Hardball Hyperbole: Chapter 31

In today’s edition, inspired by their epitaph being written after Game 3, the Red Sox stayed alive with a thrilling Game 4 victory thanks in large part to one of the biggest stolen bases in the history of MLB, and though we didn’t know it at the time, the ALCS was inexplicably and irreversibly flipped.

If you ask any card-carrying member of Red Sox Nation, the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary film entitled “Four Days in October” should have been nominated for an Academy Award when it was released in 2010.

There may not be a Red Sox fan alive today, and many who are probably now dead, who didn’t see it. It magnificently recaps the greatest comeback - or as any Yankee fan would say, the greatest collapse - in baseball history. There are certainly Yankees fans who have seen it, too - I’m raising my hand - and I’m not sure there’s ever been anything more painful to watch.

In that film, Kevin Millar plays a starring role, not because he did anything particularly great on the field during the 2004 ALCS, but because of the conversation he had with esteemed Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy prior to the start of Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS.

Shaughnessy had written in his column following the 19-8 Game 3 travesty, “Are the 2004 Red Sox a happy go lucky (and then suddenly unlucky) pack of frauds who failed to show up for the biggest series of their lives?” Not surprisingly, Millar took exception to that.

Of course it pissed him off, first and foremost. But also, Millar was the kind of guy who could always find a way to spin a negative situation into a positive. Never mind that the Red Sox were trailing the Yankees three games to none. Never mind that no MLB team in history had ever rallied to win a series facing that predicament. And never mind how embarrassing it was to lose to your fierce rival 19-8. Millar came to the ballpark that day in his typically cheery, upbeat mood which only changed when he saw what Shaughnessy wrote.

“He walked in (to the pregame clubhouse) and I started yelling at him as far as just simple as this: ‘Your hair sucks,’” Millar recalled a few years ago on a Boston radio station. “Yeah, that’s how it goes: ‘Hey, your hair sucks, Dan.’ And that’s when I was loud, and it was caught on tape. I just told him, I said, ‘You called us frauds. They might be better than us, the Yankees might be. That’s OK, but I don’t think we’re frauds because we’re down 0-3.’”

During batting practice later, Millar came over to Shaughnessy and with the cameras rolling, he made a statement that seemed impossible to fathom given the Red Sox dire situation. He told Shaughnessy, “Don’t let us win today. We got Petey (Pedro Martinez), we got Schill (Curt Schilling) in Game 6, and then Game 7 anything can happen. We can have Dan Shaughnessy out there, anything can happen in Game 7.”

It’s Boston’s version of the Joe Namath Super Bowl 3 guarantee, the Mark Messier 1994 Stanley Cup guarantee, and Knute Rockne telling his 1928 Notre Dame squad of the time back in 1920 when Irish star George Gipp, before dying in his hospital bed, told the coach to someday, “When things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to just go in there with all they’ve got and win one for the Gipper.”

Shaughnessy was smiling the whole time, enjoying Millar’s enthusiasm but probably thinking in the back of his mind, this dude is delusional. Well, several months later, Shaughnessy was profiting from the Red Sox miraculous comeback to win the pennant and eventually the curse-breaking World Series triumph over the Cardinals in his book, “Reversing the Curse: Inside the 2004 Boston Red Sox.”

It sends a shiver down my spine even thinking about the documentary and the book.

Millar’s bold warning of a Red Sox resurgence wasn’t looking too good, though, when Alex Rodriguez hit a two-run homer off Derek Lowe for a 2-0 Yankees lead in the third inning. And after Boston surged ahead with three runs in the fifth off Orlando Hernandez, the big hit a two-out, bases loaded two-run single by David Ortiz, the Yankees took the lead right back in the sixth. Impossibly hot Hideki Matsui tripled and scored on a single by Bernie Williams, and eventually, Tony Clark delivered a go-ahead single off Mike Timlin.

And then two shutdown innings by Tanyon Sturtze and one by Mariano Rivera brought Boston to the brink of elimination. Three outs away from a demoralizing sweep and another offseason to ponder the latest instance where the Red Sox simply could not overcome the Yankees’ nearly eight-decade superiority. With the great Rivera on the mound for the bottom of the ninth, Fenway was preparing for yet another funeral.

But wouldn’t you know it, it was Millar himself who kick-started what was about to happen over the course of the next four days as he drew a leadoff walk and then gladly ceded his spot on first base to pinch runner Dave Roberts as the ballpark suddenly began to buzz with anticipation.

As great as Rivera was, he was not good at preventing stolen bases because he did not have a good move, and he was slow delivering the ball to the plate. Of course, another reason why he wasn’t good at holding runners is because so few men reached base against him that he rarely had to worry about it.

“Just before the inning started, Terry Francona told me I would be pinch-running for whoever got on base,” Roberts told sports writer Bill Burt prior to the 2018 World Series when the Red Sox met Roberts’ Dodgers. “So I was stretching in the dugout, getting ready. When Kevin walked, Terry looked down the end of the dugout where I was and he winked at me. That was it.”

There was no doubt what was going to happen next and everyone knew it. Roberts was going to try to get himself into scoring position, and Rivera was keenly aware. Jorge Posada went to the mound before Bill Mueller stepped into the batters’ box and given what happened next, it was clear he told Rivera to throw over to Clark at first a few times. Rivera did that three times in an effort to shorten Roberts’ lead, but it had no effect.

Once Roberts saw the move, he was ready and when Rivera finally threw his first pitch, Roberts was off. Posada made a decent throw to Derek Jeter but Roberts beat it and just like that the Red Sox had life. Two pitches later the game was tied as Mueller singled up the middle and Roberts cruised home.

Roberts told Burt that as he was trotting out to first base, he thought back to a conversation he’d had with former base stealing great Maury Wills.

“He told me that some time in your career when you are in a park and everyone knows you are going to be stealing, it will be a big game, and the game or series will hinge on you making it,” said Roberts. “I’m stretching there on first base realizing that Maury was right. This was my moment. It was unbelievable, just like he said. I get chills just thinking about it.”

The importance of that single play was not lost on the Yankees. It’s the little things that so often mean the difference between winning and losing in baseball, and all sports, really. And this was one of those little things in a ballgame that ended up being a humongous thing, not only in that moment, but over the course of the next several days.

“It was just one of those nights where Millar worked the count, got on base, and the biggest key to that inning was David stealing second,” Clark said. “And it’s a game of inches right there with him stealing, because if he doesn’t make it, maybe we’re shaking hands.”

The Red Sox very nearly won the game in the ninth. After Mueller’s single, Clark booted a Johnny Damon grounder and Rivera walked Manny Ramirez to load the bases with two outs. Up stepped Ortiz, but his hero act would have to wait a few innings as he popped out to second to kill the rally.

The Yankees had a great chance in the 11th as they loaded the bases against three Red Sox pitchers, only to have the last one, Curt Leskanic, get Bernie Williams on a fly ball to center as Fenway breathed a sigh of relief.

Leskanic also worked an easy 12th, but such was not the case for New York’s Paul Quantrill. Tom Gordon pitched a couple scoreless innings but Joe Torre didn’t want to push him so he called for Quantrill and, well, that didn’t work out. Ramirez led off with a single and Ortiz followed with a walk-off two-run homer to right.

The Red Sox had staved off elimination, and even though they were still in a cavernous hole, they had made some upward progress in their escape and Torre knew it.

“I’m a firm believer in momentum for a short series,” Torre said. “But it comes down to who pitches the best. Still, I’ve always felt that momentum is easily changed in a short series. We just have to make sure when we go out for the next game we can’t carry this baggage.”

“We’re 3-1 right now, but you never know what can happen,” said Ortiz. “We’ve got to keep playing the game. When you are at home, anything can happen. This is a team that never gives up. Great heart. Even when we lose a game, we still play the game right.”

In 2003, after the Red Sox lost the first two games of the ALCS, Millar boldly predicted that the series was going seven games. And now it was, “Don’t let us win today.”

Well, the Yankees had allowed that to happen. Dazed and wobbled by the barrage of blows the Yankees had delivered in the first three games, the Red Sox were still standing and as Millar sat smiling in the clubhouse he said, “No one here is going to quit. It’s just two heavyweight fighters going at it and that was round four.”

Namath’s Jets won that Super Bowl. Messier’s New York Rangers won that game against the New Jersey Devils which ultimately propelled them to the Stanley Cup finals where they would go on to win for the first time since 1940. And with the story of George Gipp in their hearts and minds, the Fighting Irish rallied in the second half to upset mighty Army.

The Red Sox still had a long way to go, but as Francona had told them following the Game 3 disaster, you can only win one game at a time and Boston had taken that first step.

“The mood’s a little bit better tonight than it was last night,” Francona said with a smile.

NEXT WEDNESDAY: David Ortiz delivered yet another dagger to the Yankees, ending an exhausting, exhilarating Game 5, and now the Red Sox were officially a threat to pull off a historic comeback as the ALCS shifted back to a leery Yankee Stadium.