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“DIARY OF A WINNER”
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POWERFUL CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM
October 28,
2007 ...
As they did in 2004, Terry Francona's men shredded their National League rivals like so many cardboard cutouts, beating the Rockies by an aggregate score of 29-10 over four games. Once famous for autumnal folds, the Sox have won eight consecutive World Series games and finished the 2007 playoffs with seven straight wins.
In the last two weeks, Sox fans who worship Curt Schilling, David Ortiz and the other curse-breaking veterans of 2004 discovered a new generation of October warriors; young men developed by the Theo Epstein administration named Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jonathan Papelbon, and Jon Lester. It was Lester, one year removed from chemotherapy treatments for lymphoma, who took the ball in the clincher and pitched 5 2/3 innings of shutout ball to earn the victory. Mike Lowell, who hit a home run and a double tonight, was named World Series MVP. Papelbon struck out Seth Smith on a 94-mile-per-hour fastball for the final out. The game ended at 12:05 this morning. Catcher Jason Varitek put the baseball in his back pocket. Bobby Kielty's home run in the eighth inning proved to be the difference. The National pastime's finale was played three years and one day after the champagne bath that cleansed 86 years of a region's pain in 2004. The home plate umpire was Chuck Meriwether, who also worked the dish in Game 4 in St. Louis and the Sox shot out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning, just as they did in '04.
Ellsbury, the rookie of Navajo descent who started the season in Double A, hit the second pitch of the night into the left-field corner for a double and came around to score on a single by Big Papi. New generation meets old. Same result. The Sox tacked on a second run in the fifth when Mike Lowell doubled and scored on a single by Jason Varitek. Lowell homered leading off the seventh to chase Rockies starter Aaron Cook, who hadn't pitched since Aug. 10. The 23-year-old Lester hadn't started a game in the majors in more than a month. He finished the season in the minor leagues and was not included on the Sox 25-man roster for the Division Series against the Angels. Then he went out and won the clinching game of the World Series exactly one year after his chemo treatments. Lester gave up three hits and three walks. Manny Delcarmen finished the sixth, but gave up a homer to Brad Hawpe to start the seventh. When Delcarmen put another man on base, 41-year-old Mike Timlin, another holdover from '04, came on and fanned two of the Rockies best hitters.
There was stardust sprinkled all over the Sox dugout. Pinch hitting in the eighth, Kielty homered on the first pitch thrown by Brian Fuentes. It was Kielty's only appearance in the World Series. In the eighth, a fatigued Hideki Okajima surrendered a two-run homer to Garrett Atkins and Papelbon was summoned for the five-out save. Papelbon pitched 10 2/3 postseason innings without giving up a run. Terry Francona, Boston's oft-maligned manager, is 8-0 lifetime as a World Series skipper. And his boss, Theo Epstein, who walked away from the job for a few months in 2005, has a second championship ring And so on the day the Red Sox won their seventh World Series in franchise history, how do New England parents explain to children there was a time when local sports fans endured failure and collapse and actually waited for a rare championship season to unfold? In October of 2007, the streets of Boston are paved with gold and this week those streets will be packed with the legions of Red Sox Nation, saluting the World Champion Boston Red Sox. Again.
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