Keeping the Faith

Hard to believe that after 171 games over seven months it all comes down to this. One game. Game Seven. Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Red Sox-Yankees. Again.

It’s about ten past four on Wednesday afternoon and my day has been a COMPLETE waste of time. Here’s how I’d break it down, thus far:

Time spent reading articles about last night’s game: 2 hours
Time spent reading articles about tonite’s game: 1.5 hours
Time spent talking to friends on the phone about tonite’s/last night’s game: 1 hour
Time spent IMing friends about tonite’s/last night’s game: 1.5 hours
Time spent staring blankly at my computer screen thinking about Curt Schilling’s bloody ankle: 1 hour
Time spent blogging about what I’ve done today: half an hour

And that brings us to the present. A scant hour away from what could be the greatest comeback in team sport history, or the cruelest, most crushing blow ever dealt the tormented touters of The Olde Towne Team. Granted, the 2004 Sox have been playing on borrowed time (or, as the Sports Guy put it, “playing with House money”…and no I’m not talking about the new supernatural medical drama on Fox) but the last three games have marked the most remarkable turnaround in support, emotion and determination that I’ve ever seen out of a Sox team. I guess it must come from having their backs pressed so firmly to the wall that it would’ve taken all of the Iron Chefs and a spatula the size of the Old North Church to pry them away. However and why ever it happened, it happened. And it just keeps happening.

Reports have Derek Lowe (who I should be more worried about, but I’m not) pitching against Kevin Brown (who I should be more worried about than I am) in the game to end all games. Not the most enticing match up, but no doubt this game will be remembered for much more than who steps onto the rubber to begin each half of the first. Yesterday’s game, however…

I mean, what is there to say about Schilling that hasn’t already been said ad nauseum? Clutch performance? Check. Gutsy, playing through the pain accomplishment? Hell yes. Reminiscent of Jordan’s flu game in the ’95 Finals, Willis Reed’s hobbling in ’72, and the end of Karate Kid when Daniel gets his knee busted and beats Billy Zabka on one good leg? Abso-freakin’-lutely.

But with the possible exception of Daniel-san, I’ve never been as emotionally attached to the protagonist of such an amazing overcoming-the-injury/living in the moment sporting event, and I can’t say how exciting, inspiring and gratifying it was to see Schill pitch the way he did last night. Truly masterful. Maybe I’m going overboard, but I’ll even call it historical. We are all lucky to have witnessed it and no doubt will remember it long after this series is over.

That said, there’s still one more game to play. And it starts about fifty minutes from now in the Bronx, at the Cask n’ Flagon, at Sonny McLean’s and everywhere else where Red Sox Nation has kept the faith. Fifty minutes and it all begins. And it all ends.

Keep the faith.


Dr. Bill Morgan: “Well the tendon is out of position and out in front of the bone and the problem is that it would slip back again to where it was supposed to be and then slip out again. And (the sutures were) really just to create a barrier between the skin and the underlying tissue which is called facia so that there wasn’t let’s say a tunnel subcutaneously underneath the skin, it just kind of anchored the skin through the underlying tissue so it would stick the tendon where it was supposed… where it was, so it couldn’t sublux at all."