Keeping his grip

Wakefield, his knuckler, moving ahead

January 04, 2004|On baseball, Globe Staff

MELBOURNE, Fla. -- The thought first came to him in a clubhouse gone numb from the shock of a season suddenly cut short with agonizing finality. It resurfaced again on the plane ride that brought the Red Sox home to Boston from the Bronx in a funereal state. "I was terrified," Tim Wakefield said, "that I would be remembered like [Bill] Buckner. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to show my face in Boston again. But I soon realized that wasn't close to being the case."

In the foyer of Tim and Stacey Wakefield's lovely home in Melbourne, in a golf-course development just down the street from Cecil Fielder's mansion, there is a beautifully rendered life-sized sculpture of Tim Wakefield's right hand. In the hand is a baseball, held in a grip unique to Wakefield and the select few who have mastered the art of throwing a knuckleball.

The sculpture was done by Alex Flanagan, the wife of former pitcher and current Orioles vice president Mike Flanagan. The grip -- two fingers above the ball, nails digging into the seams -- is the one Wakefield first mastered on the playing fields of Melbourne, his hometown, where he was transformed from failed minor league first baseman to veteran major league pitcher who is one of just 10 to win 100 or more games in their Red Sox careers.

Boston's 2003 season was held in Wakefield's grip on the first pitch of the bottom of the 11th inning of Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, when he floated a knuckleball to Aaron Boone, the New York Yankees' third baseman who had faced Wakefield six times in the ALCS and been retired all six times.

But not this time. It was 12:16 a.m. Oct. 17, when Boone swung at Wakefield's knuckleball and hit it into the left-field seats, propelling the Yankees into the World Series and pushing Wakefield, he feared, to the brink of a place no Boston baseball player ever should have to go again.

"I . . . I can't explain it," Wakefield said 10 weeks later. "I felt great. I wasn't sore from the start before. I really felt good. Dana [LeVangie, the bullpen catcher] was having trouble catching it, so that gave me a sign that it was moving good."

Wakefield had entered the game in the 10th inning with the score tied at 5, and retired all three batters he faced.

"I went into the game, I felt good," he said. "I got through that one inning. I didn't strike anyone out but I had good movement on my pitches. I went to warm up for the next inning, everything seemed to be great.

"I don't know what happened. You know, you try to throw strike one, get ahead of a guy. I just left it up."

As soon as Boone made contact, Wakefield suspected the outcome.