Hardball Hyperbole: Chapter 35

I know this hurts to read, but in today’s edition, the Curse of the Bambino is officially exorcized as the Red Sox rolled past the Cardinals to end their 86-year World Series drought. This is the final chapter of Hardball Hyperbole. I hope you enjoyed it, and if I ever put it together in book form, I hope you might consider purchasing it for yourself, or perhaps for a friend or family member. Next Wednesday, I’ll be debuting a new history series.

The morning after the Red Sox broke the so-called Curse of the Bambino - a ridiculous notion that such a thing ever existed - the New York Daily News’ back page screamed with envy.

“See You in 2090” the headline read over a picture of Boston catcher Jason Varitek jumping into the arms of closer Keith Foulke after the Red Sox completed a laughably easy four-game sweep of the overwhelmed Cardinals to win their first World Series in 86 years.

Sadly for Yankees fans, the Red Sox did not need 86 years as the Daily News suggested to win another World Series. They won again in 2007, and then again in 2013, and another in 2018, wiping out the Yankees on the way to that last one.

Meanwhile the Yankees have won only the 2009 World Series since the night Johnny Damon crushed them in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS with his two home runs to cap the greatest comeback in baseball postseason history. What a world we now live in, one where the Red Sox have four times as many world championships in the last two decades as the Yankees.

However, as miserable as all of this has been for those who root for the pinstripes, that cannot alter the fact that the Red Sox winning the 2004 World Series was one of the great stories in sports history.

Given all the history and heartbreak that led up to that indelible moment when St. Louis’ Edgar Renteria tapped weakly to the mound and Foulke fielded and tossed to first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz to wrap up the Series-clinching 3-0 victory at Busch Stadium, Boston’s run to the championship is one of those events that will forever be etched in lore.

That’s a tough pill for Yankees fans to swallow, but it’s the reality.

“All of our fans waited their entire lives for this,” Red Sox owner John Henry said. “We won’t even need the airplane to fly home.”

Bob Hohler of the Boston Globe described this band of self-proclaimed idiots as “avengers of 86 years of raw yearning” and it’s tough to argue with that. Think of all the great players who gave their hearts and souls to Boston wearing the Red Sox uniform who could not do what this team did.

The names roll off the tongue: Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Lefty Grove, Carl Yastrzemski, Bobby Doerr, Jimmie Foxx, Carlton Fisk, and Jim Rice - all members of the Baseball Hall of Fame - could not bring a championship to Fenway Park. Neither could dozens of other stars who spent time with the Red Sox. But this team, led by Damon, Varitek, Foulke, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Pedro Martinez, and Curt Schilling did.

“We’re world champions,” Schilling said. “There’s no living player who can say what we can say today: We’re the world champion Boston Red Sox.”

Crazy.

“I’m sure there are a lot of people in New England who are dancing in the streets right now,” Francona said. “For that, I’m thrilled.”

There were a lot of people dancing in their graves, too. In the weeks and months that followed, we were inundated with amazing and touching stories of the living going to celebrate with the dead. Generations of family who never got to enjoy what their offspring did in 2004.

So many fathers who played catch with their sons, went to their Little League games and told them to do things the way Williams or Doerr or Yaz did, then took them to Fenway Park to root for those players and all the others who in the end would always find a way to disappoint them.

Even for the wait ‘til next year Brooklyn Dodgers, the wait ended that one year in 1955, but not for the post-Babe Ruth Red Sox. Not until 2004, and when it happened the skies parted and tears of joy from the heavens rained down on Red Sox Nation.

“All that adversity makes it that much sweeter,” said general manager Theo Epstein, a man who while only 30 years old experienced some of that adversity having grown up in Brookline a Red Sox fan. “You start thinking about Ted Williams and Yaz and everyone else who should have had one of these. This one will mean more than any that come after it because of all that happened before it.”

Foulke had only joined the team in 2004, but he fully understood what had happened.

“You can’t play in Boston and not be aware of what the tradition is, what the history is,” said Foulke, who turned out to be one of Boston’s most important free agent signings in years. “I wanted to come here and be a part of history. Eight months later, we did it.”

After the incredible ALCS victory over the Yankees, it would have been perfectly reasonable to think the Red Sox might not have enough left to beat a Cardinals team that posted MLB’s best regular-season record at 105-57, then mowed down the Dodgers in four games and survived a grueling seven-game NLCS battle with the upstart Astros.

That could not have been further from the truth. Rather than being physically and emotionally drained, the Red Sox were bursting with energy and the Cardinals never stood a chance in the World Series. The rally against the Yankees created a tidal wave of momentum and there was nothing Tony LaRussa’s deep and talented team could do to stop a Boston bunch that was kissed by destiny.

The Series was so one-sided, the Red Sox never even trailed in any of the four games. In fact, there were only two innings that ended with the score being tied, both of those in Game 1, a slugfest at Fenway that saw the teams combine for 20 runs on 24 hits with Boston surviving in the end 11-9.

Ortiz hit a three-run homer as part of a four-run first inning, and the Cardinals spent the rest of the night trying to catch up. They did so twice, tying the score at 7-7 with two runs in the sixth, and after Ortiz and Ramirez each drove in runs in the seventh, St. Louis answered with two in the eighth, helped by a pair of errors by Ramirez in left field.

However, the relentless Red Sox merely sniffed at that and Mark Bellhorn hit a game-winning two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth.

The next night Schilling and his bloody ankle dominated the Cardinals for six innings as Boston won 6-2. Schilling gave up just one unearned run on four hits and a walk and the bullpen covered the final three innings without incident.

Once again, the Red Sox jumped out early when Cardinals starter Matt Morris walked Ramirez and Ortiz and both chugged home on a triple by Varitek in the first inning. Bellhorn had a two-run double in the fourth and Orlando Cabrera put it out of reach with a two-run single in the sixth.

On to St. Louis where the Cardinals simply went splat in Game 3. Pedro blanked them for seven innings on just three hits and Boston cruised to a 4-1 victory. Ramirez, who would be voted the Series MVP, hit a solo homer in the first and later had an RBI single in the fifth and that was more than enough as a Cardinals team that ranked third in OPS and scored the sixth-most runs in 2004 had no response.

It was a demoralizing loss for St. Louis, if for no other reason than this: Only one MLB team in history had rallied from down 3-0 to win a series, and that had just happened the week before. It was pretty unlikely that lightning would strike twice in the same place, and it didn’t.

Unlike the Yankees, when the Red Sox smelled blood they attacked and made sure to put the Cardinals out of their misery. Damon led off Game 4 with a home run, Nixon tacked on a two-run double in the third, and behind Derek Lowe’s seven three-hit shutout innings, the Red Sox barely broke a sweat in winning 3-0.

“Give them credit, congratulate them on being the world champions,” LaRussa said. “I mean they outplayed us in every category, so it ended up not being a terrific competition.”

Back in Boston and all throughout New England, fans partied in the streets, families weeped in each others’ arms, church bells rang from town to town, and yes, graveyards became busier than the Mass Turnpike as mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles and cousins shared the moment with their dearly departed loved ones.

Not knowing what the Daily News headline was going to be the next day, Red Sox team president Larry Lucchino said, “Eighty-six years is quite a struggle. And you can’t ignore that. But we don’t want to win a World Series championship once every 86 years. We’d like to come back and do it again soon.”