15 Years

Minneapolis Millers

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Jul 15, 2005
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15 years. And every single time that is replayed I'm still nervous his hand isn't on the bag when the tag is applied.
No kidding. And before 2004, Roberts would have been called out. Bellhorn’s HR would have been ruled a double. Slappy would have gotten away with it and been called safe.

Magical ride. It was, finally, meant to be. But we sure as hell didn’t know it at the time!
 

bosockboy

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Jul 15, 2005
19,861
St. Louis, MO
Few things stand out watching that 9th-

Always forget Leiter was with Buck and not McCarver.

The size of Roberts’ lead. Massive.

Genius move by Tito to waste one strike by Mueller
showing bunt, to set up an ambush on the next pitch. He got a cookie because Rivera wanted the bunt down, as he likely knew he could deal with Eyechart. Just incredible strategy.
 

JimD

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Nov 29, 2001
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No kidding. And before 2004, Roberts would have been called out. Bellhorn’s HR would have been ruled a double. Slappy would have gotten away with it and been called safe.

Magical ride. It was, finally, meant to be. But we sure as hell didn’t know it at the time!
Isn't this the absolute truth. I think of those three plays a lot and how everything had to go just perfectly for the Sox to pull off the comeback. And they did.

I cannot begin to imagine another experience in my life ever matching those four days. I was utterly incapable of functioning at work and spent virtually all of my time posting on this board and searching the Internet for every story I could find. I have never been so totally committed to anything like I was to every second of games 5, 6 and 7. Sat in the exact same spot on the couch for every game. The World Series felt like a glorious fait accompli by comparison.
 

Skiponzo

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15 years and I still get dust in my eyes every time I see him called safe. Sometimes I still can't believe it actually happened. Don't ever tell me that fortunes can't turn on a dime. I've seen it with my own eyes...for an entire franchise.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
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Dec 16, 2010
53,837
Great Day, thanks for the reminder

Should've named the dog Ortiz, but we went with Millar instead (Millie) and today is her birthday (she's 2)

edit: I'll put in the whole 9th inning blown save, started by the walk with Millar
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9KxHOLQ40A
I've watched these videos so many times, I wonder where the fans are now. Like the guy at 2:25 in this video. They show him a few times reacting. Where are you my brother? I hope you're well.
 

JimD

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Nov 29, 2001
8,681
Watching Mueller's drive make Mariano Rivera look like Charlie Brown always brings a smile to my face.
 

petefungtorres

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Jul 31, 2006
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Portland, ME
I circulated this email to my office this morning:

Fifteen years ago today the Red Sox found themselves down 0-3 in the ALCS to the MF Yankees. They were about to be swept out of the playoffs, a year after Aaron freaking Boone hit a walkoff homerun to end the Red Sox season in game seven of the ALCS. Down 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth inning Kevin Millar led off, facing Mariano Rivera (indisputably the best closer baseball has ever seen). He worked a walk. Dave Roberts came in as a pinch runner. Dave Roberts had been brought aboard a month earlier for one purpose – to steal a base in a big moment. EVERYONE at Fenway knew he was going to try and steal second. He did it and it was that steal that gave the Red Sox hope. Bill Mueller managed a single up the middle to get him home and the Red Sox went on to win the game in the 12th. The following four days were filled with exhaustion, tension and ultimately elation as the Red Sox became the only team in the history of sports to erase an 0-3 deficit and win a seven game series. The curse was lifted. To celebrate the anniversary of that day (and to have breakfast for those who found themselves without power this morning) there are bagels in the kitchen. (pic of Dave Roberts sliding into second)

I mention that to share this - many of my colleagues have shared reminiscences of the '04 ALCS this morning. Among those is a guy who mentioned the '04 ALCS occurred while he was deployed to Iraq. His unit had recently been assigned to leave their location and go to northern Iraq to repair an airfield and he was pissed about it until he found out they would have TV there. For those two weeks they poured concrete slabs all day and woke up in the middle of the night, in the desert what seemed a million miles from home, and huddled around a small TV in their tents to watch the Red Sox come back and win the world series. He said that ALCS and World Series meant more to him and his unit in that moment than anything in the world.
 

Nator

Member
SoSH Member
Isn't this the absolute truth. I think of those three plays a lot and how everything had to go just perfectly for the Sox to pull off the comeback. And they did.

I cannot begin to imagine another experience in my life ever matching those four days. I was utterly incapable of functioning at work and spent virtually all of my time posting on this board and searching the Internet for every story I could find. I have never been so totally committed to anything like I was to every second of games 5, 6 and 7. Sat in the exact same spot on the couch for every game. The World Series felt like a glorious fait accompli by comparison.
I was trying to convince myself that the Sox merely avoided being swept and the Yankees would win game 5. I figured it was all academic at that point and devoting any more mind share to that series was sure to be a disappointing endeavor.

I was so, so glad to be wrong.

I followed that meat grinder of a game 5 right from the 1st pitch. I lived in Cardinals stronghold Memphis, TN. Their fans were pissed because the NLCS was a 7pm 1st pitch, and it was a tidy 2.5 hour game that was pretty much totally overlapped by the Sox/Yanks 6 hour soul drainer.
 

The Talented Allen Ripley

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Oct 2, 2003
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I once leaned my head on a public restroom wall. Ew. The wool/poly blend of a New Era cap acted as a shield, but still. I had been standing over a urinal in the men’s restroom of the Piccadilly Pub in Franklin, and as the reality of the 19-8 defeat at the hands of the Yankees tumbled over me like so many bricks, I kind of slowly leaned forward and my forehead gently met the wall in front of me. I think it was plaster, not tile, but don’t hold me to that.

This is just not meant to be, I told myself. Probably because of something I did.

Because it was personal, of course. How could it be any other way? The Sox, they had my name. They knew who I was. My Social Security number was on file somewhere in the bowels of their offices, a microchip had been implanted in the skin under my forearm, surely all of this was One Big Middle Finger to me and my existence, some sort of moral judgment on my activities to this point. I had not led a good enough life yet. I didn’t deserve any sort of baseball happiness. All their postseason foibles were an attack on me, nobody else. Red Sox Nation? Pfft, what do they know? This is all on me. They’re doing this to screw with ME. For my sins, my failings, my decayed humanity. Me.

So I leaned my head on a public restroom wall. Not something I’d advise doing, generally, even at a place as genteel as a suburban Piccadilly Pub.

It was just not meant to be.

Going into the evening the Yanks were up 2 games to none, but the Sox were back at Fenway and a win would make it a series again. It was a see-saw battle for 3 innings, then the Yankees became extremely rude guests and ran away with things, to the point where one might find themselves leaning against a filmy bathroom wall and wondering what was the point of it all was.

Grady Little had horrifically botched things the year before, clutching defeat from the jaws of victory against these very Yankees at the most crucial moment possible, a rug-pull played on those Sox fans who truly believed the team’s accursed past was simply due to random bad luck. Or bad management. Or personnel failings.

This indignity, this Grady, this Boone, piled on top of Buckner and Dent and Jim Burton and Armbrister and Ruhle and Aparicio and Jack Hamilton and Enos Slaughter. There were generations of men from the corners of New England and all points in between who were sick to their stomachs and looking at themselves in bathroom mirrors wondering why it ever had to be this way. Why? Why?

The Yankees had beaten the Red Sox 19-8, taking a 3-0 lead in the 2004 American League Championship Series. There would be no World Series for the Sox that year, no redemption for those left prostrate by Grady Little’s idiocy the year before. Baseball does not do karma. The game is its own reward, win or lose. A harsh but needed lesson, brutal in its finality.

I separated my forehead from the wall, exited the bathroom, and left the restaurant sometime after midnight on Sunday, October 17, 2004.
 

Mystic Merlin

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Sep 21, 2007
46,767
Hartford, CT
Watching Mueller's drive make Mariano Rivera look like Charlie Brown always brings a smile to my face.
My grandfather passed in ‘01 like a day before the DBacks took out the Yankees, but I vividly remember his reaction to Manny hitting a ball through Rivera’s legs to win an April game at Fenway in ‘01. He commented that Manny smashed the game winner right through Mariano’s balls.

I definitely think about that whenever I see Mueller’s game-tying liner in Game 4 turning Mariano into Charlie Brown.

View: https://youtu.be/tdmoff5grc8
 

InsideTheParker

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Jul 15, 2005
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Huntington Avenue Grounds

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Jul 17, 2008
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I was trying to convince myself that the Sox merely avoided being swept and the Yankees would win game 5. I figured it was all academic at that point and devoting any more mind share to that series was sure to be a disappointing endeavor.

I was so, so glad to be wrong.

I followed that meat grinder of a game 5 right from the 1st pitch. I lived in Cardinals stronghold Memphis, TN. Their fans were pissed because the NLCS was a 7pm 1st pitch, and it was a tidy 2.5 hour game that was pretty much totally overlapped by the Sox/Yanks 6 hour soul drainer.
These four days were such a complete and total transformation of a franchise, a fandom, a regional identity, that it hardly seems real we got to experience it as it unfolded. I've said it before, but these games went from bargaining on the least painful way to lose for 3.75 days to a few hours of dealing with the expectation of victory, that flashed to an almost immediate vindication of everything that came in the decades before it.
 

joe dokes

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Jul 18, 2005
30,233
Always forget Leiter was with Buck and not McCarver.
Coincidentally, Dave O'Brien -- who was still a few years from doing Sox games -- was doing ESPN radio (maybe international?) that often shows up behind videos.
 

Merkle's Boner

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Apr 24, 2011
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Watching that inning again, I'm struck by how loud the place was. I mean, we were about to get swept by the hated MFYs, and we were going up against the greatest reliever of all time. And yet, the place sounded like it was rocking.

I was there with my Yankee fan brother, and one of my favorite memories is walking out of there on cloud nine, ignoring his commentary that the win just delayed the inevitable, and passing a drunk fan screaming, "Just seven more and we've busted the curse!" I'll never forget the confidence. And that's exactly what we did, seven straight wins (eight with the one that just happened).
 

Al Zarilla

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Dec 8, 2005
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San Andreas Fault
No kidding. And before 2004, Roberts would have been called out. Bellhorn’s HR would have been ruled a double. Slappy would have gotten away with it and been called safe.
Absolutely! That was almost parallel universe stuff. We never got breaks like that in huge spots, much less twice in one game. And, that was before replay was instituted, of course. Cowboy Joe West for Red Sox hall of fame.

Hmm. Maybe we are all in that parallel universe, still, and it’s now 101 years. :unsure:
 

pokey_reese

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Jun 25, 2008
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What a wonderful way to start the day (I'm on the west coast). I can't believe how fast Roberts came around from second, to this day, he was really burning.

Agreed on the crowd noise, as well. Hard not to feel like the fans really willed this one to happen. I also love how many kids you can see up past midnight there, because parents were taking any of them home.
 

pedro1918

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Mar 5, 2004
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I ate more ice cream in those four days than I have eaten the rest of my life. Comfort food only.

I've said it here before, but I'll say it again. The 2003-2004 MLB seasons were really just one long season between the Red Sox and the Yankees. And WE won!!

It was so emotionally draining, even during the off season. Thank God for the Marlins. I had always hated the Yankees, and still do, but I hated those particular teams even more.
 

Bowhemian

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Nov 10, 2015
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I gave up on them. I admit it, and had no shame in giving up on them. I watched a ton of games that season, more than ever. When they went down 2-0 in the series, I was down, but had not given up on them. Then 19-8 happened. After the heartbreak of Aaron Freakin’ Boone, I was done. Didn’t want to watch anymore, so I didn’t. I woke up the morning after game 4, and when my alarm clock when off, the radio station it was tuned to was playing the highlight of the winning hit. Great I thought. They are just delaying the inevitable. So game 5 came and went, and I didn’t watch it. Same with game 6. After that, I was afraid to watch, but I had to watch game 7. I knew that there was a solid chance that I would jinx them, seeing as I didn’t watch a single pitch of games 4, 5, or 6. Game 7 rewarded me though. I will never forget the euphoria that I was feeling the next day when I was at work. Nothing could have brought me down. Not a single thing. The World Series? That was a foregone conclusion. This was the team destined to win it all.

Edit: I did watch game 6. Forgot about Schilling's and the bloody bloody sock
 
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MakeMineMoxie

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Jul 15, 2005
722
The floor of Punter's Pub
Probably the most gut-wrenching 4 days in my life. Our poor dog didn't know what to make of Dad's whooping and cursing at the TV. Got no sleep but it was all worth it!

2018 was really special & the other 2 WS were great but nothing comes close to 2004 and never will.
 

Earthbound64

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I gave up on them. I admit it, and had no shame in giving up on them. I watched a ton of games that season, more than ever. When they went down 2-0 in the series, I was down, but had not given up on them. Then 19-8 happened.
I didn't completely "give up," but I'm glad the ProJo boards from 2004 aren't around anymore to have a standing record of my posting on things. It looked pretty darn bleak.
 

Huntington Avenue Grounds

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Jul 17, 2008
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2018 was really special & the other 2 WS were great but nothing comes close to 2004 and never will.
How could anything possibly equal it? I defy anyone to come up with a script to the 2004 ALCS more compelling than this:

The most successful team in the league, with 5 championships in the first 15 years of competition with the National League, sells their star player to a heretofore minor rival that was the 3rd team in NYC. (Ruth)
Watching that team using said player as a catalyst for the remaining 4/5 of the century, and winning 26 championships, forming a sports dynasty with few equivalents (mystique and Aura)
Cheering teams that were good enough to win it all, but sports luck/gods left them by the wayside (1946, 1975, 1978)
Pulling for teams that were good but not good enough to capture lightning in a bottle long enough (1967)
Suffering gut wrenching losses to aforementioned rival that resonated to the present day (1949, 1978)
Sitting less than one year removed from a series loss so painful and debilitating, it's only spoken of in hushed tones to this day (2003)
Having been outmaneuvered for the best player in the game by this rival in an attempt to push them over the top (Slappy)
Going down 2-0 on the road, coming home and losing the most lopsided playoff game in franchise history (19-8)
Entering the bottom of the ninth, down a run, to the best closer of all time, with everything above sitting on their heads

And they win this series.

Time to fire up "Four Days in October" again!
 

Bowhemian

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Nov 10, 2015
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How could anything possibly equal it? I defy anyone to come up with a script to the 2004 ALCS more compelling than this:

The most successful team in the league, with 5 championships in the first 15 years of competition with the National League, sells their star player to a heretofore minor rival that was the 3rd team in NYC. (Ruth)
Watching that team using said player as a catalyst for the remaining 4/5 of the century, and winning 26 championships, forming a sports dynasty with few equivalents (mystique and Aura)
Cheering teams that were good enough to win it all, but sports luck/gods left them by the wayside (1946, 1975, 1978)
Pulling for teams that were good but not good enough to capture lightning in a bottle long enough (1967)
Suffering gut wrenching losses to aforementioned rival that resonated to the present day (1949, 1978)
Sitting less than one year removed from a series loss so painful and debilitating, it's only spoken of in hushed tones to this day (2003)
Having been outmaneuvered for the best player in the game by this rival in an attempt to push them over the top (Slappy)
Going down 2-0 on the road, coming home and losing the most lopsided playoff game in franchise history (19-8)
Entering the bottom of the ninth, down a run, to the best closer of all time, with everything above sitting on their heads

And they win this series.

Time to fire up "Four Days in October" again!
You forgot the Scottish Season (1986).
 

JimD

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Nov 29, 2001
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Grady Little had horrifically botched things the year before, clutching defeat from the jaws of victory against these very Yankees at the most crucial moment possible, a rug-pull played on those Sox fans who truly believed the team’s accursed past was simply due to random bad luck. Or bad management. Or personnel failings.
That was what made me feel the worst after game 3 - the sense 2003 was *The Year* and that fool had blown it, that it might take another 86 years to get that close to taking down those MF'ers. It felt so colossally wrong. The dawning realization (for me, after the game 5 win) that 2004 might offer us an even more glorious triumph was akin to seeing the most beautiful sunrise after the worst overnight thunderstorm imaginable.
 

Minneapolis Millers

Wants you to please think of the Twins fans!
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Jul 15, 2005
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I once leaned my head on a public restroom wall. Ew. The wool/poly blend of a New Era cap acted as a shield, but still. I had been standing over a urinal in the men’s restroom of the Piccadilly Pub in Franklin, and as the reality of the 19-8 defeat at the hands of the Yankees tumbled over me like so many bricks, I kind of slowly leaned forward and my forehead gently met the wall in front of me. I think it was plaster, not tile, but don’t hold me to that.

This is just not meant to be, I told myself. Probably because of something I did. ...
Ok, I could have used this confession around about that same time. I actually missed game 3 (in hindsight, thank the baseball gods - to this day, that's the one game I have not watched on my commemorative DVD set). I was at a conference where I was actually receiving an award. I couldn't follow the game, and was rather impatiently awaiting the opportunity to get the hell out of there and check on the score. By the time I did, it was over. The game, the series, the season, our hopes... again. And I was pretty sure it was my own selfish, unsupportive fault.

It all changed. But over those next four days, it would have been nice to know that, if we were to be crushed once more, it was Allented's fault, not mine!
 

Minneapolis Millers

Wants you to please think of the Twins fans!
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Jul 15, 2005
4,753
Twin Cities
72 hours that will never be eclipsed. Simply not possible.
Honestly. Two 5-hour marathon extra inning elimination games, followed by a game 6 where we're all sitting there praying that our pitcher's foot doesn't fall off.

I mean, I guess Game 7 was a laugher (kinda), so maybe the whole series only gets a 9.97 on the ultimate drama scorecard...
 

tims4wins

PN23's replacement
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Jul 15, 2005
37,054
Hingham, MA
Honestly. Two 5-hour marathon extra inning elimination games, followed by a game 6 where we're all sitting there praying that our pitcher's foot doesn't fall off.

I mean, I guess Game 7 was a laugher (kinda), so maybe the whole series only gets a 9.97 on the ultimate drama scorecard...
I don't think anyone was laughing when Pedro came in, the Yankees scored a couple runs, and "who's your daddy" was at fever pitch. I felt immensely better when Bellhorn knocked it off the pole the next inning.
 

Bowhemian

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Nov 10, 2015
5,694
Bow, NH
Honestly. Two 5-hour marathon extra inning elimination games, followed by a game 6 where we're all sitting there praying that our pitcher's foot doesn't fall off.

I mean, I guess Game 7 was a laugher (kinda), so maybe the whole series only gets a 9.97 on the ultimate drama scorecard...
Correction to my above post, I did watch game 6. Had completely forgotten about the blogger and his bloody hoof.
I don't think anyone was laughing when Pedro came in, the Yankees scored a couple runs, and "who's your daddy" was at fever pitch. I felt immensely better when Bellhorn knocked it off the pole the next inning.
Gotta admit, I started to sweat a little bit.
 

Skiponzo

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I once leaned my head on a public restroom wall. Ew. The wool/poly blend of a New Era cap acted as a shield, but still. I had been standing over a urinal in the men’s restroom of the Piccadilly Pub in Franklin, and as the reality of the 19-8 defeat at the hands of the Yankees tumbled over me like so many bricks, I kind of slowly leaned forward and my forehead gently met the wall in front of me. I think it was plaster, not tile, but don’t hold me to that.

This is just not meant to be, I told myself. Probably because of something I did.
My feeling, and the statement I made to many, after the humiliating loss in game 3 was "It's not supposed to happen this way. Not THIS year." It just felt so surreal to be losing like that after all year really deep down feeling like this was finally the year (not that I ever said that to anyone...or even admitted it to myself). Heck, later that winter I said to my wife that "I think I felt like we were gonna do it all year?" Her response was simply "I know you did".