There it is. Ich bin ein Red Sox. Losers everywhere are Red Sox. Followers of hard-luck teams are Red Sox fans.
It's always about us, you know.
The 97th World Series captivated America when the Yankees took three one-run games in New York last week. The Fall Classic returned to the desert last night, and Red Sox themes were running rampant.
The Sox have been all over this Series. Bob Brenly has morphed into John McNamara (both were catchers). Byung-Hyun Kim is Calvin Schiraldi. And going into last night's game, the possibility existed that a Game 7 tonight would pit Roger Clemens against Curt Schilling - two veterans of the Red Sox farm system.
Former Red Sox general manager Lou Gorman drafted both Clemens and Schilling. Gorman was running the show at Shea Stadium when the Mets drafted, but did not sign, Clemens.
''When I was with the Mets, we drafted Clemens out of junior college,'' Gorman said yesterday when reached at his home in Massachusetts. ''But he had a chance to go to the University of Texas and Roger's price kept going up so we didn't sign him.
''Schilling we drafted out of junior college in Arizona. I saw him in the Instructional League. He had a good live arm and good makeup. When we traded him in 1988 [along with Brady Anderson for Mike Boddicker] we thought he was about five years away from being a major league pitcher.''
Oddly enough, Schilling and Brenly are embroiled in the same kind of controversy that has dogged Clemens and McNamara for 15 years. Both Schilling and Brenly agree Schilling wanted to pitch Game 4 on three days' rest, but there's debate about who made the call to take him out after seven innings. Arizona wound up losing in the 10th when closer Kim coughed up his second homer.
In '86, Clemens came out of Game 6 (the ''Buckner Game'') against the Mets after seven innings, leading, 3-2. He had allowed only four hits and retired the side in order in the seventh. Clemens still claims he wanted to pitch, but was lifted because he had a blister and couldn't throw his slider. Clemens became enraged when McNamara told the national media, ''My pitcher asked out of the game.''
Schilling has sent mixed signals regarding his removal Wednesday night. Brenly was asked about it again before Game 6 and delivered a Mac-like answer, ''That's past history and it has no effect on the ballgame tonight. It's just continuing a line of questioning and trying to figure out something that happened a few days ago. I knew going into this job I was going to have my critics ... how people choose to view those moves and question my sanity, that's out of my control.''
Remember it was McNamara who opened one of his Series press conferences with, ''I don't want to hear about history or choking or any of that crap.''
The Diamondback manager pulled a Mac Thursday when he came back with Kim the day after Kim spit the bit in Game 4. This is similar to McNamara going back to Schiraldi in 1986's Game 7 after the righthander gave it up in Game 6.
Brenly said last night, ''If they have some righthanded hitters stacked up in there and we need somebody to close out the ballgame, then BK would be the guy.''
Want more Red Sox connections with this World Series? Well, there's Don Zimmer in the Yankee dugout. He's a pretty important part of Red Sox history. Reliever Mike Stanton is another Boston veteran. The Diamondbacks have bench coach Bob Melvin, who played for the Sox in 1993 and was told: ''I don't talk to players'' when he tried to find out where he stood with general manager Dan Duquette. The Diamondbacks also have the immortal Midre Cummings and Greg Swindell, not to mention Canton's Bobby Witt, who grew up playing catch with Haywood Sullivan's son Kyle.
Oh, one more thing. The Yankees were hitting .177 in this World Series entering last night's game. The lowest team batting average by a Series champ was achieved by the 1918 Red Sox, who hit .186 when they beat the Cubs for Boston's last Series championship.
By Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Staff, 11/03/2001
This story ran on page D13 of the Boston Globe on 11/04/2001
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company