Hardball Hyperbole: Chapter 21

In today’s edition, when the Yankees ventured into Boston for their first series of 2004 against the Red Sox, Alex Rodriguez got the greeting he knew was coming.

When the Yankees flew into Boston on an off day the afternoon of April 15, 2004, several players fanned out in the vicinity of the team hotel to grab a bite to eat, and Alex Rodriguez was part of a group that dined at the Capital Grille on Boylston Street.

If A-Rod wasn’t quite sure what his weekend in Beantown would be like now that he was no longer a member of the who-cares-about-them Mariners or Rangers, but instead was wearing the interlocking NY cap of the Evil Empire, he found out in a hurry.

“What was said to me I can’t share with you,” A-Rod told reporters the next day at Fenway Park regarding the, well, predictable treatment he received. “It was rated ‘R.’ I got welcomed but I can’t talk about it. It was a very colorful experience and I look forward to playing well in the field.”

As if this first series between the teams since the incredible theater that unfolded six months earlier in the American League Championship Series wasn’t already going to be supercharged by a crucible of emotion, dropping A-Rod into the middle of it was tantamount to tossing a blowtorch into a vat of gasoline.

“I don’t think you need any more fuel on the fire with the A-Rod thing,” said Boston’s Kevin Millar. “It’s hot. It’s what you play for, like two heavyweight fighters going at it. It’s the greatest rivalry in sports.”

OK, sure, but whether Millar wanted to admit it or not, A-Rod joining the rivalry was a very big deal. There was no other player in baseball who could have rendered Aaron Boone’s name insignificant on this weekend in Boston.

Boone was no longer a Yankee, but even in absentia, the very thought of his name should have rendered him the primary villain. After all, he was the man who had broken the hearts and crushed the souls of Red Sox Nation the previous October by hitting one of the most devastating home runs in the Red Sox traumatized history.

But you got the sense that even if Boone was still a Yankee, he wouldn’t have been the most hated man in the ballpark as long as A-Rod was there. And what was weird about that is originally, A-Rod was all set to come to Boston in a trade that had been agreed upon by both he and the Red Sox. In fact, he was going to take a pay cut to do so before the MLBPA stepped in, and then the Red Sox brass, not A-Rod, scuttled the deal.

Of course, the Red Sox fans’ interpretation of that is A-Rod could have ignored the MLBPA’s recommendation to accept the pay cut and done what he agreed to do if he really wanted to come to Boston. He didn’t, and then he wound up getting traded to the Yankees - who had no stipulations about lowering his contract figure - and that only made it worse. It really wasn’t he who should have been blamed for the whole fiasco, but he’s A-Rod, so he had to be.

As fate would have it, we only had to wait 2 ½ weeks into the 2004 season for the liftoff of what everyone knew was going to be a titanic 19-game Yankees-Red Sox regular season series, and having A-Rod and the Yankees come to Boston for the first four, ending with the annual Monday morning Patriots Day/Boston Marathon game, was a stroke of marketing genius.

“He has asked questions,” Derek Jeter said of A-Rod’s inquiries regarding the rivalry. “But you can only say so much. You can only explain so much. Until you experience it firsthand, you have no idea. In terms of getting higher than last year, it can’t happen. It can’t pick up more than it was last year.”

Of course, A-Rod wasn’t the only new pinstriper. There was Kevin Brown, Javier Vazquez, Gary Sheffield, Kenny Lofton, and Miguel Cairo, among others getting their first taste as well.

“I told the guys who weren’t here that it’s still baseball,” said Torre. “You have the energy of the ballpark and you have to use that to help us as opposed to distracting us. Some people say it’s going to be more intense (than the ALCS), but it can’t be. It can be equally as intense, but I find it hard to believe that it could ever be more so than it was last year. I’m just happy we were on the plus side of that thing.”

Having gathered as much intel as possible, Rodriguez said when prodded for his thoughts before the first game, “I’m not expecting too many cheers. I’ve always said it’s a compliment to get booed on opposing grounds anyway. I don’t really care about what they’re booing for.”

Well, he must have felt duly complimented because the four sellout crowds that showed up for each game - of which Boston won three - let him have it in typically throaty New England style.

Whether it affected him, who knows, but across the four games Rodriguez went 1-for-17 with two walks, six strikeouts, just one run scored and no RBI. Plus, he committed a critical error in the seventh inning of the last game which allowed the tying run for Boston to score in what became a 5-4 Red Sox victory.

By the time he and the Yankees left town, the first 13 games of his Yankee career showed a .160 batting average with just one homer and three RBI, while the team was 6-7, and even the usually even-keeled Torre showed some irritation.

The manager and the Yankees had a bit of a contentious relationship with ESPN at that time, much of it stemming from ESPN’s still incessant references to the Roger Clemens beaning of Mike Piazza in 2000, followed by the Clemens-Piazza broken bat incident in that year’s World Series. It was beyond over the top, but that was always and still is ESPN’s way.

After one of the games, when one of ESPN’s reporters asked Torre whether A-Rod’s offensive slump was due to “pressing or confidence?” Torre snapped back, “What would he not be confident about?” Looking down at the bank of microphones in front of him, Torre located ESPN’s, tapped the logo and said, “ESPN, yes, that’s a question you would ask.”

Oh boy, that was the kind of weekend it was for the Yankees.

In the April 16 opener, Tim Wakefield, who had served up the Boone homer in Game 7 six months earlier to the day, exacted a little revenge as he went seven innings and gave up just two runs in a 6-2 Boston victory.

While they would never forget what had happened, Red Sox fans showed a lot of class to Wakefield, the longest-tenured man on the team, as they gave him a warm ovation when he took the mound to make his first home start since the Boone homer, and an even bigger one when his night was finished.

“It really meant a lot,’’ Wakefield said. “I wanted to go out and give the best effort I could for the fans because they’ve opened up their arms and embraced me here like a second son. I’ve been proud to be a Red Sox during my time here. It was last year, but you move on. Baseball is my life, but not the end of my life. I take pride in my job. I was disappointed, but it’s time to move on and play another year … and that was a lot of fun.”

The Red Sox jumped on Vazquez for four runs in the first inning as the Yankees made two errors and Bill Mueller and Manny Ramirez each hit home runs.

“I wish every game we played, the excitement was the same as every time we play the Yankees,’’ said David Ortiz. “It’s special. It feels like the World Series.’’

The Saturday afternoon game was supposed to be a great pitchers’ duel between Boston’s big offseason acquisition, Curt Schilling, and Yankees ace Mike Mussina. Instead, Mussina’s terrible start to 2004 continued as he gave up three earned in five innings and in falling to 1-3, saw his ERA jump to 7.52 following a 5-2 loss.

Schilling, of course, was no stranger to the Yankees. He had been one of the prime reasons why the Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the Yankees in seven epic games in the 2001 World Series, sharing co-MVP honors with his co-ace, Randy Johnson. And if A-Rod wasn’t the most toxic element to mix into the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, it was probably the outspoken Schilling who said of the Yankees and Yankee Stadium before that World Series, “When you use those words, ‘mystique’ and ‘aura,’ those are dancers in a night club. Those are not things we concern ourselves with on the ball field.”

Yeah, he was going to fit right into this baseball Armageddon. New Sox manager Terry Francona, who had history with Schilling when they were with the Phillies, said of the big righty, “He’s a miserable bastard” on the days he pitches. The Yankees would concur because Schilling’s first foray into the rivalry was impressive as he allowed just one run in 6.1 innings while striking out eight including a delicious pair against A-Rod.

“I’ve never seen a lineup like this, as deep as this one,” Schilling said of the Yankees, knowing that in the first two weeks of the season it had been putrid. “They’re going to make you work. They’re going to make you make your pitches. All things aside, we won. We’ve taken the first two games of the series against a good team. And that’s a good thing.”

Schilling knew of what he spoke; you weren’t going to keep this Yankees lineup down too long. On Sunday, A-Rod went 0-for-4 for the third game in a row, but his leadoff walk in the third inning set the stage for a six-run explosion that ultimately sent Derek Lowe to an early shower and the Yankees on their way to a 7-3 victory.

Torre addressed the team for 15 minutes beforehand, something he rarely did, and hitting coach Don Mattingly also made a few points, the gist of it all being that the players needed to just relax. “It was just to let guys know that there were no worries from our point of view,” Mattingly said. “At least that pressure is not there. I told them I’m not worried about them. I trust these guys.”

Those words must have struck the right chord because the Yankees sang quite a tune on offense as they produced 10 hits and drew 10 walks. Had they not left 14 men on base, this would have been a rout.

Tied 1-1 to start the third, after A-Rod walked Jason Giambi singled, Sheffield singled in a run, Hideki Matsui singled in another, Jorge Posada hit an RBI double, Enrique Wilson singled in the fourth run, Jeter pushed home the fifth with a groundout, and Bernie Williams plated the sixth with a double.

“They just kept pecking away at me,” Lowe lamented. “Again and again and again.”

Before all that, the game was headed down another dark path for the Yankees when starter Jose Contreras gave up three hits and a run in the first inning, but he limited the damage and Jeter answered with an RBI single in the second.

After the big third, Contreras once again got into trouble as he gave up two walks, a wild pitch and two hits, one of which was a two-run double to Manny Ramirez which made it 7-3. Torre pulled Contreras right there and lefty Paul Quantril entered and settled things down with 2.2 innings of solid work. He was followed by Gabe White, Tom Gordon and Mariano Rivera, the relievers blanking those red hot Red Sox bats the rest of the way.

Now the Yankees had a chance for the split on the wraparound Monday which, given the way they had played over the first two weeks, would have been a nice outcome. Instead, after being handed a 4-1 lead, Brown - New York’s big-ticket free agent rotation signing to offset Schilling - coughed it up.

With two outs in the fifth he was tagged for a double by Mueller and an RBI single by Ortiz. In the sixth, Jason Varitek hit a solo homer, and in the seventh, Brown walked leadoff man Pokey Reese. He was replaced by Gabe White who allowed that run to score on another single by Ortiz, the play on which A-Rod was given a throwing error as he tried to start a double play.

“I screwed up the throw,” Rodriguez said. “I saw Ortiz on his heels a bit and I thought I had a chance for two.”

In the eighth, with Gordon on the mound, Boston completed its comeback as Dave McCarty doubled on a ball that Matsui lost in the left-field sun and eventually scored on a two-out single by Gabe Kapler.

“I feel like I played all four games today,” Francona said after his first taste of Yankees-Red Sox. “In this atmosphere, to come back and play the way we did and find a way to win was unbelievable.”

After the final game of the series, A-Rod was asked about the Fenway crowd and whether he was surprised by the nonstop animosity he was subjected to and he cooly said, “No, not really. They were loud and enthusiastic, they were rabid. Louder than they’ve been when I came here with Seattle or Texas, sure. But after a while, noise is noise. It’s all pretty generic.”

NEXT WEDNESDAY: Jose Contreras failed once again for the Yankees, and the Red Sox swept a three-game series at Yankee Stadium which dropped New York’s record to an ugly 8-11.