The Red Sox and the Marlins square off in a confrontation after a batter was hit by a pitch near the end of a crazy 25–8 Boston win in 2003. No punches were landed.
Photo by Corey Sandler
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - E I G H T
At 11:40 p.m., on October 27, 2004, Keith Foulke snared a one-bounce comebacker to the mound. The hands of time seemed to drag as if they were slowed by eighty-six years of frustration. Foulke ran five or six steps to his left and then underhanded the ball—ever so carefully—to Doug Mientkiewicz at first base.
And the 2004 Boston Red Sox were World Series champions.
Three days later, I was on a Duck Boat with the team on an unbelievable parade through Boston. The noise was deafening. It never stopped from the moment we left Fenway all through the streets of Boston. I looked out into the crowd and I saw old ladies and grown men crying. People were yelling “thank you” to us all. I have never experienced anything like that in my life.
And along the way I also saw kids who knew only this team; they didn’t know anything about the history since 1918, about the fact that it had taken eighty-six years—entire lives—between World Series wins in Boston. They didn’t know about Babe Ruth, Bucky Dent, or Bill Buckner; they didn’t know about Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, or Carlton Fisk, either.
There are people here in Boston who thought a celebration like this would never happen. And although every one of the Red Sox players knew it was going to be something special, it was beyond anything they could have ever expected.
But it happened all right. In our lifetime.
The 2004 team will always be remembered. There will be a generation of people who will know every player on this team; they will always remember their names.
Bucky Dent in 1978. Bill Buckner in 1986. Grady Little in 2003.
Did it all start in 1920 when Babe Ruth was sold to the Yankees? Was there a curse of the Bambino on the Boston Red Sox?
I never believed in that stuff. In most cases we simply weren’t good enough to win, and in other instances things have not gone right. Is that a curse? No.
That said, the way the seventh game of the 2003 American League championship between Boston and New York ended was the greatest heartbreak in the history of the Red Sox.
The Red Sox had that game won and they were going to the World Series.
Remember that in the 1986 World Series, when the Red Sox were one strike away from winning before a ball went between Bill Buckner’s legs, it was Game 6. They could have won Game 7.
In 1978 Bucky Dent’s home run came in a tiebreaker game to get to the playoffs. And that was a good game; nothing happened in that game that was bad.
So how did we get from the most disastrous loss in Red Sox history to Duck Boats in the River Charles in 2004?
After the disaster of Game 7 in 2003, Red Sox ownership decided it had to take the team to another level.
The greatest need was to add a closer and another starter. One month to the day after the end of the 2003 World Series, Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein took Keith Foulke to a basketball game (the New York Knicks against the Boston Celtics, as a matter of fact), trying to acquaint him with the sport culture of the city. Foulke got a huge ovation from the fans at the game, and he hadn’t even agreed to pitch here yet.
And then there was Curt Schilling. He had a choice: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and probably some other teams. I think what the Red Sox told him was something like: You can go to New York where they have already won the series more than a few times, or you can come to Boston and do something that this place hasn’t done in eighty-six years. Schilling accepted that challenge.
With their victory in 2004, the Red Sox were freed from their biggest demon, the feeling that they could not get past the Yankees. They are absolutely past that, and mostly because of the way they did it.
Believe me, there were some very long faces around the Red Sox executive offices when they were down 0–3 in the ALCS. Everybody was in disbelief because nobody expected the series to go that way.
They were probably already thinking, “How are we going to handle this?” To be swept away by New York would have thrown a whole season’s goodwill out the window. It would have been absolutely crushing because the team was put together to go to that next level. If they had lost in seven games, that might have been a different story, but to be swept would have been shattering.
Then they turned it around. They won the last four against the Yankees and then swept the St. Louis Cardinals in four games in the World Series. To win eight postseason games in a row against the best teams still standing is remarkable; it is hard enough to win eight in a row during the regular season.
But once the Yankee series was over, there was no stopping the Red Sox. Boston’s pitching was far superior to that of the Cardinals. St. Louis had a very good offense, but the Red Sox were able to expose a lot of their hitters’ weaknesses, which is a credit to the scouting department.
The Red Sox went from trying to figure out “What the heck are we going to do next?” to the greatest victory they ever had, the greatest comeback in the history of baseball.
The comeback erased a lot of things: It erased the Bambino. And we’re not going to hear the chants of “1918” at Yankee Stadium. That is all gone.
The Red Sox started out strong in 2004 but went into an extended period of .500 ball in midseason, and at one point it looked like they might not even get the wild card playoff spot. What was the pivot point? Was it the fight between Alex Rodríguez and Jason Varitek on July 24, the trade of Nomar Garciaparra a week later, or something else?
The fight may have been a factor. It made a statement that Varitek and the Red Sox were not going to take a backseat to anybody.
The Garciaparra trade was obviously big because it—along with other deals made at the trading deadline—made the Red Sox a much, much deeper team.
One of the things that was killing Boston was that its defense was inconsistent, giving up so many unearned runs. So, they added Doug Mientkiewicz for defense at first base, picked up speed with outfielder Dave Roberts, and got a very steady shortstop in Orlando Cabrera. Then they got Bill Mueller back from knee surgery, and he began to hit.
The way I looked at it, they had played the middle three months of the season like they were running in quicksand. When things came together in a short period of time at the end of July, the team started to play with the confidence that we expected them to show from the beginning of the season.
I really can’t say if this team would have been as good at the end of the season with Garciaparra as it was without him. I do know he was not healthy, and the front office was very, very concerned over the fact that the team was going to be in a pennant drive and he was not going to be able to play. So the Red Sox thought they had to make a move. And the fact that Nomar was at the end of his contract played a part. It didn’t look like they were going to be able to sign him again.
To me it was like trading Yaz or Jim Rice. Nomar was the most popular Red Sox almost from the first day he came up from the minors. He was never booed. He always hustled and played hard. The people loved him. He was an All-Star player.
I’m sure they were holding their breath in the front office; they weren’t quite sure how this was going to play out. But it turned out to be one of the most courageous, gutsy moves that any organization has made.
The team immediately started to play better, so it took pressure off Cabrera. Toward the end of the year, nobody was even talking about Nomar. In some ways it was kind of sad, because he was such a great player for so many years. On the other hand, it just goes to show that all people want is a championship. It doesn’t matter how you get there, just get there and win.
Bronson Arroyo, who stepped in and did a very solid job as the fifth starter for Boston in 2004, was involved in two of the most memorable moments of the championship season. He’s a breaking ball pitcher who fooled a lot of guys with good stuff.
I’ve already mentioned the July 24 fight between Alex Rodríguez and Jason Varitek—and the rest of the Yankee and Red Sox teams. Arroyo threw the pitch that hit A-Rod. It was an accident, not a purpose pitch. A-Rod had some unpleasant words for Arroyo, and Jason Varitek stepped up to protect his pitcher, and there was yet again a Red Sox–Yankees push-and-shove.
That seemed like ancient history by the night of Game 6 of the ALCS, as the Red Sox were battling back from losing the first three games of the playoff. Arroyo came in to relieve Curt Schilling in the eighth inning with Boston holding on to a thin 4–1 lead. Arroyo gave up a double and a single, and suddenly the Yankees were only down by two runs with A-Rod at the plate.
Arroyo got Rodríguez to bounce a weak grounder to the right of the mound; the pitcher grabbed the ball and ran toward first base. At the last minute, he chose to tag A-Rod instead of stepping on the bag or throwing to an infielder. And A-Rod slapped the ball out of Arroyo’s glove.
At first I didn’t think there was anything wrong with what A-Rod did. I was trying to figure out the difference between that play up the first-base line and one involving a player trying to knock the ball out of the catch-er’s glove at home plate.
I searched the rule book to see where it says you can’t slap at the ball, and it is not in there. But it is in the umpire’s interpretation of the rules, and they ruled A-Rod out and brought Jeter back to first base. The Yankee’s rally was over.
A-Rod should have run right through Arroyo and knocked him over. That’s what most guys would have done.
The Boston Red Sox won it all, which is proof enough that it was a fine team. Curt Schilling was every bit as good as advertised, Pedro Martínez had a solid year, and Keith Foulke shut the door almost without exception when games were on the line. And the lineup was one of the best, supported by a strong bench with some key strengths. Let’s take a look at some of the key contributions by players who brought the trophy home to Boston.
2004 Regular season: W–L 21–6, 3.26 ERA, 226.2 IP, 203 K, 35 BB, 1.06 WHIP
2004 Postseason: W–L 3–1, 3.57 ERA, 16.2 IP, 13 K, 4 BB, 1.08 WHIP
2004 World Series: W–L 1–0, 0.00 ERA, 6.0 IP, 4 K, 1 BB, 0.83 WHIP
Curt Schilling’s performance in the season was great, but his pitching in the postseason is a story that will always be remembered in Boston. He had a nagging ankle injury through the second half of the regular season; it became much worse in the ALDS in Anaheim. And then he had a bad start in the opening of the ALCS against the Yankees, and there was some doubt whether he would even be able to pitch again in 2004.
By the sixth game of the ALCS, the guy probably didn’t belong on the pitcher’s mound, but somehow he was able to go out there and not only pitch, but also pitch well. That’s probably the lead story of Boston’s championship season, because without him the Red Sox would not have been able to do what they did. They would not have come back.
Schilling’s story is going to be up there with guys like Larry Bird coming out of the trainer’s room to score some points for the Celtics. Or Kirk Gibson of the Dodgers hobbling up to the plate to pinch-hit a game-winning home run against Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley in the 1988 World Series.
Schilling’s accomplishment was even greater because he had to pitch most of a game, and not just come up for one at bat. He had to pitch seven innings against the Yankees and then six more against the Cardinals with his ankle sutured together.
2004 Regular season: W–L 16–9, 3.90 ERA, 217.0 IP, 227 K, 61 BB, 1.17 WHIP
2004 Postseason: W–L 2–1, 4.00 ERA, IP, 26 K, 13 BB, 1.33 WHIP
2004 World Series: W–L 1–0, 0.00 ERA, 7.0 IP, 6 K, 2 BB, 0.71 WHIP
For a stretch of time, Pedro Martinez was the best pitcher I have ever seen. He could come out and throw 97 MPH on the first pitch of the game. By 2004 he couldn’t do that any more, but he still showed that when he had to, he could get up there—94 or 95 MPH—when he needed it.
Pedro is a very proud man, and sometimes he makes that much too obvious. In September 2004, after a game in which the Yankees finally got to him in the eighth inning to defeat him, Martínez faced the press and let loose with the following: “What can I say? Just tip my hat and call the Yankees my daddy. I can’t find a way to beat them at this point. . . . I wish they would disappear and not come back.”
He had faced the Yankees so many times over the past few years, and things had not always gone well for him in those games. That was what came out of his mouth, and it became a lightning rod for Yankee fans. He had no secret plan.
But I also think the best game Pedro pitched in his life was against New York in Yankee Stadium. That came on September 10, 1999, when he pitched a one-hitter (giving up a Chili Davis home run) while striking out seventeen Yankees.
2004 Regular season: W–L 5–3, 32 saves, 2.17 ERA, 83.0 IP, 79 K, 15 BB, 0.94 WHIP
2004 Postseason: W–L 1–0, 3 saves, 0.64 ERA, 14 IP, 19 K, 8 BB, 1.07 WHIP
2004 World Series: W–L 1–0, 1 save, 1.80 ERA, 5.0 IP, 8 K, 1 BB, 1.00 WHIP
To me Keith Foulke was the MVP of the 2004 postseason. In the Yankee series he pitched in five of the seven games, giving up one hit and zero runs over six innings. In the World Series he threw in all four games, giving up just four hits in five innings and a single run.
For the entire postseason he had an ERA of 0.64, winning one game, saving three, and making appearances in eleven of fourteen games. He gave up a total of seven hits in fourteen innings.
Over the full season he had a few ups and downs, but when it was on the line, he was unhittable. It gave the whole team a level of confidence to know that when the game was close, you could bring in a guy like Foulke and the team was going to win. And that just filters down through the whole team.
2004 Regular season: 621 AB, .304 average, 35 doubles, 6 triples, 20 HR, 94 RBI, .380 OBP
2004 Postseason: 71 AB, .268 average, 3 doubles, 1 triple, 3 HR, 9 RBI, .297 OBP
2004 World Series: 21 AB, .286 average, 2 doubles, 1 triple, 1 HR, 2 RBI, .286 OBP
Johnny Damon was the catalyst for the team, and when he didn’t hit well, they didn’t play well. He had the best year of his career, driving in and scoring runs from start to finish; one of the ways you win pennants is when individual players put up career numbers.
2004 Regular season: 523 AB, .264 average, 37 doubles, 3 triples, 17 HR, 82 RBI, .373 OBP
2004 Postseason: 47 AB, .191 average, 3 doubles, 0 triples, 3 HR, 8 RBI, .397 OBP
2004 World Series: 10 AB, .300 average, 1 double, 0 triples, 1 HR, 4 RBI, .563 OBP
Mark Bellhorn put up some of the strangest numbers I have ever seen. I have never seen a guy with so many strikeouts, so many walks, and so many key home runs.
He tried to draw counts in his favor, and when it was, the numbers were remarkable. Bellhorn hit .264 overall, and when he was ahead in the count, he hit .344. Down in the count, he dropped to .159.
2004 Regular season: 568 AB, .308 average, 44 doubles, 0 triples, 43 HR, 130 RBI, .397 OBP
2004 Postseason: 60 AB, .350 average, 3 doubles, 0 triples, 2 HR, 11 RBI, .423 OBP
2004 World Series: 17 AB, .412 average, 0 doubles, 0 triples, 1 HR, 4 RBI, .412 OBP
In 2004 Manny was pretty much what Manny has been his whole career. You know you are going to get huge numbers out of him offensively. And you know that he is going to do some things that are going to drive you crazy. I think people finally accepted that in Boston. And he was helped out tremendously by having David Ortiz batting behind him.
2004 Regular season: 582 AB, .301 average, 47 doubles, 3 triples, 41 HR, 139 RBI, .380 OBP
2004 Postseason: 55 AB, .268 average, 3 doubles, 1 triple, 5 HR, 19 RBI, .515 OBP
2004 World Series: 13 AB, .308 average, 1 double, 0 triples, 1 HR, 4 RBI, .471 OBP
David Ortiz was the team’s most valuable player in its championship year. At the end of 2002, this guy was not an issue in baseball; he came to Boston from Minnesota as a not-much-sought-after free agent.
Fenway Park really works for him. I think it made him a much better player because he realized he could move the ball the other way to left field and do a lot of damage with home runs and balls off the wall.
I have always said left-handed hitters who can go to the opposite field in Boston and have the strength to get the ball off the wall become much better hitters because they stay on the ball longer. He has become one of the biggest threats in the American League.
It seems like everything he does comes at the right time. He wins games, and he has got to be one of the best pickups in the club’s history.
2004 Regular season: 463 AB, .296 average, 30 doubles, 1 triple, 18 HR, 73 RBI, .390 OBP
2004 Postseason: 53 AB, .245 average, 1 double, 1 triple, 3 HR, 11 RBI, .328 OBP
2004 World Series: 13 AB, .154 average, 0 doubles, 1 triple, 0 HR, 2 RBI, .267 OBP
Jason Varitek has become the heart and soul of the team. I have already talked about the preparation he puts in as a catcher and how he is able to put aside his offense and go back to concentrate on defense. It is not easy for anybody, but he does it better than any player I have ever seen.
I look at Varitek and I see what a baseball player should be. He plays his rear end off day in and day out, prepares well for the game, doesn’t let one side of the ball affect the other side, and shuts his mouth and does what he is supposed to do.
2004 Regular season: 149 AB, .315 average, 9 doubles, 1 triple, 6 HR, 23 RBI, .377 OBP
2004 Postseason: 51 AB, .255 average, 4 doubles, 0 triples, 1 HR, 8 RBI, .296 OBP
2004 World Series: 14 AB, .357 average, 3 doubles, 0 triples, 0 HR, 3 RBI, .400 OBP
Right from the start it was a tough year for Trot Nixon because of injuries; it was very frustrating for him. He appeared in only forty-eight games and got only 149 at bats. But I said during the season: If this guy can get healthy and into the postseason and do some things that are going to help the team, all that will be forgotten. That’s exactly what happened.
2004 Regular season: 508 AB, .297 average, 36 doubles, 0 triples, 18 HR, 57 RBI, .383 OBP
2004 Postseason: 42 AB, .238 average, 4 doubles, 0 triples, 1 HR, 6 RBI, .373 OBP
2004 World Series: 8 AB, .125 average, 1 double, 0 triples, 0 HR, 0 RBI, .364 OBP
It is no coincidence that when Kevin Millar got hot, things started to turn around for the team. Here’s a guy who provided a lot of offense for Boston in 2003, but then he struggled in the first half of the 2004 season. He had to bounce around from the outfield to first base, which is not easy to do.
Then he opened up his stance, got hot, and stayed hot the rest of the year.
2004 Regular season: 399 AB, .283 average, 27 doubles, 1 triple, 12 HR, 57 RBI, .365 OBP
2004 Postseason: 56 AB, .321 average, 3 doubles, 0 triples, 0 HR, 3 RBI, .406 OBP
2004 World Series: 14 AB, .429 average, 2 doubles, 0 triples, 0 HR, 2 RBI, .556 OBP
Having the defending batting champion hitting seventh, eighth, or ninth is huge, because then there is no letup in the lineup.
Bill Mueller did so many things right. When they needed to move a guy over, he moved him over. If you needed a sacrifice fly to bring home a run, he got it done.
He was out of the lineup for the middle third of the season after knee surgery. It is not easy to come back in midseason, but you could see him get better and better as the year went on. In September, in the playoffs, and in the World Series, it was like he had never been injured.
2004 Regular season (Montreal and Boston): 618 AB, .264 average, 38 doubles, 3 triple, 10 HR, 62 RBI, .306 OBP
2004 Postseason: 59 AB, .288 average, 4 doubles, 0 triples, 0 HR, 11 RBI, .377 OBP
2004 World Series: 17 AB, .235 average, 1 double, 0 triples, 0 HR, 3 RBI, .381 OBP
Cabrera was not a flashy defensive player but a very solid one. He had very good hands and a conventional throwing arm right over the top, and he threw strikes in the infield.
He always seemed to be in the right position and was excellent at turning the double play, just what you would like to have in a shortstop. I am sure that knowing they had a guy out there who was going to catch everything brought confidence to the pitchers.
2004 Regular season (Minnesota and Boston): 391 AB, .238 average, 24 doubles, 1 triple, 6 HR, 35 RBI, .326 OBP
2004 Postseason: 9 AB, .444 average, 1 double, 0 triples, 0 HR, 1 RBI, .444 OBP
2004 World Series: 1 AB, .000 average, 0 doubles, 0 triples, 0 HR, 0 RBI, .000 OBP
Doug Mientkiewicz was an everyday player who lost his job in Minnesota not because of his ability, but because they wanted to go with a younger player; the Red Sox were fortunate to get him. When he got here, Millar got hot again, and that cut down Mientkiewicz’s playing time. But he saved many runs with his defense. It seems like every time he was in a game, he made a big play.
2004 Regular season: 528 AB, .260 average, 11 doubles, 0 triples, 7 HR, 35 RBI, .367 OBP
2004 Postseason: 2 AB, .000 average, 0 doubles, 0 triples, 0 HR, 0 RBI, .000 OBP
2004 World Series: Not on roster
Kevin Youkilis did a good job filling in for Mueller when he was hurt, and Youkilis became a very popular player with the fans. He only played sixty-four games at Pawtucket, so he basically made the jump from Double A ball and was thrown into a pressure cooker in Boston on a team that was supposed to win. He fit in well and played a valuable role.