(Chris Lee/St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Players from David Ortiz to David Roberts all played a role in the thrilling finish to the 2004 Red Sox season, but there was another factor at work as the days grew shorter and colder that fall -- one that I believe helped propel Boston from the brink of a four-game ALCS sweep at the hands of the Yankees to a World Series championship in just 10 days.
Whether the spirit of George Herman Ruth had something to do with the miracle turnaround, no one is certain, but there was one living Babe who I will always feel was part of the seismic shift of success that saw Boston finally come out on top.
The story actually began a year earlier, in October of 2003, when the Red Sox were on the brink of beating the Yankees in Game 7 of the ALCS. Like any fan, I was doing everything I could to send good karma from my family room to the Bronx. I had my Pedro Martinez bobblehead and '75 American League championship banner atop theTV, and was watching Pedro cruise his way to victory when my friend Scott came strolling through the front door. It was the seventh inning and the Red Sox were winning, 4-1.
"Can you believe this? We're going to the World Series!" Scott yelled. He and I had been attending Sox games together since high school, and had been taunted into submission by Mets fans as Syracuse classmates in 1986, so he was looking forward to a chance at redemption.
Thanks, Scott. (Boston Red Sox)
"Shut up, you idiot," I yelled, but of course it was too late. Just like I did when I asked my girlfriend Wendy to take a photo of me and the TV screen when Calvin Schiraldi got the final out of the '86 World Series, Scott had chosen his words poorly. An inning later a tiring Pedro was driven from the game, and the Yankees wound up winning the pennant in 11 innings.
Nine months later, on August 16, 2004, the Red Sox were slated to meet the Blue Jays at Fenway Park. I was also on Brookline Avenue that night, but not at Fenway. I was a few blocks away, at Beth Israel Hospital, with my wife, Michelle, for the birth of our daughter, Rachel.
The Sox were a less-than-stellar 64-52 at the time, 10.5 games behind New York in the American League East and battling with Anaheim, Minnesota, and several other teams for the Wild Card lead. The blockbuster trades that had sent Nomar Garciaparra to the Cubs and brought Orlando Cabrera, Doug Mientkiewicz, and Roberts to Boston were still being dissected by the media -- the merits of the deals yet to be determined.
Would Cabrera be key? No one knew yet.
Then, seemingly all at once, everything clicked. The Red Sox pulled away from Toronto for an 8-4 victory on the 16th, and over the next three weeks kept winning, and winning, and winning. By the time Pedro and Big Papi fueled a 8-3 rout at Oakland on Sept. 8, Boston had gone 20-2 since Rachel's birth -- one of the hottest stretches in team history.
As the New York lead in the East kept shrinking, and the Wild Card advantage expanding, I began to wonder if perhaps my little baby girl was some sort of living, breathing talisman. Maybe the tiny Red Sox hat I put in her bed at the hospital had given her some power to produce victories.
Working her magic.
I took to calling the turnaround of the team the "Rachel Effect" and I still believe it had something to do with what transpired that October. You better believe Rachel was up and watching every out of the World Series, along with our son, Jason. Back then, when people still believed in curses and victory parades were not a common occurrence in Boston, Red Sox fans looked for luck wherever we could find it.
Scott, however, was barred from the premises.
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