It never gets old - reflections on Oct 17-20, 2004

jaytftwofive

New Member
Jan 20, 2013
1,182
Drexel Hill Pa.
I am SO thankful the Rays held on, and I dislike the Rays only second to the Yankees. One of the first things I said in 04 after the Sox came back in the ALCS was that they (the 04 Sox) would FOREVER be known as the first (and only) team to come back down 0-3. The fact they did it against NYY, a year after that BRUTAL loss in the 03 ALCS, made it one of those "immortal" stats for me. Sure had the Astros come back it would have been impressive, but they had no fans, were on neutral fields, there's no history between them and Tampa, etc.

I'm super-petty in that I want the Sox to hold on to that one for a long time. Forever is good with me.
Unless the Yanks blow another 3-0 lead, then we would root for that team of course?
 

jaytftwofive

New Member
Jan 20, 2013
1,182
Drexel Hill Pa.
It all started because of a word that has often been used in countless threads on the popular Boston Red Sox message board, “The Sons of Sam Horn,” over the years.

Mojo.

Mojo, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is a noun with an intriguing denotation: “A magical power or supernatural spell.”

After the last out of Game 3 of the 2004 American League Championship Series, nearly every member of SoSH – some 1900 strong at the time – had called upon whatever mojo they could muster to help their Sox stave off the shackles of elimination against their arch-rivals, the New York Yankees who, at the time, had a seemingly insurmountable three games to nothing lead and had just humiliated the Red Sox at Boston’s Fenway Park, 19-8.

From the inclusion of the complete text of Act IV, Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s Henry V (“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers….”) to the publication of a series of montages depicting heroic players from Boston’s sports past, nearly every poster had beseeched the sporting gods on behalf of their beloved baseball team.

As a Red Sox fan who had followed the team on a pitch-by-pitch basis since 1963, I had experienced enough pathos to turn me into the ultimate oxymoron – a raging existentialist. In my forty years of following the team, I had seen them come perilously close to winning the final prize, only to see them stumble, often in inexplicable, even comical circumstances. In 2004, the Boston Red Sox had not won a World Series since the year President Woodrow Wilson had proposed the Fourteen Point Plan. Thus, there were more than three generations who never knew what it was like for the organization to be the sport’s best. Still, as the 2004 playoffs unfolded, I, like countless other Sox fans, didn’t allow myself to wallow in abject misery this time.

The next morning, I appeared on a local New York radio station and proclaimed: “Listen, folks, there has never been a curse that began with the trading of Babe Ruth from the Sox to the Yankees. The only reason we haven’t won it previously is that we’ve always lacked the pitching needed to win. This year, we have the pitching. If we can somehow win Game 4 of this series, the Yankees will be in trouble. We CAN win these next four games. You watch.”

William Jennings Bryan once wrote, “Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.” I wore a Red Sox baseball cap to work each day that week.

I believed.

Miraculously, the Red Sox won the next three games, two of them in extra innings, to tie up the series.

Accordingly, at 11:25 am on the morning of October 20, 2004, I sat down at my teacher’s desk in Room 7 of the Upper School at The Greenwich (CT) Country Day School and began pounding away on my then Dell laptop keyboard, crafting my own particular mojo that – I hoped – would ultimately defeat the despised Yankees.

I called the thread, “Win it For.”

“Win it for Johnny Pesky, who deserves to wear a Red Sox uniform in the dugout during the 2004 World Series, I began. “Win it for the old Red Sox captain Bobby Doerr, who, through the sadness of losing his beloved wife, Monica, would love nothing more than to see his Sox finally defeat New York in Yankee Stadium. Win it for Dom DiMaggio, the most loyal and devoted of men. If he hadn’t gotten hurt in Game 7 of the 1946 World Series, Enos Slaughter never would have scored – and the Red Sox would have been the champions.”

I then urged my SoSH compatriots to win it for other Red Sox icons and personal favorites – Carl Yastrzemski, Ted Williams, Tony Conigliaro, Jack Lamabe, Luis Tiant, Dewey Evans. For Red Sox announcers who had helped hone our love for the team before they had passed on – Ned Martin, Ken Coleman, Jim Woods, Sherm Feller.

I encouraged them to win it for our cherished Red Sox friends, and for other SoSH members who had devotedly followed the fortunes of the franchise, each of them marking their own time with each passing season.

And finally, most of all, I urged them to win it for my father, James Lawrence Kelly, 1913-1986, who “always told me that loyalty and perseverance go hand in hand. Thanks, Dad, for sharing the best part of you with me.”

As I looked over my copy on the SoSH website, I realized that there may be a few others who’d want to dedicate a possible championship to those individuals in their own lives who had loved the Red Sox through thick and thin.

I was right.

In the end, the original thread would contain hundreds of tributes from the populace of Red Sox Nation. Ultimately, 51,000 entries were submitted by posters and lurkers from 47 different states, 39 foreign countries, and six continents. By the time the “Win it For” thread was purposely shut down eight days after it began, each poster had added something unique to what became an utterly compelling Red Sox mosaic. Later that winter, it would be converted into a bestselling book with the proceeds going to both the Jimmy Fund and Curt Schilling’s “Pitch for ALS.”

In an ESPN column paying tribute to the thread, Bill Simmons, deftly crystallized the uniqueness of it that week: “Plow through the ‘Win it For’ posts and it's like plowing through the history of the franchise – just about every memorable player is mentioned at some point – as well as the basic themes that encompass the human experience. Life and death. Love and family. Friendship and loss.”

What made the thread were the assorted posts that poured out of the hearts of Red Sox fans across the globe and reminded us all that the bonds we had created around the team had never died.

“Win it for my grandfather (1917-2004), who never got to see the Red Sox win it all – but always believed. And for my Dad who watches each and every game wishing his dad were there to watch it with him.”

“Win it for my mother who died of ALS in 1999. The only personal item I have left of hers is her Red Sox visor.”

“Win it for my ten-year-old son, Charlie, who fell asleep listening to Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS assuming the Sox would win. When he woke up the next morning, he asked me eagerly, ‘Did we win, Dad?’ When I told him, gently no, we did not win, his anguished moan startled me. I knew I had raised him as a Red Sox fan, and I began to question whether that was a good thing.”

“Win it for my grandfather, who succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease in 2002. In one of my last conversations with him, he asked me how Ted Williams was doing. During Game 7 on October 20 against the Yankees, his birthday, he was smiling down on the Red Sox.”

“Win it for the elderly Sox fan that I hugged at Yankee Stadium last Wednesday night after Game 7 of the ALCS. Seeing the look of relief and jubilation on his face was one of the most emotional experiences I have ever been through. Yes, baseball has the power to unite generations of strangers.”

“Win it for my Little League coach, Ralph Retera, a tough man who landed on Omaha Beach, and yet a tender man as well who always gave on extra pat on the back of those of us who frankly weren’t very good. ‘Baseball is a game of failure, boys,’ he’d say, ‘look at the Red Sox. But that doesn’t mean we can’t give it our best!’ Coach Ralph used to wear a grungy Red Sox cap that he bought in the 1950’s and would take us to games at Fenway when we played for him. When he died in 1988, Coach Ralph’s tattered Bosox hat adorned the top of his flag-draped casket.”

“Win it for my boss, a dear friend, who lost his dad unexpectedly in March of this year. More than once this season, I’ve seen him glance at the phone after a game, half expecting his father to commiserate, rejoice, or just shoot the breeze about the game that just ended. I’ve seen the sadness in his eyes as he realizes that the call isn’t coming. Win it for his dad, a lifelong fan who never had the opportunity to witness his beloved team taking it all.”

“Win it for my buddy, Brian Kelly, who worshiped at the feet of Tony Conigliaro growing up. He even used to copy Tony C’s swing and was devastated when Jack Hamilton almost killed him. Brian’s favorite time as a Red Sox fan was that magical summer and early fall of 1967, two years before he went off to Vietnam. If the Sox win this whole thing, I plan to go on down to the Vietnam Memorial Wall where you can find Brian’s name. God, he would have loved this team.”

“Win it for my aunt, God rest her soul, who, at her funeral, the priest said, ‘She was a woman of great faith. She believed that she’d see a Red Sox championship in her lifetime."

Within 48 hours of the inception of “Win it For,” political columnist, Andrew Sullivan linked it on his highly popular political blog. Newspaper reporters from Kansas City to Tampa, San Francisco to Baltimore began to write comprehensive pieces on the thread. Before Game 1 of the World Series, the gang on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight began to refer to the magic of “Win it For” as “the Red Sox’ secret weapon.” Radio commentaries on the thread surfaced in Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, Albany, Seattle, and Atlanta. The thread itself garnered more than fifteen-million Internet hits.

On the evening of October 28, 2004, the day after the Red Sox had swept the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-0, to win their first World Series in 86 years, Peter Jennings ended his nationally televised ABC News Tonight broadcast with a piece that paid tribute “to the power of an emotive Internet thread and its eloquent posters, followers of a championship team that came to define the word - hope.”

Six weeks after the season ended, author Leigh Montville dedicated 33 pages to “Win it For” in his narrative on the 2004 Red Sox, Why Not Us? He entitled Chapter 7 of his book, “The Story of the Amazing Thread.” In an interview after the publication of his remembrance of a remarkable season, Montville maintained that...“at the very least, one-hundred years from now, ‘Win it For’ will be THE historical record of what happened here. The other works – mine included – will have faded away, but the ‘Win it For’ thread on the Sons of Sam Horn website will remain as the voice of all voices concerning the 2004 Boston Red Sox.”

What made the thread so unique were the individual anecdotes that connected generations of fans together. In page after page, the singular stories of Red Sox fans formed bookends to the notions of both loyalty and passion:

TrapperAB: “Just like last year, there will be an empty spot on the couch as I watch Game 7 of the ALCS tonight. Dad cheered for the Sox from the age of eight in 1930. He went to games at Fenway with his father and told me about it when he took me to the most glorious stadium on God’s green earth. My father passed away in 2001, which means, of course, that he never saw the Sox win one in his lifetime. One of his final moments of clarity was seeing Rivera blowing a save and the D-Back’s winning the World Series that year. That was also his last smile. I believe that my father has been busy lately, along with a lot of other fathers and grandfathers and brothers and sons – helping umpires see the truth and helping David Ortiz lead the way. That hand that Curt Schilling talked about last evening after Game 6? It was the legion of dearly departed Red Sox fans – of which my father was one. Once again this year, there will be that empty spot on the couch…reserved for my Dad. I can only hope that he’s sitting there with me.”

Monbo Jumbo: “Shaun – add my old man to your list (1909 – 2000). He saw Ruth pitch, and he saw Pedro pitch. And now, he’s upstairs playing gin rummy with Joe Cronin between games.”

Sooner Steve: “Win it for my old man, who taught me how to love the game and this team; who taught me what it means to be a man; who, even in his darkest hours facing the end, still wanted to talk about his team; who never saw them win it in his lifetime, but who loved every minute of the Impossible Dream to Morgan’s Magic; who worshiped ‘The Splendid Splinter’ and extolled the virtues of Yaz. Win it for me so I can pay a visit to Dad’s grave and toast that title we always dreamed about. Here’s to you, Pops – in loving memory…DW Gibbs (1936-1993).”

Norm Siebern: “Win it for my Granpa Harvey (1974) who would rise up from his seat along the right-field line in the grandstand and defend Scotty from the boo birds, even if Boomer was only hitting .170 in 1968. Win it for that seven-year-old kid who fell in love with a game and a team that long ago magical summer of 1967. And for that eighteen-year-old young man who sat in the left-field grandstands and watched a little popup hit by Bucky “Bleeping” Dent nestle into the screen on October 2, 1978.”

Ramon’sBrother: “Win it for a certain nineteen-year-old who cried himself to sleep in the early morning hours of October 17, 2003.”

An unknown lurker: “Some morning next week, in the hours just before dawn, the cemeteries all over New England will be filled with middle-aged men, standing by ancestral graves marked - whatever the headstone - with the same bronze veterans’ plaques at the foot – First Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, PFC, served some range of years beginning with high school graduation and ending with the year, 1945. We will be reading aloud from tear-stained newspapers, sharing our first too-early libation of the day. (A Gansett? A Ballantine Ale?) We will be drinking to Cabrera’s defense; Foulke’s grit; Damon’s grace; Ortiz’s incredible sense of timing. MAYBE we will even have a reason to toast Manny. We will be waving the bloody sock – thanking God and Theo Epstein for sending us Curt Schilling, on whom all our hopes rested, and did not die in vain. Remembering all those who came so close but did not get there, like Yaz and Boomer and Rico and Hawk and El Tiante and Dewey and Jim Ed, even Nomar. Remembering all those who did not live to see us get there, like Ted and Tony C and my Granpa Dan. The clock will be unwinding; the pages will be flying off the calendar; the earth will tilt slightly on its axis. I will be there. My brothers will be there. Get there early. It’s going to be crowded.”

Tedsondeck: “Win it for my brother, Johnny, who left Boston in 1944 for the South Pacific, a Red Sox hat planted firmly on his head. He was a nineteen-year-old kid who loved three things – the Red Sox, Fenway Park, and Ted Williams. He lost his life in a hellhole called Okinawa. There hasn’t been a single day that hasn’t gone by when I don’t think of him. This one’s for you, JB.”

SFGiantsFan: “Win it for the people of Red Sox Nation. You people are the legacy of what this great game is all about - or should be about…the love and support of your team through good times and bad. People like you, and teams like this one, have brought me back to baseball after the shame of 1994. Thank you all. You truly deserve this.”

PUDGEcanCATCH: “Win it for my brother, who worked on the 94th floor of the North Tower, and who died on September 11, 2001. He used to look out the window and stick his tongue out in the direction of the Bronx. Above his desk, he had a framed picture of Fenway with two baseball cards scotch-taped to the bottom, Reggie Smith and Pudge Fisk, his two favorite Red Sox players growing up. Many times when he worked, he would proudly wear his Sox hat. After the plane hit his building, I have a strong hunch that he then put his Sox hat on for the last time.”

BasesDrunk: “My mother-in-law was as diehard a Red Sox fan as they come. She died of cancer in February 2003. My wife was born on October 7, 1967, literally in the middle of Game 3 of the World Series against the Cardinals. Her mother kept asking the nurses for updates while in labor. No doubt she now wants revenge for St. Louis ruining an otherwise perfect day.”

Lurker OregonSoxFan: “Win it for my dad who passed away on 10/20/93. When I was a seven-year-old boy, he introduced me to – and shared – the Impossible Dream, which was where my love for this awesome team began. Last night, I watched the greatest Sox victory (so far this year) with his eight-year-old grandson, Jeremiah, who, in turn, is catching the fever. We talked about Dad and all that he taught me about the game. Mom called after the game, and we shared tears of joy, and a tear of grief.”

BoSox Lifer: Win it for that little boy who was sitting with his dad and his uncle at Game 7 at Yankee Stadium last October. With him crying as the game ended, I leaned over, and holding back my own tears, I told him with as much conviction as I could muster to cheer up because next year we were going to win it all. Somewhere I know - that little boy is smiling today…”

Curtis Pride: “I want the Red Sox to win it for my mother. She became a fan in 1967 and has followed them faithfully via radio to this very day.”

“I was born deaf, so growing up was difficult for me. But then I discovered the Red Sox in 1977, and my parents took me to Fenway that summer, which made me a Sox fan for life. And since then, I would sit with my mother by the radio while she listens to the Sox and relayed the events to me as they unfolded.”

“We still discuss the Red Sox today, but I want them to win so that she can experience that sweet taste of victory that has been denied her for so long. I know how it feels to finally overcome an enormous obstacle, and I want her to feel that as well.”

Cheekydave: Win it for my father, who had a love for numbers and baseball and passed it on to me; it was the only way we could communicate. But it was always a safe haven, and at least there was ONE way to communicate between us. He died last year on his birthday, October 20th, one year to the day that the Red Sox beat the Yankees! Also, win it for my mother, who died when I was nine on October 2, 1967, the day after the Red Sox won the pennant, and the day I became both a Red Sox fan and also a single parented child.”

A lurker from Australia: “Win it for all of you New Englanders who deserve at least one warm winter.”

“I became a Red Sox fan when I first read Roger Angell’s account of the Impossible Dream team; I became an official citizen of Red Sox Nation when I walked into Fenway on a dreary night in 1985.”

“I ended up living in Boston until 1993 when I returned to Australia. October is the spring down here, but not a baseball season has passed by without me thinking of you hardy New Englanders preparing for a winter that most of my countrymen couldn’t even comprehend; dreaming of Spring Training, and thinking that maybe next year will be ‘the year’ for the Red Stockings.”

“Well, next year is here! This week, all of your dreams will come true. And when it’s time to rake the leaves and put up the storm windows, you’ll be thinking, “Next year – back to back…”

Lurker Nomarfan31: “Win it for my mom, Mary, who died of lung cancer on July 9, 2003, and who loved to declare, “They’re gonna lose,” while inside wildly rooting for them to win. I cried when Nomar was traded, not because it wasn’t time for him to go (sadly, it was) but because it was the loss of another link to Mom, who always call me whenever he did something spectacular in a game.”

Red Sox Owner John Henry: “There was a point during this season that was very, very tough. But I came here, Shaun, and read your Bandwagon thread, and was uplifted by the depth and breadth of your faith. It was at the time the best thing we were reading anywhere. These guys – I’m so proud of them – they refused to lose for the faithful this week. I’m proud of everyone who refused to get off the bandwagon.”

Sargeiswaiting: The Mekong Delta is a long way from Boston. During the summer of 1969, I found myself as a private in the army, fighting in a war that was becoming increasingly unpopular at home. When I was homesick for Boston, a fellow private named Kevin, born and raised in the Boston area, kept my spirits up. We used to listen to the radio after the hell of a patrol. There was one song by Neil Diamond that we used to love listening to on the outskirts of the jungle. We would scream it out at the top of our lungs. The girl in the song was the girl in our dreams! Kevin was a big Sox fan. He especially loved the Boomer, George Scott. Kev got Agent Orange and began to fade away in the early eighties. The war eventually killed him years after he returned home. Earlier this August, I attended a Sox game against the White Sox. It was cold as hell for a summer afternoon, and the Sox lost in disappointing fashion. Still, at the bottom of the eighth inning, I began to hear the strains of that song that Kev and I sung so well back in Vietnam –‘Sweet Caroline.’ Jesus, Kevin’s favorite, playing at Fenway. The tears are flowing now as I write this. Win it for Kevin. Win it for Sweet Caroline!”

In early November 2004, ten days after the last out of the 2004 World Series, I received a note from a most perceptive lurker to the website. He wrote: “You know, Shaun, I really believe that the ghosts that we all beckoned, our dearly departed fathers and grandfathers, sisters, brothers, neighbors, coaches, and friends, had a hand in the astonishing two weeks that we’ve just experienced. In a way, it was their last loving act to us. And we, in turn, responded as only we could…in the posts that we ultimately submitted.”

I concluded the “Win it For” thread on the morning of October 28, 2004, with the following entry, written seven hours after Keith Foulke had stabbed Edgar Renteria’s one-hopper for the third and final out of the ‘04 Series:

“In the end, people talk about the ghosts Red Sox fans live with, but they have it all wrong. It isn’t the ghost of Babe Ruth or Bill Buckner or all the names associated with a curse that never really existed. Instead, it is the ghosts we can still see when we walk into Fenway Park. It is our fathers and mothers and grandparents. It’s our next-door neighbors and our baseball coaches and our aunts and uncles. Those are the ghosts that matter to us. Those are the specters we see, huddled together, watching their team and the game so intently.”

“For those of us who have followed the fortunes over an extended period, a Red Sox World Series championship marks a beginning – and an end. While we have made peace with all of our relatives and friends who have passed on over the years, there was always a little unfinished business between us – and them. Now with this incomparable victory, that too is complete.”

“And so, after all of these years, we can finally have a clean goodbye to our dearly departed. Perhaps that is why so many tears were shed in living rooms all over New England and beyond in the early morning hours of October 28, 2004.”

The “Win it For” thread, a small idea in the beginning, was formally inducted as a literary entity into the writer’s section of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York in the summer of 2007.

“Win it For’ seamlessly connected six generations of Red Sox fans together as no other document ever has,” wrote a publicist for the Baseball Hall of Fame upon the thread’s induction. Even today, 16 years after it first was published, the original “Win it For” thread still has the capacity to bring tears and smiles together as close as they can ever be.
I read Leigh's book "Why not us". Enjoyed it.
 

CapeCodYaz

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 24, 2020
68
And of course today is the 16th anniversary of Game 7 04 ALCS. Yesterday was the A-Rod bitch slap Game 6 Anniversary. Still great memories.
Just great memories from that playoff run. Every night getting together with old college freinds (Sox, Yanks and O's fans). An emotional roller coaster that I would never trade. Man time flies---savor every moment and enjoy every sandwich!
 

54thMA

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 15, 2012
10,154
Westwood MA
I watched 4 days in October again last night, I've lost count at how many times I've watched it.

Still can't believe they pulled it off; followed it up with Reverse the Curse. Steven Wright said it best; "If it was a movie, it would have been a bad movie, no one would have believed it" or words to that effect.

The ending with the visits to the cemeteries gets me every time as I immediately think about my uncle Peter and my Grandfather on my Mothers side, those two had the biggest influence on me becoming a Red Sox fan, neither of whom lived long enough to see them win it all.

Being a Red Sox fan is something special; unless you are one, you have no clue what I'm talking about.

They aren't the Yankees with their 27 World Series Championships, winning most of them as easily as Germany marched through France in 1940, or the Dodgers who moved from Brooklyn and landed in La La land where the fans show up in the 3rd inning and leave in the 7th or any other team.

They the team that had an 86 year history of failures and not just failures, but massive failures, 1946, 1967, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1999, 2003, each one more painful than the next, the impossible dream team of 1967, they played in arguably the greatest world series of all time in 1975, had one of the most historic collapses in baseball history in 1978 leading to one of the most dramatic winner take all games, followed by the greatest world series failure of all time in 1986 and one of the most massive failures in ALCS history in 2003.

They are not just the BOSTON Red Sox, they tie an entire region together, from the eastern half of CT (The western half is loaded with Yankee fans), to RI, to MA to NH up to the top of Maine, the New England Red Sox would be more appropriate, I don't know of another team that has such a wide fan base, an entire region of the country.

As a sports fan who as I age place the importance of sports further and further in my rear view mirror, 2004 will never, ever, ever be topped. As a young kid/adult, ALL I ever wanted was for the RS to win ONE WS, just ONE....................four wins later, 2004 still ranks up there with the greatest sports moment of my life.

Regardless of where my fandom goes from here, it will always be #1 in my heart.
 
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BaseballJones

ivanvamp
SoSH Member
Oct 1, 2015
24,376
Quick poll: At what point did you guys think the Sox could actually pull it off? After they managed to win game 4? After they survived game 5? After they got the two calls in game 6 correct (the Bellhorn homer and the ARod karate chop on Arroyo)? After Foulke struck out Clark in game 6? After Ortiz homered in game 7 right after Damon got nailed at the plate? After Damon's granny put them up 6-1? After Damon's second homer put them up 8-1? After Bellhorn homered following NY's 2-run seventh off Pedro? Or only after the grounder was hit to Pokey Reese?
 

tims4wins

PN23's replacement
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
37,059
Hingham, MA
Quick poll: At what point did you guys think the Sox could actually pull it off? After they managed to win game 4? After they survived game 5? After they got the two calls in game 6 correct (the Bellhorn homer and the ARod karate chop on Arroyo)? After Foulke struck out Clark in game 6? After Ortiz homered in game 7 right after Damon got nailed at the plate? After Damon's granny put them up 6-1? After Damon's second homer put them up 8-1? After Bellhorn homered following NY's 2-run seventh off Pedro? Or only after the grounder was hit to Pokey Reese?
Probably the Bellhorn homer if I am being perfectly honest
 

54thMA

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 15, 2012
10,154
Westwood MA
Probably the Bellhorn homer if I am being perfectly honest
Yup, me too...............I thought the second Damon homer to go up 8-1 would do it, but when the Yankees came to life in the bottom of the 8th off of Pedro and scored two runs, I got nervous again, the Bellhorn home run and that loud clang noise it made was the final bell tolling for the Yankees, they weren't coming back down 10-3.

I knew then it was over.
 

Earthbound64

Member
SoSH Member
Pretty much after the Rdoriguez slap play was reversed.
It had too much of the "phantom tag" from the 1999 playoffs feel to it - where the Yankees would benefit from poor umpiring and it never even being considered. Once they considered it, and ruled appropriately - that sign to Rodriguez that he was out was the nail in their coffin.
 

tims4wins

PN23's replacement
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
37,059
Hingham, MA
Yup, me too...............I thought the second Damon homer to go up 8-1 would do it, but when the Yankees came to life in the bottom of the 8th off of Pedro and scored two runs, I got nervous again, the Bellhorn home run and that loud clang noise it made was the final bell tolling for the Yankees, they weren't coming back down 10-3.

I knew then it was over.
Agree with all of this. The 8-1 homer was "oh my god they're gonna do this"... then the 2 run rally off Pedro was "dear god here we go again". The Bellhorn homer was the exhale again.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 23, 2009
20,676
Maine
It was the moment Pokey's throw settled in Mientkiewicz's mitt. Just as I didn't believe the World Series was secure until Mientkiewicz caught Foulke's underhand toss. Scars from 1986 and 2003 ran too deep.
 

Lose Remerswaal

Experiencing Furry Panic
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
It was the moment Pokey's throw settled in Mientkiewicz's mitt. Just as I didn't believe the World Series was secure until Mientkiewicz caught Foulke's underhand toss. Scars from 1986 and 2003 ran too deep.
Still my sig line for the WS

But when Bellhorn's HR was overturned in favor of the Sox, that's when I thought the ALCS was going our way
 

54thMA

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 15, 2012
10,154
Westwood MA
It was the moment Pokey's throw settled in Mientkiewicz's mitt. Just as I didn't believe the World Series was secure until Mientkiewicz caught Foulke's underhand toss. Scars from 1986 and 2003 ran too deep.
You're lucky if you didn't go through 1967, 1972, 1974, 1975 or 1978.

Those are some of my deep scars along with yours.
 

loshjott

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 30, 2004
14,943
Silver Spring, MD
It was the moment Pokey's throw settled in Mientkiewicz's mitt. Just as I didn't believe the World Series was secure until Mientkiewicz caught Foulke's underhand toss. Scars from 1986 and 2003 ran too deep.
I remember distinctly seeing that hard ground ball off the bat going to the right side of the IF, thinking, shit that's going through for a hit and this thing still isn't over. Then the camera shifted to Pokey making the play and I finally exhaled.
 

FisksFinger

New Member
Oct 23, 2013
1,070
Seattle, WA
It was the moment Pokey's throw settled in Mientkiewicz's mitt. Just as I didn't believe the World Series was secure until Mientkiewicz caught Foulke's underhand toss. Scars from 1986 and 2003 ran too deep.
I'm with you 100%. The blowout in game 3 REALLY messed me up. My wife had gone to bed early in game 3, I watched the whole thing and I distinctly remember getting into bed and her asking me what happened. I said "they lost...and I think I'm done". She asked what I meant and I went on a rant about how this team lets me down too much, the sting of past playoff choke jobs, the freshness of 2003's disappointment and then the pathetic performance in game 3 got to me.

I never really enjoyed the rest of that playoff run in 2004 the way I wish I had, and I'm still bitter about it haha.
 

lexrageorge

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Jul 31, 2007
18,099
Quick poll: At what point did you guys think the Sox could actually pull it off? After they managed to win game 4? After they survived game 5? After they got the two calls in game 6 correct (the Bellhorn homer and the ARod karate chop on Arroyo)? After Foulke struck out Clark in game 6? After Ortiz homered in game 7 right after Damon got nailed at the plate? After Damon's granny put them up 6-1? After Damon's second homer put them up 8-1? After Bellhorn homered following NY's 2-run seventh off Pedro? Or only after the grounder was hit to Pokey Reese?
I was truly hopeful for the first time once Game 6 ended. I was convinced the Yankees were dead after Damon's salami, but was concerned about the Cardinals team that won 105 games and had a lineup of Edmunds, Rolen, and Pujols. I was absolutely terrified that Pujols innocuous single to lead off the 9th in Game 4 would open the floodgates on a cooked pitching staff. So, for me, it was when that ball landed in the safely in the glove of Doug Mientkiewicz that 1918 was finally put to rest once and for all.
 

cannonball 1729

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 8, 2005
3,572
The Sticks
Quick poll: At what point did you guys think the Sox could actually pull it off? After they managed to win game 4? After they survived game 5? After they got the two calls in game 6 correct (the Bellhorn homer and the ARod karate chop on Arroyo)? After Foulke struck out Clark in game 6? After Ortiz homered in game 7 right after Damon got nailed at the plate? After Damon's granny put them up 6-1? After Damon's second homer put them up 8-1? After Bellhorn homered following NY's 2-run seventh off Pedro? Or only after the grounder was hit to Pokey Reese?
I was hopeful once Papi's homer landed at the end of game 4, because a.) I knew the Sox could make up a two-game deficit in the postseason with their backs against the wall, because they done exactly that in the 2003 ALDS against the A's, and b.) the Papi homer felt so much like Trot Nixon's walk-off in game 3 of that '03 ALDS that I felt like there were some cosmic parallels. (Papi's game-winning hits in 2003 ALDS game 4 and 2003 ALCS game 5 did nothing to disabuse those notions.) Somehow, that '03 series felt like it had been training for how a team and its fans might navigate through a major comeback, which was helpful when the Sox went through a way more stressful comeback in 2004.

But I still fully expected something to go wrong. Too many years of Pavlovian training to think otherwise.
 

Leskanic's Thread

lost underscore
Silver Supporter
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
2,774
Los Angeles
I remember distinctly seeing that hard ground ball off the bat going to the right side of the IF, thinking, shit that's going through for a hit and this thing still isn't over. Then the camera shifted to Pokey making the play and I finally exhaled.
One of many quirks about the team that's burned in my memory is how Pokey would field a ball at second, and then immediately transfer it to his throwing hand and hold it out as if in mid-motion until the first baseman was ready to receive it. It was when he was holding the ball out that I felt it it was happening -- he had fielded it, I trusted he would make the throw, and I trusted Minky to catch it. That's when I started getting up out of the chair I had been sitting in for four straight games to begin celebrating.

You're lucky if you didn't go through 1967, 1972, 1974, 1975 or 1978.

Those are some of my deep scars along with yours.
I also didn't go through those...but I had parents who had gone through them as well as '46, '48, and '49. I was raised on scars before I could get some of my own.

Seriously, it felt/feels like people forget about 1946 and 1967.
Losing to the Cardinals, again, would have really sucked.
For that reason, this was also a concern. I have full respect for people who thought the World Series was a lock after the Yankees were vanquished. I did not feel that way. As others have said, I needed Foulke to field the comebacker before I 100% believed.

(Since we're here, I'll also say this: a co-worker of mine grew up in the midwest in a diehard Cardinals family. She has in the past mentioned that her father was born in '46, that she was born in '67, and that her first born was born in '04. She says it in a way where she laments that the Idiots broke with tradition and robbed her daughter of a birthright Cardinals victory over the Red Sox. When she says this, I make sure to remind her that, after 2013, we are 2-2.)
 

pk1627

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
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May 24, 2003
2,514
Boston
I relaxed when Pedro got the final out of the 7th. He started the inning really rough (3 hits to the first 4) and then settled down.

In the 8th, pretty much all the MFY fans left. Sox chants took over the park. It was ovah.
 

jaytftwofive

New Member
Jan 20, 2013
1,182
Drexel Hill Pa.
Quick poll: At what point did you guys think the Sox could actually pull it off? After they managed to win game 4? After they survived game 5? After they got the two calls in game 6 correct (the Bellhorn homer and the ARod karate chop on Arroyo)? After Foulke struck out Clark in game 6? After Ortiz homered in game 7 right after Damon got nailed at the plate? After Damon's granny put them up 6-1? After Damon's second homer put them up 8-1? After Bellhorn homered following NY's 2-run seventh off Pedro? Or only after the grounder was hit to Pokey Reese?
Bellhorn's Hr in game 7.
 

jaytftwofive

New Member
Jan 20, 2013
1,182
Drexel Hill Pa.
I relaxed when Pedro got the final out of the 7th. He started the inning really rough (3 hits to the first 4) and then settled down.

In the 8th, pretty much all the MFY fans left. Sox chants took over the park. It was ovah.
Yeah I guess that was really it. Once the "Who's your daddy" inning ended.
 

Dan Murfman

Member
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Aug 21, 2001
4,186
Pawcatuck
Yup, me too...............I thought the second Damon homer to go up 8-1 would do it, but when the Yankees came to life in the bottom of the 8th off of Pedro and scored two runs, I got nervous again, the Bellhorn home run and that loud clang noise it made was the final bell tolling for the Yankees, they weren't coming back down 10-3.

I knew then it was over.
I was nervous in the Pedro inning too even more so because it was the 7th inning so they had even more time to come back. But The HR in the 8th settled me down.
 

Hyde Park Factor

token lebanese
SoSH Member
Jun 14, 2008
2,794
Manchvegas
Quick poll: At what point did you guys think the Sox could actually pull it off? After they managed to win game 4? After they survived game 5? After they got the two calls in game 6 correct (the Bellhorn homer and the ARod karate chop on Arroyo)? After Foulke struck out Clark in game 6? After Ortiz homered in game 7 right after Damon got nailed at the plate? After Damon's granny put them up 6-1? After Damon's second homer put them up 8-1? After Bellhorn homered following NY's 2-run seventh off Pedro? Or only after the grounder was hit to Pokey Reese?
Swear to God, when we won ALCS game 4 on the Ortiz HR, I looked at my then wife and said, "we're gonna win the World Series".

From the Robert's steal to that HR, the Sox and Yankees were two wrestlers locked together with neither giving or gaining an inch. Then, finally, the Sox seized upon the slimmest of opportunities to gain just enough leverage to fundamentally change the balance.

None of this is to say that I wasn't losing my mind on some of the crazy plays that ensued in the remaining games. I was, but with everything breaking in favor of the Sox (for a change!), it felt like watching something "definite" unfold, even if the path was as bumpy as it could possibly have been.
 

tims4wins

PN23's replacement
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
37,059
Hingham, MA
Swear to God, when we won ALCS game 4 on the Ortiz HR, I looked at my then wife and said, "we're gonna win the World Series".

From the Robert's steal to that HR, the Sox and Yankees were two wrestlers locked together with neither giving or gaining an inch. Then, finally, the Sox seized upon the slimmest of opportunities to gain just enough leverage to fundamentally change the balance.

None of this is to say that I wasn't losing my mind on some of the crazy plays that ensued in the remaining games. I was, but with everything breaking in favor of the Sox (for a change!), it felt like watching something "definite" unfold, even if the path was as bumpy as it could possibly have been.
I can't remember the precise moment - it was either after the Roberts steal, or the Mueller single - but I distinctly remember getting a one word text from a good buddy. All caps. "ALIVE".
 

Wolong51

New Member
Oct 24, 2020
15
First time poster here and thought I would share some thoughts.

I began following the Red Sox in the Impossible Dream season of 1967. Can’t get enough of rewatching Four Days in October. I did not think the 2004 Red Sox had it until the ground ball was in Reese’s glove and the comebacker was in Foulke’s glove.

It is interesting reading about different person’s “scars” of being a Red Sox fan. My father was born in 1928 and passed away in 2009. For him, the two biggest scars were 1948 and 1949. They were bigger than 1978, 1986, 2003, etc. For him, Denny Galehouse starting the 1948 playoff game was a bigger symbol of Red Sox fan disappointment than Bill Buckner, Grady Little, etc.
 

JohnnyTheBone

Member
SoSH Member
May 28, 2007
36,331
Nobody Cares
First time poster here and thought I would share some thoughts.

I began following the Red Sox in the Impossible Dream season of 1967. Can’t get enough of rewatching Four Days in October. I did not think the 2004 Red Sox had it until the ground ball was in Reese’s glove and the comebacker was in Foulke’s glove.

It is interesting reading about different person’s “scars” of being a Red Sox fan. My father was born in 1928 and passed away in 2009. For him, the two biggest scars were 1948 and 1949. They were bigger than 1978, 1986, 2003, etc. For him, Denny Galehouse starting the 1948 playoff game was a bigger symbol of Red Sox fan disappointment than Bill Buckner, Grady Little, etc.
Awesome first post. Thanks for the contribution and perspective. Being a longtime Red Sox fan is very deep experience.
 

jaytftwofive

New Member
Jan 20, 2013
1,182
Drexel Hill Pa.
Does anybody remember in game 5 04 ALCS when Ortiz tried to steal second some time in extra innings and was called out? LOL. He argued and replays show he was safe!
 

ookami7m

Well-Known Member
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Jul 15, 2005
5,657
Mobile, AL
I plan to look at the moon tonight.
This. A thousand times over.

16 years ago tonight I forced my way out of work early so I could be home to watch. I sat in silence most of the game, my wife kind of understanding but not really (we'd been married a year and I'd already made the mistake of telling her "The Red Sox have been an important part of my life longer than you have") why I was so twitchy on the couch. She witnessed the end of the ALCS and my near insanity and tears, but this was bigger. When Foulke stabbed the comebacker I leapt up screaming in excitement. We didn't have kids yet so I didn't need to be quiet like I did in 2007.

After catching my breath I went out into the backyard and just stared at the biggest moon I've ever seen in my life with a little red tint from the positioning and the dust in the AZ sky that night. I probably just stood there grinning for 15 minutes until my wife came out and joined me. I was thinking of the Win it For threat, and all of you guys that had been around the teams before (86 was my first heartbreak) and I'd only read about as layers to why the Sox felt cursed. I thought of my best friend from 2nd grade whose dad was a lifer and was the prim and proper-est guy until end end of the 86 series when I heard him say "fuck" for the first and only time. But mostly I thought about how my kids wouldn't have to feel the same anchor around their favorite (hopefully) team.

That moon was looking over me that night and I know so many others of you. It felt like the kind of joy that just couldn't be kept in doors.
 

Earthbound64

Member
SoSH Member
“Back to Foulke. Red Sox fans have longed to hear it, the Boston Red Sox are World Champions”
Wrong audio.
Anyone listening to Fox was/is doing it horribly wrong.

"Swing and a ground ball stabbed by Foulke! He has it! He underhands to first! And the Boston Red Sox are the World Champions! For the first time in 86 years, the Red Sox have won baseball's world championship! Can you believe it?"
 

tims4wins

PN23's replacement
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
37,059
Hingham, MA
Wrong audio.
Anyone listening to Fox was/is doing it horribly wrong.

"Swing and a ground ball stabbed by Foulke! He has it! He underhands to first! And the Boston Red Sox are the World Champions! For the first time in 86 years, the Red Sox have won baseball's world championship! Can you believe it?"
Buck’s call was better than Castig’s. His voice even seems to crack a tiny bit on “longed”.
 

jaytftwofive

New Member
Jan 20, 2013
1,182
Drexel Hill Pa.
Damon was safe at home right before Papi's game 7 homer too.
No, as much as I love the Sox watch it again. Damon was out easily. He hesitated when Manny's single went by Jeter. That's why he was out. What was hysterical was that the Stankee fans were still going crazy at Damon being thrown out and cheering as Ortiz hit the 2 run HR right after.
 

jaytftwofive

New Member
Jan 20, 2013
1,182
Drexel Hill Pa.
Joe Buck's call was just right. He didn't go crazy like "New England the curse is over you can all die now" or anything like that. It was just right. I can imagine what Gary Thorne would have said. Did Thorne do the national radio broadcast??
 

jaytftwofive

New Member
Jan 20, 2013
1,182
Drexel Hill Pa.
When they won it I didn't yell or scream like games 4.5, and 6 of the ALCS. I just raised my arms looked up put then my hands on my head and thought of my Dad and all the Sox fans who didn't get to live to see it. I looked up in the sky pointed and waited for a few phone calls from relatives and friends congratulating me. Called my mom of course then went to a popular sports bar where Boston sports fans celebrate(I live outside of Philly now since 1971) Couldn't go to the parade because I couldn't get anybody to work for me. Made the Celtics parade in 2008 and the Pats parade in the wet snow in 2017.
 

Lose Remerswaal

Experiencing Furry Panic
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Wrong audio.
Anyone listening to Fox was/is doing it horribly wrong.

"Swing and a ground ball stabbed by Foulke! He has it! He underhands to first! And the Boston Red Sox are the World Champions! For the first time in 86 years, the Red Sox have won baseball's world championship! Can you believe it?"
Duh. (Look down)
 

reggiecleveland

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Mar 5, 2004
27,957
Saskatoon Canada
No, as much as I love the Sox watch it again. Damon was out easily. He hesitated when Manny's single went by Jeter. That's why he was out. What was hysterical was that the Stankee fans were still going crazy at Damon being thrown out and cheering as Ortiz hit the 2 run HR right after.
There was no replay because of the homer on the next pitch. But, still look to me like he got to the plate, and was under the tag.
 

rajendra82

elimination day disfunction
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
4,932
Atlanta, GA
Fox broadcast HD in 2004, but few consumers had HD sets and Blu-Ray hadn’t been invented yet.

I have seen what is obviously DVD content on network TV during retrospectives of 2004 (the logo in the corner gives it away).

I would gladly pay retail for an HD Blu-Ray set, but there aren’t enough people like me to make it a viable product.

I thought MLB owned all postseason games (per the announcement in every broadcast), not any network.
I got my first HD set in 2004, a DLP back projector now retired to the great trash dump in heaven. October 2004, is the first time I remember screaming at my TV after the Dave Roberts steal, the David Ortiz walk off hit, etc. Funny thing is my son, who was 6 at the time also remembers hearing my screams in the middle of the night. On game 7 night I was traveling to West Virginia, and the pilot announced the Damon home run as we left Atlanta, and announced the score after we landed in Pittsburgh. I was traveling with a coworker, who was a fair weather Yankee fan (said he grew up with the Phillies, but was tired of them losing). We watched the end of the game in the hotel bar. I remember eating my fingernails while Pedro pitched that inning, and the coworker asking me why I was worried. When the Bellhorn "insurance" homer landed, I finally felt relaxed.

The World Series was a letdown in excitement after the ALCS. I was back in WV for game 4, and watched it on the hotel room TV, and cried. The next morning I tried to explain to other coworkers what the big deal was, and they just didn't get it.
 
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