October 16 , 2003: American League Championship Series Game Seven
Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees, Yankee Stadium

Seeds of Contentment
A Special Report by Nick Stone

When my friend Mark announced that he was going to get playoff tickets this year, my initial response (well, at least in my head) was pure Bouton: "Yeah, suuure." Hadn't Mark seen the perennial news stories about the people who camped out at Yankee Stadium, only to come up short in their hunt for playoff tickets? Could Mark possibly be so naive as to think he could just "call up" and get playoff tickets with the offhand ease of a dinner reservation on an off night at an off restaurant?

I wasn't too concerned; after all, my season ticket plan afforded me several playoff game opportunities. The biggest possible hurdle would be drawing names out of a hat to see who got which games. But, sudden marriages, foreign visitors, and a cross-dressing comedian meant that I couldn't go to any of the playoff games that our season ticket package offered.

Call it beginner's luck, American can-do, or a willingness to settle for tickets to non-guaranteed games, but Mark managed to get 4 tickets to Game 7 of the ALCS. At that point in the Divisional Series, the Sox were playing the A's like they had a plane to catch, so Mark, a Boston native, sounded a bit quixotic forecasting a Sox/Yanks game 7. Frankly, I couldn't imagine anything worse. I hate the Red Sox nearly as much as I love the Yankees. Outside of the occasional sushi bet, I'm not a gambling man, and the idea of the Red Sox getting that close to trumping the Yankees, and that close to the World Series was enough to give me a serious case of the heebeejeebees. Ever since Game 6 in 1986, I've had this deep-seated feeling that the Red Sox aren't meant to win the World Series. If they ever did, it might be a sign of the apocalypse, or something, although I'm sure that this hyperbolic sense of dread has something to do with being a Yankees fan. After all, a Red Sox fan could just as easily suggest that the bad karma of selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees was responsible for the failure of the treaty of Versailles, or something.

As Trot Nixon's two-run homer sailed into the upper deck in the ninth inning of this year's Game 6 of the ALCS, it became painfully clear that I wouldn't be spending Thursday night in the cozy confines of my girlfriend's apartment. In addition, to Mark and a friend of his from Boston, I was joined by my step-dad for Game 7, creating a full complement of Red Sox fans. I wasn't optimistic about the the Yankees chances, because a) as much as the Yankees have Pedro's number, beating him two starts in a row is a tall order; and b) I'm a strong believer in the power of negative reinforcement.

The Red Sox three-run second inning confirmed all my worst fears, and ruined my appetite. My step-dad and I had planned to go for three feet of hot dogs each (well, he did — I didn't expect to make it past two). I quit after one foot-long, and took refuge in the only thing that could give me solace: sunflower seeds. Only the soothing repetition of shelling seeds with my teeth would carry me through what I feared would be a long, inevitable march towards a Red Sox celebration, with several rest stops along the way for homeruns by Manny, Nomar, and that guy who looks like Harry Shearer in A Mighty Wind. Luckily I was in the aisle seat, so I could spit out the shells without a cup, and create my own personal dugout mess of misery. If the Yankees were going to lose, I at least wanted to create a monument of sorts.

Needless to say, the top of the fourth didn't raise my hopes. With a run in and runners on first and third and nobody out, I was so convinced that the cause was lost that I wasn't even mad at Roger Clemens when he left the mound. I joined the standing ovation, as if the Red Sox success tonight was so long established, that I had already accepted the loss and could appreciate that this was the last time I would see Clemens walk off the mound. When Mike Mussina got out of the fourth-inning jam, I realized that he might have saved the game, but the lead seemed insurmountable enough already; what difference would another couple of runs make?

Maybe it was because the Red Sox fans I had come with were old enough to remember previous disappointments, but there was no premature jocularity coming from their end. Through the middle innings I continued to spit seeds with a singled-minded intensity, as if that was the only thing that could keep the Yankees in the game. That the Yankees had only managed one run through four innings off Pedro worried me, but I was more worried by what my pitch counter told me. The Yankees hadn't been patient at the plate, and the fragile Pedro, who was usually only good for a hundred pitches, might be able to make it into or through the eighth inning.

While I was happy that Giambi cut into the lead with his solo homer in the bottom of the seventh, I was ecstatic that with an aborted two-out rally, the Yankees had managed to push Pedro's pitch count to nearly 100. But David Ortiz's leadoff home run in the top of the eighth quickly made it seem academic.

As the bottom of the eighth inning unfolded, I became convinced that my consuming of Ruthian quantities of sunflower seeds was essential to the success of the Yankee rally (I also wore the same Bernie Williams T-shirt for three straight LCS games. Am I superstitious? Maybe a little). Postseason baseball, especially in the later innings, slows to a crawl, especially during a late inning rally. It's as if every hitter gets in touch with his inner Mike "The Human Rain Delay" Hargrove. I'd long since finished my last beer, and the copious quantities of seeds I was consuming had completely dried out my mouth.

With each click of my pitch counter I got more excited, knowing that Pedro's effectiveness decreases dramatically after 100 pitches. After Matsui's double, with Pedro's pitch count nearly 120, I couldn't believe manager Grady Little left him in. I couldn't help but think back to Game 5 of the 2000 World Series, when Bobby Valentine left a completely gassed Al Leiter in the game long enough to give up the series-winning runs. As Little walked off the mound, the stadium shook, and I struggled to get out a cheer through my mouthful of seeds. It seemed like an eternity until Posada's double dropped into short center, and the whole stadium, myself included, erupted as the tying runs came round to score. My celebration was short-lived, as I was hit with a wave of nausea; the yelling and screaming was more than my dry mouth could take.

After that, I knew the Yankees would win, more or less. There was a moment of trepidation when Alfonso Soriano saved a run in the top of the ninth by catching a blooper on the fly, but Mariano Rivera managed to hold the Sox for three innings. As Aaron Boone's eleventh-inning first-pitch smash off of Tim Wakefield rocketed out of view into the right field corner, the roar of the crowd told me that it was all over. As "New York, New York" blared on the PA, I was high-fiving strangers, while my step-dad and friends stoically came to terms with another late-season Red Sox collapse.

Final Score: Yankees 6, Red Sox 5. BOX SCORE

Andra Hardt's report from Game 7

Jay's writeup of Game 7