox let a calm and collected Derek Lowe do the defense on the mound for the better part of the game, and rode in high on an offensive victory set off early with a 1st-inning 2-run homer by Ortiz (series MVP) and Johnny Damon’s surprise grand slam in the second. Damon was the next player up for redemption last night; he’s been taking media heat for weeks, now, unable to deliver the slightest advantage at the plate. If there’s ever a time to prove you’re worth your contract, it’s in a historical game 7 in the ALCS series, against your all-time rivals, and on their turf.

So without extra innings or torturous late-game dramatics, the Sox won the pennant and are bringing the World Series home to Boston for the first time since 1986. If they manage to clinch the World Series, it’ll be the first time since 1918. As it is, they’re well on their way to breaking major losing streaks: the Sox haven’t won a pennant in New York in a game 7 for an entire century.

But could Boston handle that? Boston, in the true sense, certainly could. But what about these “knuckleheads” (the reigning media term for college-age fools who use major and improbable, exhilarating sports victories as an excuse to set cars on fire and embarrass the city in front of the entire nation) who insist on turning a good thing into a source of fear and humiliation? (more…)

Marathon nail-biters stretching over extra innings into the morning hours; records broken, and broken again; foul plays, reversed calls, bloody pitchers; and, of course, uniformed crowd-control. It’s been one heck of a series.

The Sox managed to finish last night’s game in the alotted 9 innings, for a change, but there was no relaxing of the giant band of tension that’s been stretching from Fenway to Yankee Stadium over the past week. Tonight it’s gotta snap, but in which direction, nobody knows. (more…)

Them crazy boys gone done it agin.’

It may not be the best baseball ever played, technically speaking, but it sure makes good drama.

Johnny Damon put it this way, as quoted in this morning’s Boston Herald: “We get to live another day.”

He’s referring to Boston’s 12th-inning 2-run win over the New York Yankees last night at Fenway Park. Our boys were home, struggling to head off an imminent 4-game sweep by the Yanks, a disappointing turnaround to the Sox’s own sweep against the Anaheim Angels that started off their post-season.

If the Sox are staying alive, they can thank their human respirator, hard-hitting David Ortiz, who clinched the the longest game in ALCS history* with a two-run homer at about 1:22 am this morning. It’s not the first time Ortiz has knocked one home to save the Sox, and he smashed this one right into the Yankee bullpen. (more…)