Red Sox Nation set for Game 1

Boston tries to undo years of heartbreak

October 23, 2004|Globe Staff

Game on. Go time. The World Series returns to ancient Fenway Park tonight for the first time since 1986 when the Red Sox host the St. Louis Cardinals. With the region still hung over from the Sox' epic comeback against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series, Boston will be attempting to win the fall classic for the first time since 1918.

A new generation of local fans has been born since the last time the Sox were in a World Series. These young citizens of the Nation know about Bill Buckner, Carlton Fisk, Bob Gibson, and Enos Slaughter only from what they've been told by parents or read in books. For them, the Sox's checkered postseason past is no more relevant than the Battle of Hastings or the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. The only history they care about is what they witnessed this week when the 2004 Sox pulled off the greatest of baseball comebacks, beating the Yankees four straight times after losing the first three games of the ALCS.

Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein said the series win over the Yankees "gave us a collective, cathartic exhale. The region dumped all its collective baggage at once. We made history, but our goal has always been to win a World Series, and we won't be satisfied until we do."

"We're playing in Sox Nation in October," added Boston first baseman Kevin Millar. "This is where we want to be. Now we have a chance to be that team that wins it here. This is when you write history."

With the Red Sox it's always about history, and that is why New England is focused on and fixated with the eternal quest of its intrepid team. In the early years of the 20th century, Boston's upstart American League franchise won five of the first 15 World Series, but triggered 8 1/2 decades of bad luck when it dealt the best player of all time, Babe Ruth, to the Yankees. Since then the Sox have been to four World Series, losing in the seventh game each time, most famously when they let what looked like certain victory slip away at Shea Stadium in 1986. But this group is different, fans believe. The raggedy men of baseball's Delta House overthrew the Yankees on the very soil of the Evil Empire. Hub fans are convinced that these Red Sox are destined to win it all, perhaps a week from tomorrow in Game 7 on Halloween night at Fenway Park. Boo.

"For all their personality, this bunch of guys is pretty single-minded," said Epstein, who was a 12-year-old Brookline middle schooler when the Sox blew the 1986 Series. "I don't think we carry history. That implies a burden. But we know that everything we do has more meaning. When we accomplish something it's quickly put into historical perspective."