Wait Till Next Year is the winter mission statement for fans of all Major League Baseball teams, save for one. Fans of the World Series champion endure the shortest of winters, ended all too quickly by the arrival of spring training and the beginning of the title defense. The Boston Red Sox, whose World Series victory last year sent enterprising scribes in quest of advanced octogenarians who endured the last such shortest of winters, are beginning their first title defense since the season after the Armistice. With their 2004 post-season glory having given way to the rigors of a 2005 defense, now may be a good time to ponder the well-known near-impossibility of the Red Sox' American League Championship Series comeback, the virtually-unknown but equally impressive feats Boston achieved after the comeback, and how those and other circumstances provided for a most perfect end to a drought deemed a curse.

The Hurting

The nineteen runs tallied by the New York Yankees in ALCS Game 3 were the most runs ever by one team in a best-of-7 MLB playoff game. The New York outburst broke the old best-of-7 record of eighteen, set in the Yankees' 18-4 defeat of the crosstown Giants in 1936 World Series Game 2. It was a ruthless triumph for the Yankees' first Ruth-less World Series game victory, and the Yankees would proceed to win that Series (and thus end the curse incurred in the previous season upon sending the Bambino back to Boston). The Yankees, in tallying their nineteen runs in 2004 ALCS Game 3, didn't just defeat Boston; no, they "beat their brains out" or "beat them senseless" or (insert your own phrase here for winning a one-sided victory in terms of inflicting a brain-damaging injury). The Yankees in ALCS Game 3 just missed breaking the overall MLB playoff game record for most runs by one team, set in 1999 by the Boston Red Sox in their 23-7 victory over Cleveland.

After ALCS Game 3, the straits for the Boston Red Sox were as dire as could be. Here is how one-sided the 2004 ALCS was after its third game: New York held a lead after 48 of the 52 half-innings played, the team were tied after three of those half-innings, and Boston held a lead after only the second full inning of Game 3. Perhaps the only comparable best-of-7 MLB playoff series was the 1963 World Series pitting the Yankees against the Dodgers, in their first post-season meeting since the latter abandoned Ebbets Field. Through three games of the '63 Series, Los Angeles had led after 50 of the 53 half-innings played, and the teams were tied after the other three half-innings. Thus, the 2004 Yankees almost avenged their 1963 counterparts ... just as the 2004 Yankees almost scored more single-game post-season runs than the 1999 Red Sox ... just as the Yankees almost kept the Red Sox out of the lead after each half-inning of the first three 2004 ALCS games ... just as the Yankees almost swept the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS. Almost.

The Comeback

Suffice it to say that the Yankees had been a consistent source of heartbreak for the Red Sox prior to 2004. So, in retrospect for the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS, perhaps a few more innings spent in deficit mode and perhaps a more nondescript Game 3 victory (by only a few runs at most) would have been more apropos. For if the Yankees had indeed battered the Red Sox into a state of idiocy, the Red Sox welcomed such. Idiots in desperate situations do not - cannot - fathom the desperate nature of their situations. Down three-games-nil and down one run in the middle of the ninth inning of Game 4, Boston's 2004 ALCS historical victory probability at that dark moment was a miniscule three in a thousand, according to a report from whowins.com. Nevertheless, this most propitious idiocy helped the Red Sox saddle Yankee übercloser Mariano Rivera with a blown save and led them to a twelve-inning Game 4 victory. This most propitious idiocy helped the Sox do likewise to Rivera in Game 5 en route to a fourteen-inning victory. This idiocy helped them to the first Game 6 win ever by an MLB team once trailing a best-of-7 series three-games-nil (in Yankee Stadium, no less). Almost anticlimactically, this idiocy finally helped them to the first best-of-7 series win ever by an MLB team once trailing three-games-nil.

An idiocy that allows those it afflicts to achieve great victories in the face of near-impossible odds is a happy idiocy indeed. The New York Yankees have won an MLB-high twenty-six World Series championships since Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to them in January 1920. The Boston Red Sox since that sale had won none. The Red Sox likewise had lost the 2003 and 1999 ALCS, the one-game American League East playoff of 1978, and dozens of American League pennants to the Yankees since that sale. In one sense, the 2004 ALCS victory falls far short of offsetting all those Yankee triumphs; after all, even the Brooklyn Dodgers managed to capture at least one playoff series from the Yankees (i.e., the 1955 World Series). In another sense, however, if you are allowed only one win against an opponent who has bested you on dozens of other occasions, an unprecedented comeback in the face of a three-games-nil deficit is an enriching way to achieve that win. Buoyed by that win, the Red Sox would sail to a three-games-nil lead over the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2004 World Series.

Reversal of Fortune?

If happy idiot Red Sox players had just won seven straight post-season games while cheerfully oblivious to the long odds once against them, then troubled genius Red Sox fans had grown unnervingly aware of how the ugly Boston post-season history might portend an especially nasty fate. Early in the 2004 World Series, rare was the Red Sox fan willing to express optimism in the context of the Red Sox' chances, lest he jinx the team. Common, though, was the sentiment that the greatest of comebacks versus the Yankees would be a waste if the World Series were lost. Once Boston had taken its three-games-nil lead over St. Louis, historical victory probabilities strongly favored a Red Sox World Series win. But Boston fans understood that the Red Sox had the Cardinals in exactly the position in which the Yankees previously had the Red Sox. It was in 1986 that the Boston Red Sox 1) came one strike away from losing the ALCS but won it, only to 2) come one strike away from winning the World Series but lose it. The symmetry of 1986 would now have the St. Louis Cardinals - which have won more seventh games than any other MLB team - rally to win the 2004 World Series in seven games. An especially nasty fate indeed for the Red Sox; a fate reserved for those who are, some might say, cursed. Red Sox fans had the Yogi Berraism "it ain't over till it's over" seared into their collective psyche in 1986.

Throughout the 2004 post-season, the rallying cry for the Boston faithful was "reverse the curse." Not "end the curse." Not "halt the curse." Not even "lay this accursed curse to rest already, for the love of the Bambino!" Reverse the curse. So it was that with the Sox through three games of the 2004 World Series mirroring the Yankees through three games of the 2004 ALCS, Red Sox Nation now had the "reverse" term redounding upon them. Not in the thin-worn context of "reverse the curse," but in the ever-creeping context of "curse this (pending) reversal of fortune." Paradoxically, the closer Boston came to winning the World Series, the greater the magnitude would have been of any collapse ... of any failure to win the World Series. Fathom the anguish: Up three-games-nil and with a three-run Game 4 lead, and we lost! Up 3-0 in the Series and in Game 4 with one inning to go, and we lost! Up 3-0 and 3-0 with one out to go, and we lost! With one strike to go! During that World Series-winning toss from Keith Foulke to Doug Mientkiewicz, the names Johnny Pesky, Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, and Aaron Boone had ample time to cross every troubled genius mind. When Mientkiewicz failed at not catching the ball, the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series in the memories of all who had not yet reached middling octogenarian status. They failed to fail. Blessed relief.

The Aftermath

And so it was that the fingernails of the Boston faithful finally found relief from unabated post-season gnawing. Amidst all that well-founded fretting, here is what the faithful missed. The Red Sox never once trailed in the 2004 World Series, thus making it only the fourth best-of-7 MLB playoff series (with the 1963, 1966, and 1989 World Series) in which the sweeping team never once trailed their swept opponent. The 2004 World Series is also the only series in which the victorious team held a lead at some point in every single inning, without ever having trailed. A more one-sided playoff series you will not find in the annals of Major League Baseball. Starting with the fourth inning of ALCS Game 6 in Yankee Stadium, the Red Sox have held a lead in every single post-season inning that they have played - 51 and counting, smashing the previous MLB post-season record of 27 such innings, set by the Yankees in 1998 against Cleveland. Starting with the ninth inning of ALCS Game 5 in Fenway Park, the Red Sox have not trailed in every single post-season inning that they have played - 60 and counting, breaking the previous MLB post-season record of 57 such innings, set by the Oakland Athletics from 1989 ALCS Game 4 through the 1989 World Series to the third inning of 1990 ALCS Game 1 (against, ironically, the Red Sox). Over the last six post-season games, the Boston Red Sox have been as dominant a team as any to play in the post-season of Major League Baseball.

The sweet irony for Boston fans is that this streak of dominance has its roots in that fourteen-inning Game 5 at Fenway versus the Yankees. In over a century and over several hundred games, only once before has an MLB post-season game ended in the bottom of the fourteenth inning: in Boston, once again, but in Game 2 of the 1916 World Series. Making his first World Series start (at any position) in that game was a lefthanded pitcher who would notch a fourteen-inning complete game victory for the Red Sox - no less than one George Herman Ruth. Shortly after his January 1920 sale to the Yankees, Babe Ruth told the New York Times that 1) he liked Boston and its fans, and would have been content to spend the rest of his baseball career with the Red Sox were it not for Harry Frazee, and that 2) having set the single-season home run record with 29 in 1919, he would now choke up on his grip to pursue the batting title. Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs in 1920 - more than the combined home run totals of those who finished second, third, and fourth to him in the 1920 American League home run race. A player that dominant (even in spite of himself) would surely have appreciated how dominant his first team was in the last 60 innings of the 2004 post-season. 'Tis better to end a drought with not a drizzle but a deluge.

Finishing Touches

When a team goes eighty-six years between World Series championships, it should not be picky about which teams it defeats for those championships. Nevertheless, it is somehow appropriate that the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals stood in Boston's way to the 2004 title. The path to the 2004 title could just as easily have gone through Minnesota and Houston. Between them, the Minnesota Twins and the Houston Astros have won two World Series. Between them, the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals have won five out of every twelve World Series since the sale of Babe Ruth to the former. Would Red Sox fans have derived as much satisfaction from victories over the Twins and Astros? The history of the Red Sox with the Yankees has been noted, above and elsewhere. But the Cardinals, with their 1946 and 1967 World Series victories over Boston, were also due a setback at Red Sox hands. The 2004 Red Sox offered payback direct and indirect to a number of their nemeses from seasons past. Defeated Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa was at the helm of those Oakland Athletics which swept Boston in the 1988 and 1990 ALCS. Defeated Cardinals chairman William O. DeWitt Jr. previously held ownership shares in the Cincinnati Reds, and his World Hockey Association Cincinnati Stingers were co-tenants with the Reds in the Cincinnati Riverfront Stadium/Coliseum complex when the latter topped the Red Sox in the 1975 World Series. And if first base coach Lee Mazzilli and spring training instructor Darryl Strawberry had not left the Yankees prior to the 2004 season, the Boston triumph would have even touched two of the 1986 World Series champion New York Mets. Through it all, though, the one-hundredth World Series ended as had the first, with the World Series won by the American League pennant-winners from Boston.

17 June 2005