The scars of my sports fandom were forged in the third base grandstand of Fenway Park.
When my maternal grandfather, Ray Paradiso, returned home to his adopted country after coming ashore at Omaha Beach and helping the world beat back fascism in World War II, he checked a few items off his personal to-do list.
Securing Red Sox season tickets, in that third base grandstand, was atop that list.
Those seats, acquired in 1946, were in our family for decades. Like every other Red Sox fan, the dates that were hurled in our direction in the years that followed them became badges of honor. “Armor yourself in it,” as Tyrion Lannister said, “and it can never be used to hurt you.”
1946? Sure. 1967? Yep. 1975? Everyone remembers Carlton Fisk waving his 12th-inning home run fair, a scene immortalized in Good Will Hunting for a new generation, and witnessed in person that night by my mom and aunt from those grandstand seats, but Red Sox fans remember what happened next.
A loss in Game 7, and another bitter winter.
That loss was wiped away in the minds of many, akin to Fisk waving a ball fair, but not for Boston fans.
There was 1978 and Bucky “Bleepin’” Dent. 1986, and Bill Buckner, and many more sleepless nights.
For me, more than anything else, it was 2003. It was Grady Little leaving Pedro Martinez in, and the sounds from Yankee Stadium that followed. It was Aaron Boone. It was a fly ball lofted into the upper deck at Yankee Stadium, sending the hated New York Yankees back to the World Series, sending thousands of Yankees fans into bedlam, and leaving me a crumpled mess on an apartment floor, wondering if the old saying about so many Red Sox fans would come true for me:
“They killed my elders and they’re coming for me.”
Above all, the number that serenaded us most, everywhere we went, was this one. 1918. The last time the Red Sox won a World Series. Thoughts of curses, of blunders, of errors, and more, summed up in one year.
Then came 2004.
There was something oddly different about that team, a group of players that instead of shying away from the history seemed to lean into it. While those seats in the third base grandstand had been passed on to a new generation in the years prior, with my grandfather’s eyesight failing and me moving away for school, the love of the Red Sox never wavered. Instead of watching games in person together, we would watch them on television apart, catching up on the phone every few days, sometimes during the games themselves.
The baseball gods would have it no other way. Another Yankees-Red Sox American League Championship Series. It had to be them yet again. This time, it felt different in the hours leading up to the first pitch of Game 1 — as I nervously eyed every bottle of alcohol in that same apartment — this group would come through.
Then came a loss in Game 1. Another in Game 2, and a 19-8 blowout in Game 3, the first game of the series at Fenway Park, and the nauseating sound of a stunned Boston crowd combined with a celebrating Yankees’ dugout.
They weren’t just coming for me; they were finishing the job.
Tough phone calls to home followed. Calls with my father Alden, who had brought me to so many of those games and who coached me as my own dreams of playing shortstop for the Boston nine gave way to the harsh reality of what hitting a curve ball really requires, as we wondered if a comeback was possible.
As well as with my grandfather.
It was over. Done. Why believe anymore? Why tune in on Sunday night?
But, they still believed. Not me, not Ray, and not Alden.
No, that ragtag group of self-described idiots still believed.
“Do not let us win tonight,” was the rallying cry of Kevin Millar.
They did win that night, and later that day in Game 5, given how Game 4 ended after midnight on the East Coast when David Ortiz hit a two-run walk-off home run in the bottom of the 12th inning. Somehow, some way, the Red Sox were headed back to New York City, trailing three games to two in the series.
The conversations with home were a little different ahead of Game 6.
That game is known for Curt Schilling and his bloody sock, but there is another moment that felt all too familiar for Red Sox fans. In the eighth inning Bronson Arroyo, on in relief of Shilling, gave up a double to Miguel Cairo and then a single to Derek Jeter that brought Cairo to the plate and cut a Boston lead to 4-2.
The next batter was none other than Alex Rodriguez, who dribbled a slow roller up the first base line. Coming down off the mound to field it was Arroyo, who went to apply the tag on Rodriguez. But as he went to apply the tag, Rodriguez’s left arm knocked the ball out of Arroyo’s glove. The ball rolled into right field, allowing Jeter to score and Rodriguez to advance to second.
This felt like the quintessential Red Sox moment, one that would soon join the others, alongside Dent, Buckner, Boone, and the rest. Yankees fans were joyous because they knew the history all too well. This was the start of it, the inevitable collapse that would bury the 2004 Red Sox for good.
Then, an umpire conference.
Then the signal.
Rodriguez was out for interference, and Jeter was sent back to first. The score remained 4-2, Boston.
It’s hard to describe what this moment felt like for Boston fans. This was Dent’s fly ball falling short of the Green Monster and landing harmlessly in Carl Yazstremski’s glove in 1978. This was Buckner fielding the grounder cleanly in 1986. This was Pesky throwing home in 1946 to get Enos Slaughter at the plate instead of hesitating.
This was Boone’s fly ball drifting foul, or Fisk coming back and hitting another homer to win Game 7, too.
Yankees fans were incensed, and debris rained down from Yankee Stadium. But order was restored, and the Red Sox got out of the inning.
And ultimately, the game.
We were heading to a decisive Game 7.
The Yankees tried everything, even bringing out Dent himself to throw out the first pitch. But this time, the die was cast. Boston scored two in the first, four in the second, and held an 8-1 lead in the bottom of the seventh.
That is when Terry Francona poked the bear, bringing in Pedro Martinez to pitch in relief of starter Derek Lowe. To a chorus of “Who’s your daddy?” — Martinez had said in a press conference earlier in the year, after a loss to the Yankees, that there was nothing left to do but tip his hat and call the Yankees his daddy — Boston gave up a pair of runs and sparked hope of a Yankees’ comeback.
But it was not to be. Boston slammed the door over the final two innings en route to the World Series, completing the greatest comeback in MLB history, as they became the first team (and still only) team to come back and win a series after losing the first three games.
It was the final game played at old Yankee Stadium.
For some, the subsequent World Series was almost an afterthought. They had defeated the dragon, the New York Yankees, and done the impossible. It was similar to the story of the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team, which defeated the Soviet Union but still needed to go on and win the gold medal game, but everyone remembers Mike Eruzione’s goal more than anything else.
Not me.
The night of Game 1 between the Red Sox and the Cardinals, I got engaged.
A few nights later, during Game 4, my now-wife and I were at a loud Washington, D.C. bar in the Cleveland Park neighborhood. When it became clear the Red Sox were going to sweep St. Louis and win their first World Series since 1918, I had a request.
We needed to go home.
I had somewhere I had to be.
The call was placed with one out to go. Then a ground ball was rolled towards Pokey Reese at second base, who flipped to Doug Mientkiewicz at first.
The Red Sox were World Series champions.
“I never thought I’d see it,” said my grandfather on the other end of the phone.
Neither did I.
The Red Sox and the Yankees renew that rivalry this week, as they meet today to begin a three-game Wild Card series. The names have changed — Jeter, Rodriguez, Millar, and Martinez have given way to Judge, Stanton, Duran, and Chapman, among others — but the memories have not faded.
Thanks to a team of idiots that changed everything in 2004, and gave me memories to last a lifetime.
I’ll be watching. And somewhere, I know Ray and Alden will be too.