Dark days have hit the road

August 27, 2004|Dan Shaughnessy

When the history of the 2004 Red Sox is written, the hardball poets will cite July 31 as the turning point of the season. That's right, all you Nomie Krishnas, still wearing those No. 5 jerseys . . . the Sox kicked it into gear when they traded Nomar Garciaparra in a complicated four-team deal that at once bolstered Boston's defense and dissolved the dark cloud of bad karma and uncertainty that was polluting the Sox clubhouse.

Sometimes cause-and-effect is obvious and immediate. In 1988, the moribund Red Sox fired miserable manager John McNamara at the All-Star break. Tollway Joe Morgan took over as "interim" skipper and the revived Sox rattled off 12 straight wins and 19 of 20 en route to the division title. The same thing happened to the Celtics after Bill Fitch ran them aground in 1983. K.C. Jones was hired and the lads won two of the next three NBA championships.

Now Nomie is gone and the Sox are 17-8 since he left. This from a team that played .500 baseball for more than 12 weeks, more than 82 games, which is more than half of a season.

Coincidence? I think not. Let's ask the fellas, who returned home last night to take on the improved Detroit Tigers.

Start with Kevin Millar.

"Sure," said Millar. "You start with the guy who said, `Hey, we want Alex Rodriguez!' . . . Actually, only time is going to tell on this deal. We hadn't played so great before the trade happened. Now we're playing better. I don't know what the reason is. It would be unfair to say that trading Nomar is the reason, but is it part of it?

"I think so, yeah."

Wow. Baseball players are a close-knit fraternity. It's rare to get an admission that subtraction of an individual could be addition. Millar called over teammate Bill Mueller and asked him, "Bill, is trading Nomar the reason we're playing better?"

Mueller smiled and walked away, taking a giant bite out of a cheese sandwich. Manny Ramirez pretty much did the same thing.

"It doesn't matter," said Manny. "I just want to have fun."

David Ortiz was similarly neutral.

Then there's Curt Schilling, guaranteed to have an opinion about everything (and we love him for it), who offered, "I don't think there's any argument against it [the trade]. We've given up one unearned run in 13 games. Consider our recent record in one-run games [the Sox have won four of their last five]. Absolutely."

Taking his answer to another level, Schilling added, "There isn't anybody doing their own thing now and that's different. Nomar had a lot of things going on and he's introverted. He had the Achilles'. He had the contract. And it was its own story. Every day with the trade, that changed the atmosphere immediately in here."