Knuckler (29 page)

Wakefield felt inconsolable.
I let us down.
He had spent an entire career priding himself on being a team player, on doing whatever was necessary for his team to win, on doing the grunt work. He did that for his teammates, for
them,
more than he did it for anyone else. Now he felt as if he had failed them. Now he felt like a bad teammate. Almost to a man, the Sox players took turns attempting to console him—Timlin, Mirabelli, all of them—and yet Wakefield simply could not shake the feeling that he had ruined things for them, that he would be regarded as an eternal failure by Red Sox fans, that he forever owed an apology to anyone who had invested in the 2003 Red Sox as he had.

I'm so sorry.

Of course, Wakefield had nothing to be sorry for.

The end of Game 7 in 2003 proved to be nothing more than a beginning.

And Tim Wakefield soon would learn that the curse of being the next Bill Buckner would descend on someone else, and that the life of a knuckleballer could rise again as acutely as it dipped.

You don't catch a knuckleball, you defend against it.

—Longtime catcher and manager Joe Torre

R
OUGHLY THREE MONTHS
after Aaron Boone ended Boston's 85th consecutive season without a World Series championship, Tim Wakefield fidgeted at the base of a small staircase, waiting for his introduction to a dinner crowd of about 1,000. As always, the knuckleballer tried to get a handle. Wakefield had become a regular attendee and crowd favorite at the annual Boston Baseball Writers dinner, but this year he simply did not know what to expect.

While dinners like this one had died off in most every other major baseball market in America, the annual event in Boston was still thriving, further evidence of the passion the city held for the Red Sox.

The dinner represented Wakefield's first opportunity to assess public sentiment in the wake of the Boone homer, which had caused him great anxiety over the winter. He was still worried about his legacy. He still wondered whether fans would forgive him. At the dinner, Wakefield mingled with his teammates, members of the media, and Sox officials beforehand, his typically pleasant manner disguising his concerns as he approached the dais to address the crowd.
What if I get booed?
What if they won't take me back?
Thoughts like these weighed on him. Wakefield had spent nine full seasons with the Red Sox, and he had found a home in Boston. He knew, however, that Red Sox history was littered with tragic figures, from Johnny Pesky (who allegedly
held the ball as Enos Slaughter scored the winning run in the 1946 World Series) to manager Joe McCarthy (who bypassed young lefty Mel Parnell in favor of veteran righty Denny Galehouse in a one-game playoff in 1948) to Buckner himself. In a place like Boston, there was no outrunning your past.

What if they don't forgive me?

Later, as Boston baseball writers and various baseball players, coaches, and executives lined up to be introduced to the crowd, Wakefield's pulse quickened. His mind raced, too. Had things turned out differently, he might have won a World Series by now, maybe been the Most Valuable Player of
two
League Championship Series. Instead, he was left to wonder whether a single, floating knuckler could undo the work of a career during which he had thrown thousands upon thousands of pitches.

His name was finally announced to the crowd, and as Wakefield stepped up the small staircase onto the dais the room erupted with applause. Fans stood and clapped wildly. Not a single person dissented. Wakefield's body and mind eased all at once, relief and emotion washing through him. Red Sox fans seemed to embrace him the way a father would a dejected Little Leaguer.

It's not your fault. You did your best. We're proud of you.

"I had tears in my eyes," Wakefield said.

Indeed, for all of the criticisms Red Sox fans had absorbed over the years, they could prove to be an extremely compassionate lot. Had Wakefield thoroughly reviewed the tale of Buckner, for instance, he would have discovered the ending to be far happier than most realized. Released by the Red Sox during the 1987 season nine months after his historic blunder against the New York Mets in the 1986 World Series, Buckner returned three years later during spring training of 1990. Then an aged, broken-down veteran, he was a long shot to make the team. Buckner nevertheless had a productive spring and played his way onto the team's opening day roster, and he hobbled onto the field from the top step of the dugout when he was customarily introduced, along with the rest of the Red Sox, to the opening day crowd at Fenway Park.

To the surprise of no one that day, Bill Buckner was cheered wildly, a sellout crowd at Fenway Park standing throughout the ovation.

Bill Buckner, like Tim Wakefield in January 2004, felt like a hero.

During the 88 days between Boone's homer and Wakefield's first public appearance in Boston, the Red Sox had undergone dramatic changes and another scapegoat had been identified. Shortly after the Game 7 loss to the Yankees, amid escalating public outcry about the manner in which Grady Little had handled his pitching staff throughout the postseason and, more specifically, in Game 7 of the Yankees series, the Red Sox fired their manager. Grady Little, as it turned out, was the one who would be labeled the scapegoat for their failure in the ALCS and lumped with Bill Buckner. From owners John Henry and Tom Werner down to team president Larry Lucchino and Epstein, the Red Sox seemed more determined than ever to improve a team that possessed a champion's heart and drive—if not the pitching staff. Even though the Red Sox front office felt that Little had become an obstruction during the playoffs, they also acknowledged that the manager frequently was forced to play musical chairs with a pitching staff that was a little short on both ends. Several changes were in order.

First, following Little's firing, the Sox hired the more cerebral Terry Francona as manager, hoping for a leader who could both handle modern players and effectively manage the game. Second, Epstein orchestrated a blockbuster trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks that brought ace and certified big-game starter Curt Schilling to Boston for a package of prospects. Third, the Sox signed A's closer Keith Foulke as a free agent to bring order to a bullpen that had lacked a reliable anchor until the final days of Boston's postseason.

The message was clear.

The Red Sox weren't fooling around.

Watching and listening with great interest from his home in Melbourne, Wakefield was surprised and saddened at the dismissal of Little, who had been a key element in returning the knuckleballer to his rightful place in the starting rotation. He liked Grady. He believed in Grady. He felt that teams won and lost together, and the reality of
the game sometimes frustrated him. Little might have summoned Embree and Timlin in place of Martinez in Game 7, and the Red Sox still might have lost. Had Martinez been more effective, the Red Sox might have won. There had been countless points in that game, as in every other, where events could have turned, both teams missing opportunities along the way that might have changed the outcome.

Sure enough, even had the Sox beaten the Yankees, there was no guarantee Boston would have won the World Series. When the Yankees themselves lost the championship to the Florida Marlins in six games, many theorized that the Yankees were physically and emotionally drained after their seven-game epic with the Red Sox.

In the eyes of Tim Wakefield and many others, Grady Little was indeed made a scapegoat.

It could just as easily have been me.

Beyond the changes they made, the Red Sox explored countless others that would have shaken the team to the core. Every time word leaked that the Sox were even
considering
these major changes, the news had the same effect. Frustrated with both the contract and attitude of Manny Ramirez, who was just three years into a whopping eight-year, $160 million contract, the Red Sox placed the slugger on waivers with the small hope that another team might claim him and assume the financial obligation of his remaining contract. Naturally, there were no takers. Still, news of the club's dissatisfaction with Ramirez sparked some trade discussion with other teams, most notably the Texas Rangers, who similarly had a disgruntled superstar in shortstop Alex Rodriguez. The deal made great sense for both teams but came with a very large string attached—the fate of Red Sox shortstop and face-of-the-franchise Nomar Garciaparra.

By that point, the new Sox officials had also grown frustrated with Garciaparra, who had flatly rejected the team's latest attempt at a contract extension and was entering the final year of his deal. Because the new officials had no real ties to Garciaparra—he had been drafted and developed under former general manager Dan Duquette—they had no reservations about trading him. During Major League Baseball's annual winter meetings in December, Epstein agreed to the frame
work of a deal that would send Garciaparra to the Chicago White Sox for talented outfielder Magglio Ordonez, but the proposed trade came with the condition that the Red Sox first complete a deal with the Rangers that would swap Ramirez for Rodriguez.

The idea was simple: trade an outfielder for a shortstop, then trade your shortstop for an outfielder.

While Garciaparra publicly bristled at the idea that the club would trade him—he called both a Boston-area newspaper and an all-sports radio station from his honeymoon in Hawaii with soccer star Mia Hamm to express his shock—the deal between the Red Sox and the Rangers crumbled. Seeking the help of the Major League Baseball Players Association to restructure Rodriguez's deal (10 years, $252 million) and make the contract more feasible, the Red Sox failed miserably. In a very public affair, the players' union shot down Boston's proposed reconstruction of Rodriguez's contract, igniting a spat between Lucchino, agent Scott Boras (who represented Rodriguez), the MLBPA, the Rangers, and the Red Sox.

Nonetheless, there was no disputing that the Red Sox had made major upgrades to a team that came within five outs of going to the World Series—and that Boston was very much a threat to unseat the Yankees in 2004.

Following all of that winter activity, Wakefield had lots of questions about its impact, especially about the effect of newcomers Schilling and Foulke on a team bond that was as strong as Wakefield had ever experienced during his career. He was not alone. Prior to the Boston Baseball Writers dinner in January, Wakefield and first baseman Kevin Millar privately took their questions about the two pitchers to Francona, who had shared a clubhouse with both Schilling and Foulke at various points during his career as a manager and coach. Francona had most recently served as the bench coach in Oakland—he was in the opposing dugout when the Red Sox came back to defeat Foulke and the A's in the 2003 American League Division Series—and he also had dealt with Schilling during a four-year stint as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies from 1997 to 2000.

Schilling, in particular, with his reputation as a strong and opinion
ated personality who could grate on teammates, concerned the Red Sox players, who worried about the clubhouse dynamic.

"You're going to want to tell him to shut up every once in a while," Francona told Wakefield and Millar as Sox representatives, dressed in tuxedos, waited in line to be introduced to fans at the dinner. "But he's a good guy."

Satisfied by his new manager's assessment, Wakefield nodded at the time, though his mind was obviously elsewhere.

In failing to make the deal for Alex Rodriguez, the Red Sox never imagined that they had opened the door for their rival New York Yankees to close the deal. Just before the start of spring training, in a stunning development, the Yankees announced that they had acquired the great A-Rod, pulling off the blockbuster deal the Red Sox had been unable to execute. Almost nobody saw it coming. The Yankees already had a Hall of Fame–caliber shortstop in Derek Jeter, so nobody regarded New York as a potential destination for Rodriguez. In fact, the Yankees had an unexpected vacancy at third base because Aaron Boone, of all people, had suffered a major knee injury while playing basketball during the off-season. No one imagined A-Rod at third. But there he was, and the 2004 season had already elevated to an arms race before the pitchers even reported to camp.

Among Red Sox fans, the response was predictable.
Woe is us.
The Yankees had just replaced the hero of the 2003 ALCS with the best player in baseball, even if the Yankees were required to sacrifice talented second baseman Alfonso Soriano in the process. Some Red Sox fans who had gone generations without celebrating a world title feared that history was merely repeating itself, that Rodriguez ending up in New York was akin to Boston's decision to sell Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920, a decision that forever altered the histories of the two franchises and spawned
the Curse of the Bambino.

But inside the walls of a Red Sox clubhouse fortified with off-season acquisitions and now stuffed with both talent and moxie, Rodriguez's arrival in New York was seen as something altogether different.

"Nobody said it would be easy, and George [Steinbrenner, the
Yankees' owner] is going to do whatever it takes to stop us," said Embree shortly after arriving at camp in Fort Myers, Florida. "I think it's kind of exciting ... [because] they're worried about us. They know we have a very good ball club."

Said backup catcher Mirabelli: "I think there's definitely respect for the Red Sox there, but I don't know if they'd admit that. They know they've got a fight on their hands every time they play us, regardless of who they've got on their team.... Look, A-Rod would help any team, but still, on paper, the Red Sox are right where they need to be."

Tim Wakefield felt this as strongly as anyone.

While first-year manager Francona had some egos to massage—Garciaparra in particular was still vexed by the Red Sox pursuit of Rodriguez in the first place—there was no disputing the talent on the Boston roster. The Red Sox were stacked. They had some major contract issues: Garciaparra and catcher Jason Varitek as well as starting pitchers Lowe and Martinez would all be eligible for free agency at the end of the year. But there was a potential benefit in that—the Red Sox were likely to get the best possible performance from these players in their final contract years. There was a great deal at stake, and Red Sox officials were wise enough to recognize that the players' concern about protecting their own individual futures as well as their collective legacy could provide key motivation.