This used to happen to the Boston Red Sox all the time. Unexpected calamities or mental vapors at the worst possible moments, or close enough to mean a pennant or a World Series blown. There's a body of literature, nearly vaporized by 2004, to back that up, for those to whom 2004 has equaled a pleasant wipeout of the historical memory.
As a matter of fact, this one could have happened only because it looked like it would happen to the Red Sox once again.
Find me any one Fenway Park patron or Red Sox Nation citizen who didn't think it equaled the onset of the next 86 years in the wilderness, when Julio Lugo ambled back for Kenny Lofton's one-out, top of the seventh popup behind the infield, and had the ball glance off his glove before hitting the grass with the sickening thump once known only too well. Find me one such patron or citizen who didn't think it looked like the beginning of new curses when they'd barely become accustomed to the exorcism of the old.
Find me, as a matter of fact, one such patron or citizen who suddenly didn't see Johnny Pesky holding the ball (allegedly), Joe McCarthy starting Denny Galehouse over Mel Parnell, Luis Aparicio falling around third, Darrell Johnson lifting Jim Willoughby for a pinch hitter, Don Zimmer sitting Luis Tiant for Ice Water Sprowl, B.F. Dent, Bill Buckner in horror as the grounder skipped through his by-then-alleged ankles, or Aaron Boone making Tim Wakefield a pennant-losing knuckle sandwich.
Those who happened to have been there when those calamities occurred couldn't and wouldn't have listened if you'd reminded them that not a one of them portended guaranteed disaster when all was said and done.
They couldn't and wouldn't have listened if you'd told them the 1946 Red Sox had a top of the ninth in which to re-tie Game 7, with first and second and nobody out; that the 1948 Sox still had five innings in which to close what began as a 5-1 deficit; that the 1972 Sox still had a Saturday game in which to beat the Detroit Tigers, after Little Looie stumbled, recovered, stumbled again, scampered back to third, but forced Carl Yastrzemski to retreat to second into Aurelio Rodriguez's tag; that the game was only tied when Cecil Cooper fouled out for Jim Willoughby; that, half an inning after B.F. Dent, the Sox had a man on second and one out and a mere two-run deficit even against Goose Gossage; that there was still a seventh game to play and a 3-0 lead after five and a half before Bruce Hurst ran out of gas.
And they'll understand if Cleveland Indians fans don't want to hear that the worst the Tribe came away with after Joel Skinner held Kenny Lofton was a one-run deficit with the team's best postseason reliever waiting to go to work.
They may not want to hear that nobody necessarily promised disaster when Red Sox rookie Jacoby Ellsbury swatted one that glanced off Casey Blake's glove at third and deadened up the line, enabling the swift kid to help himself to second on the house before Lugo, just a half-inning earlier a briefly-lived candidate for infamy, sacrificed him to third.
They may not even want to hear that the Tribe was down a mere three runs with two innings to play, and with the top of the Cleveland lineup due to open the eighth — never mind that Grady Sizemore finished the series hitting .222, or Travis Hafner finished hitting .148, or that the Indians got outscored 30-5 over the final three games after building a three games to none series lead — after Dustin Pedroia took Rafael Betancourt into the Monster seats.
Didn't Sizemore open the eighth beating out a bunt? Didn't Asdrubal Cabrera single up the pipe right afterward to set up first and second and nobody out for Pronk? Oh, yeah, in came Jonathan Papelbon and down went Pronk on a nasty swishout, before Victor Martinez forced Cabrera and Ryan Garko skied one that Ellsbury took on the dead run and backhanded just before the bullpen fence. And down went Betancourt for the meat of the Red Sox eighth, driven out by J.D. Drew's RBI single and Pedroia's three-run double, before Jensen Lewis served the ball Kevin Youkilis was stopped from hitting into the Charles River by the big Coca-Cola bottle atop the back of the Monster seats.
And all you're likely to hear, when they tell the story of how the Indians finished unable to close the deal on a 3-1 League Championship Series deal, is, "Johnny Pesky held the ball. Joel Skinner held the runner!"
All you're likely to hear is that, when Franklin Gutierrez's shooter skipped toward and off the curve of the left field box seat railing and shot back to fair territory, Skinner — who swore he'd seen many such shots shoot right back to the shortstop — should have seen that it was shooting anyplace but, and with Manny Ramirez playing deep enough in left to have nothing better than a possible on-the-run throw in if Lofton finished what he'd looked to have started.
Lofton was almost a third down the line by the time he finished hitting the brakes and risking a bad ankle roll. If you looked hard enough, you might have seen that even the Red Sox couldn't believe what they'd just seen, when seconds earlier they looked to have conceded that the game was likely to be tied.
Maybe the Indians would have flipped the game momentum right back into their grasp. Maybe the Red Sox would have done the same seventh and eighth inning damage, after all. This is, after all, the game above all others under the jurisdiction of two particularly irrefutable laws of return, Yogi Berra's (It ain't over until it's over) and Joaquin Andujar's (In baseball, there's just one word — you never know).
And maybe Lofton would have been out at the plate, anyway, if Skinner had sent him onward, anyway. So some of the afflicted might care to think. But they might have a precedent through which to find comfort.
The Brooklyn Dodgers lost the 1950 pennant to the Philadelphia Whiz Kids on the season's final day when the winning run was thrown out at the plate in the bottom of the ninth. Reserve outfielder Cal Abrams was on second when future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts — blowing a pickoff sign — threw Duke Snider a fastball right down the pipe, which Snider swatted right back up the pipe and into short center field.
Knowing another future Hall of Famer, Phillies center fielder Richie Ashburn, had a modest throwing arm, Dodgers third base coach Milt Stock waved Abrams home. Apparently not realizing Ashburn had moved in shallow anticipating having to back up the pickoff bid, Stock sent Abrams right into the waiting arms of Phillies catcher Stan Lopata with the tag.
Then Dick Sisler in the top of the 10th hit a three-run homer, the Dodgers had no answer in the bottom of the 10th, and the Phillies earned the right to get swept in four by the Yankees in the World Series. The Abrams/Ashburn play cost both Stock and Dodger manager Burt Shotton — who stood by his man and refused to blame Stock — their jobs. Neither man was seen in the Show again. At this writing, neither Joel Skinner nor Eric Wedge is in danger of unemployment, and Skinner is actually being rumored on the Pittsburgh Pirates' managerial radar.
But a third base coach sending the potential pennant-winning run home in the bottom of the ninth usually trumps a third base coach holding the potential tying run at third with two and two thirds left to play, of course. To an Indians fanhood steeped enough in its own long-term sorrows, that's a distinction devoutly to be bypassed until Sunday night's sting is dissipated. Red Sox Nation above many understands only too well.
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