Doug Mirabelli

You fly all day. You are picked up on the tarmac by a police car. You change in the back seat, arriving at Fenway Park in record time, with sirens blazing. You throw on your equipment, head out to home plate, and there stands Johnny Damon, your old teammate. And 60 feet 6 inches away is Tim Wakefield, whose mystifying knuckleball has just drastically altered the lives of two catchers, yours and the guy you've been brought back to replace. Oh, and have we mentioned it's the first Red Sox-Yankees game of the season and there are 36,000 people screaming on every pitch?

You fly all day. You are picked up on the tarmac by a police car. You change in the back seat, arriving at Fenway Park in record time, with sirens blazing. You throw on your equipment, head out to home plate, and there stands Johnny Damon, your old teammate. And 60 feet 6 inches away is Tim Wakefield, whose mystifying knuckleball has just drastically altered the lives of two catchers, yours and the guy you've been brought back to replace. Oh, and have we mentioned it's the first Red Sox-Yankees game of the season and there are 36,000 people screaming on every pitch?

BALTIMORE -- Kevin Millar was about to take a few swings in batting practice when Jason Varitek, on his way back from hitting in the cages near the Orioles clubhouse, took a detour to say hello. Millar: "So, was it paint or blood?" When Daisuke Matsuzaka walked into the visitors' clubhouse, he saw a large group of reporters and TV cameras in a tight circle in the vicinity of his locker. Noting the puzzled expression on his face, Jonathan Papelbon, who was playing cards in the middle of the room, decided to help.

FORT MYERS, Fla. — There are so many reasons that it’s better to be in Fort Myers than in Boston today. I’m not usually much of a weather guy. I always felt sorry for my parents’ friends who traded their drafty New England farmhouses for some pre-fab condo in a sterile courtyard near an orange grove and an Olive Garden in central Florida. It struck me as an unholy swap. I’ll take the snow and ice if it comes with a neighborhood, lifelong friends, and memories. This year is different.

BALTIMORE -- The Baltimore Orioles' lineup barely touched Curt Schilling in last night's 6-1 Red Sox win. In seven innings, he allowed one run, a home run by Miguel Tejada, which was not enough to overcome the damage the Sox inflicted on the Orioles' expensively renovated bullpen in a three-run seventh and two-run ninth. But Schilling's reputation was the target of an attempted hit from, of all places, the Orioles' television broadcasting booth. Gary Thorne, who does play-by-play of Orioles games on the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN)

They paid hundreds -- in some cases, thousands -- of dollars to be there. Some fans at Fenway Park paid as much as $100 to park and all sat in 46-degree temperatures, enduring winds that chilled to the marrow. None of that mattered. The citizens of Red Sox Nation had waited too long to worry about cost, climate, or any inconvenience. This was the day the Sox raised the World Series flag and dropped the curtain on Boston Baseball's Bacchanalia -- a six-month festival triggered by the greatest comeback in sports history and the Hub's first hardball championship since 1918.

The Boston Red Sox's World Series celebration went into extra innings yesterday on Beacon Hill. Governor Deval L. Patrick and other state officials joined hundreds of fans to again congratulate the Red Sox for their second championship in four seasons. The rally was the second in as many days for the Red Sox. But instead of closer Jonathan Papelbon wildly dancing through the streets of Boston on Tuesday, the State House rally was a buttoned-down affair with short speeches from Patrick and other state officials.

It is the pitch that alters lives. Josh Bard is gone because of the knuckleball. Doug Mirabelli is here because of the knuckleball. Plenty of batters have had their lives affected by the knuckleball. "When I was with the Phillies, [manager] Danny Ozark would take the big-swinging guys like [Mike] Schmidt and [Greg] Luzinski out of the lineup," says Yankee third base coach Larry Bowa. "Let some subs get the 0-fers. " That's baseballese for 0 for 4, 0 for 5, things like that.

This was one of those only in Boston days at the old ballyard. The Red Sox lost to Randy Johnson and the Yankees by the score of 7-4 in a nationally televised game. It was a three-and-a-half-hour game in which Gary Sheffield almost knocked the Wall over a couple more times, Alex Rodriguez hit another laser home run, Johnny Damon extended his hitting streak to 28 games (more sleepless hours for Dom D.), Mariano Rivera lowered his ERA to 0.96, Mark Bellhorn homered and struck out twice, and the Yankees pulled within one game (in the loss column)

TORONTO -- Doug Mirabelli seemed to see it coming. Three hours before last night's game against the Blue Jays, Tim Wakefield's personal catcher playfully cajoled reporters to pepper manager Terry Francona with questions about why he was batting eighth in the order despite having three hits, including a homer, in six career at-bats against Toronto starter Ted Lilly. "Did you know Doug Mirabelli is batting .500 against Ted Lilly?" a compliant participant asked the skipper. "So's [Varitek]

There is a reason Theo Epstein rarely hangs around with his players near the trading deadline. He barely steps into the clubhouse, and no longer travels with the team in the days leading up to July 31. He recalls the sense of urgency surrounding the Red Sox back in 2006, not necessarily commensurate with the reality of the situation. And though that instance - which happened to have occurred in May rather than July - led to the most-regretted trade in Epstein’s tenure as general manager of the Sox, it also led him to change.

OAKLAND - It seemed unlikely that any talk last night of a no-hitter would not refer to Jon Lester's efforts from earlier in the week. Those were the pregame questions, of how he would bounce back and how he would come out in today's game. There was hardly a mention made of the pitchers throwing in last night's game, and certainly not in those terms. Until the game actually started. Though a no-hitter didn't come through twice in one week in games involving the Red Sox, Justin Duchscherer did his best to insert his name into the conversation.

The last time the Red Sox tried someone other than Doug Mirabelli behind the plate with knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, general manager Theo Epstein was panicked into what he now rues as his worst trade. Epstein gave up on catcher Josh Bard - who had committed 10 passed balls in five starts with Wakefield, including four in one game - and packaged him with reliever Cla Meredith to the Padres to get back Mirabelli. That was May 1, 2006, when Mirabelli received a police escort from Logan Airport and a hero's welcome at Fenway Park, perhaps the only place on the planet where a backup...

FORT MYERS, Fla. - Not long after speaking with Jason Varitek yesterday, Doug Mirabelli, the captain's catching partner in crime since 2001, was given his unconditional release. It was further proof how difficult the job is - never knowing when the end is near and hoping your body doesn't betray you before you're ready to hang up your spikes. According to team sources, the 37-year-old Mirabelli's bat had slowed since last season, when he appeared in 48 games and hit just .202 with 5 home runs and 16 RBIs.

The Boston Red Sox's World Series celebration went into extra innings yesterday on Beacon Hill. Governor Deval L. Patrick and other state officials joined hundreds of fans to again congratulate the Red Sox for their second championship in four seasons. The rally was the second in as many days for the Red Sox. But instead of closer Jonathan Papelbon wildly dancing through the streets of Boston on Tuesday, the State House rally was a buttoned-down affair with short speeches from Patrick and other state officials.

CLEVELAND - In his final tuneup before he pitches Game 1 of the World Series next Wednesday night against the Colorado Rockies, Josh Beckett will face the Cleveland Indians. James Taylor is on call to sing the national anthem that night at Fenway Park, and Manny Ramírez, last seen yesterday afternoon doing standup for Japanese TV, will be wired for in-game commentary by Fox. Or not. It could also end tonight at Jacobs Field, where the Indians have the momentum, the crowd, and lefthanded ace C.C. Sabathia set to write a much different scenario than the one planned by the Sox. An Indians...

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Curt Schilling has dodged, ducked, and debated -- not to mention detested -- the one question asked of him ad nauseam this spring. Yesterday, after throwing a 49-pitch batting practice session, he faced the inquiry about Opening Night and Randy Johnson yet again. How likely . . . ? "Not very," Schilling acknowledged. That is the closest the Red Sox ace has come to committing, one way or the other, to a decision on whether he can pitch April 3. In this case, the likeliest outcome is conceding the ball to David Wells three weeks from tomorrow at Yankee Stadium.

Winning streak or not, Kevin Millar usually finds a way to keep things light in the Red Sox clubhouse, as he did before last night's game by grabbing a set of boxing gloves from Ellis Burks, tugging a pair of shiny black boxing trunks up to his chest, and trading a few slapstick blows with his partner in pugilism, Doug Mirabelli. Funny stuff. But then the White Sox landed a few serious shots of their own, thumping homer-vulnerable Tim Wakefield for two more long balls in bringing a sad, soggy end to Boston's three-game winning streak.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Don Slaught, who was with Tim Wakefield when the knuckleballer was a Pirates rookie, caught him in the 1992 National League playoffs. "Catching him today," Slaught said that night, "was the most physically and mentally exhausting thing I've ever done. I caught one, I didn't even know I had it. I turned to the umpire and I said, 'Boy, this is tough.' He said, 'You? I've got a headache.' " Last night, Kevin Cash, the 29-year-old journeyman promoted from Pawtucket when Doug Mirabelli went on the disabled list Friday, caught Wakefield for the first time in a big-league game.

A year ago almost to the day, the Red Sox lost a day-night doubleheader to the Yankees, the start of a five-game Boston massacre redux that rendered the rest of the season meaningless. With a six-run first inning in yesterday's 8-4 win over the Angels in Game 1 of a day-night doubleheader, the Sox served notice that the last six weeks of this season should be worth sticking around for, for everyone. That includes Manny Ramírez, whose tiebreaking double in the eighth inning of the second game -- one pitch after David Ortiz's two-run double had erased the last of what had been a...