It's a little tough to differentiate, since 1986 was obviously closer to glory...but I was only eight at the time. Still, I was up late, fired up, and bouncing on the couch. I had visions of celebrating the last out by running out the front door and going up and down the street, shouting to wake up the neighbors. Then everything fell apart and...it's all kind of a blur. I don't know if an eight year old can be shell shocked by watching sports, but if they can be, I was.
2003 I was 25. I had been living in New York up through February that year, when I suffered an injury and needed to be back in my parents' MA home to recuperate. I ended up needing multiple surgeries, so recovery took a while. I was (allegedly unrelatedly, but, c'mon) laid off from work. I still went back down to the city from time to time when I could to visit my girlfriend and see friends. I was there, in some basement bar around the corner from a too-packed Riviera, to watch the game 3 brawl with two Boston-based friends and a bunch of other Sox fans there as a kind of Riv overflow. As tensions rose, we felt like we were in a bunker in enemy territory. Probably because we were.
The week before, I had taken a bus down to NYC to see REM at MSG (a lot of acronyms)...so I didn't see Trot's walk-off home run in game 3. I was on the bus back home during game 4, listening on my walkman's radio. So, after I got back to Massachusetts following game 3 in the ALCS, I decided I had to go back to not seeing the games -- I was in my room listening to the radio broadcast for games 4-7. It was months before I saw any images of the 8th inning or Boone's home run.
One reason this loss might be the nadir is because I was older, of course...as were my parents. My grandfathers had both passed on, though they had been old enough that they were around as kids when the Sox used to actually win (though I think only one of them rooted for them back then). The looming threat of time was starting to feel a little more real -- my quarterlife crisis was rooted in the classic "I'll live a whole life and never see them win, will I?" More materially, that night was probably the final straw in my fraying long-distance relationship. My girlfriend was a baseball agnostic. She lived with her sister in Manhattan; the sister had adopted the Yankees because her boyfriend (now husband) was a Yankee fan, but she was the kind of transplant who liked the 2000 Series matchup because "whoever wins, New York wins!" None of them really grasped the idea of why one would continue rooting for a team that did nothing but let you down. But my girlfriend had gotten sucked in to the narrative and my passion, and had started really liking players like Ortiz, Manny, Pedro, and Nomar. About 15 minutes after the game, she called to see if I was doing ok -- apparently her sister and her boyfriend were almost too worried about me to celebrate. (Almost.) My girlfriend said something like "I know it didn't end well, but I'm really happy that we got to share this together." And I said that I was not happy about that, because now she was stuck caring about this team that would never do anything but hurt us. Which was...not a nice response to a very kind and loving sentiment. It took a few more weeks, but we were broken up with more than enough time to cancel Thanksgiving travel plans.
As for 19-8...my friends and I turned the game off when the lead hit double digits and watched Fletch instead, monitoring the score on a computer. I remember being bummed, but far from at my lowest -- at least this time they didn't go right up to the brink of victory before falling apart. I appreciate they had the goddamn common courtesy to be swept like true losers.
After watching in three different locations for games 1-3 (including the dear departed Sligo in Davis Square for game 2), my roommate and I watched game 4 alone in our living room. He went to bed after the 8th inning because he had to get up early for work the next day. So I turned the volume way down on the living room tv and moved a chair about two feet in front of it. For some stupid reason that seemed entirely logical at the time, I took a dollar out of my wallet and laid it in front of the tv, telling the Sox and the baseball gods and anyone else who would listen that I would just like to buy one run, just one little run to keep the season going. I had to stifle some very loud noises as the 9th unfolded, all the way up through Ortiz popping up to end the inning. The bottom of the next three innings, I took a fresh dollar out and put it down, pulling them away when they weren't the one accepted to buy the run. The two bills that remained after Ortiz's 12th inning home run stayed there for the next ten days.
I think we were ALL a little shaken during the Pedro inning in the moment. But once he got out of the inning, we probably all had a huge sigh of relief. And I think the Bellhorn HR off the pole was the final "yup, it is officially happening" moment.
Edit: but to be completely honest, every time I see the Sierra squibber off the bat, I think it is going to take some weird bounce/spin and Pokey won't glove it cleanly and the inning will continue etc. We are all deeply, deeply, scarred.
I am deeply jealous of the people who had moments of true confidence before it was all over. I remember walking around a Brooks drug store (I think it was Brooks) getting snacks before game 7, and my game 3 thoughts kept echoing around my mind. Wouldn't it just be like them to come all the way back from 0-3 down to force a game 7...and then blow it at the last minute again? The Damon slam helped. The Bellhorn home run helped more. But I didn't really believe it was happening until the ball was in Minky's glove.
Hell, I spent the bottom of the 9th in game 4 of the World Series with a thought pulling at the back of my mind: "wouldn't it be the worst way to lose to be the first team to come from 0-3 down by tying game 4 in the 9th inning and then winning the series...and then taking a 3-0 lead, having a lead in the 9th of game 4, and losing four games in a row?" I didn't think it would happen...but I couldn't count it out. Again: ball in Minky's glove or it didn't happen.
I agree but - as I wrote upthread - my immediate thought after the Papi HR was not “fuckin a” - it was “we should have 3 runs on the board, not 2”.
I still think Damon was safe.