Still beyond words

Hart Brachen, strip author:
On this one year anniversary of one of the most momentous and glorious events of our Red Sox fan lives, let's rejoice again in being part of the "The Greatest Comeback in the History of Sport."

 

---

Comments

[vancouversoxfan]

Hallelujah Brother h.b.!

[Sean O]

Amen talking T train, amen.

[h.b.]

Amen talking T train, amen.

FYI: More often than not these days, when you see the T trolley it's a signal that the omniscient author (i.e, me) is speaking to you, the reader, directly.

[Follower of Tito]

Not only did I check out last years GLORIOUS strip of an event that continues today and likely for years in the future to make the hair on the back of my neck stand-up, but I re-read many of the comments.

Two observations:

1) Winning the 2004 ALCS & WS did change everything, at least for me. Every time a MFY breaks into that old saw, "Yeah? Well, try winning wah, Wah-wah, wah, Wah-wah!"
...Honestly, that is all I hear..to quote Bill Murry in 'Meatballs', "I just doesn't matter!"

2) If the Chicago White Sox win this year, aren't the Cubs due, then, if I read the manual correctly, then it's the Apocalypse, right?

[Follower of Tito]

Not only did I check out last years GLORIOUS strip of an event that continues today and likely for years in the future to make the hair on the back of my neck stand-up, but I re-read many of the comments.

Two observations:

1) Winning the 2004 ALCS & WS did change everything, at least for me. Every time a MFY breaks into that old saw, "Yeah? Well, try winning wah, Wah-wah, wah, Wah-wah!"
...Honestly, that is all I hear..to quote Bill Murry in 'Meatballs', "I just doesn't matter!"

2) If the Chicago White Sox win this year, aren't the Cubs due, then, if I read the manual correctly, then it's the Apocalypse, right?

[Follower of Tito]

Oops. Dreaded double post...sorry, need. more. coffee.

[h.b.]

I think TypePad has been misfiring the double posts on people a lot lately. Probably not your fault.

[Bob]

Where were you when it happened? I was at The Squealing Pig (Mission Hill/Brigham Circle), with about 200 of my closest friends. I haven't cried like that since the doctor slapped my ass after he delivered me.

[Devine]

Game 7--after spending Game 6 alone, my Yankee roommate at the game itself, my work took a vacation to a casino in Connecticut. I watched the game starting after dinner (missing the Red Sox 1st inning--dang) in a bar in the casino. There were dozens of...ahem...senior citizen New Engladers, absorbed by the game. My coworkers were mostly Yankee fans. Men talked about "history" and "getting rid of Nomar was the best thing that ever happened to us." One man kept buying my coworkers drinks after Damon hit his second home run. That man had to drive home, and wanted to know how it was going before he started listening on the radio. When Pedro came in and started giving up hits, everyone got quiet. I exploded at one point, "What is he doing? Doesn't he remember?!" It was something else to be there when all those people who had waited so long saw something they never thought they'd see and cheered like maniacs or young children.

I'll never forget it.

[skillzy]

Thanks for two seasons of greatness, my friend. Keep up the good work.

[illegitimate son of dwight evans]

I was at Bukowski's on Dalton Street, and then, about four or five mugs in, just after they clinched, I thought it would be a good idea to *sprint* to Fenway. I was down at the less-deadly end of Lansdowne, singing Sweet Caroline and the Star Spangled Banner.

[Aaron]

I watched the game at the house of some fellow NIE's (New Englanders In Exile) in Seattle. After the game, I was out on the town in search of a celebratory beer. I found a small hole-in-the-wall pub with a Sox emblem taped to the front door, and under the emblem a hand-lettered sign saying "Spray Paint This, Bitches."

Upon entering, I inquired as to the story behind the sign: it seems that the bar owner was from Boston, and had put a Sox emblem on his door as soon as the playoffs started. After the 19-8 Game 3 shellacking, an MFY fan (or fans), showing their usual level of class, had spray-painted the Yankees logo on the guy's door after closing. Needless to say, dumb as they were, they were not dumb enough to return to the bar's vicinity after Game 7.

In fact, I didn't see a single NY hat anywhere on the streets for months afterward. Gee, what a shock.

[pawsoxpop]

I watched the game at home, and I still have the videotape and will watch it again tonight. What I will never forget are the phone calls -- my 82-year-old dad, and my college buddy/best man at my wedding. I remember being calm even when Pedro started to give up hits, knowing down deep they would hang on. I remember my wife was not so sanguine, leaving to go up in the kitchen and screaming at Francona. And she's a TWINS fan!

[pawsoxpop]

Actually, she's a Sox fan now. I guess she has me to blame for that.

[pawsoxpop]

Thanks again HB for some great laughs over the last couple of seasons. I don't bother with dirtdogs any more, but I'll always be grateful that they steered me your way.

[Follower of Tito]

Like PSP, it was the phone calls that I remember. My dad who is 68, my buddy from school who is in Dallas. I live one town over from the UMass Amherst campus where I teach. The local news could not get enough of the toilet paper bonfire in the middle of the Southwest part of campus. Actually, the funniest part was some undergrads ran out of the campus center and dove into the pond in the center of campus. The pond where about 350 Canadian geese eat, sleep and poop. That is team loyality!

[spd rdr]

I was the emcee of a huge client gala in the suburbs of DC. I couldn't get out of it, so I had a half-dozen TV's wheeled into the ballroom and while half the folks were getting loaded and stuffing their faces, the other half of us were getting loaded and screaming at the TV's (and each other). The last outs were recorded as I rode home in a stretch limo with my partners (3 Sox fans, 1 MFY)...with a TV of course. A night that will live in infamy! Yeah, man.

[mobosox]

Yeah, what I remember is that the people who called to laugh in 2003 and after game three of 2004 ALCS were no where to be found when the Red Sox had the best and biggest comeback in the history of all sports. Funny how that works.

[NV in SD]

Arrived at the Ocean Beach Grille (the Sonny McClean's of San Diego) right as warmups were finishing. Unfortunately the rest of the leave-work-early crowd did the same thing and they were charging at the door so I had to listen to Damon getting thrown out at home and Papi's HR outside. Finally got in and had to sit in the back (the big screen is in the front) with 60+ crowded around one 17"tv as the standing room in front was overflowing. By the time JD's grannie landed in the right field seats, the place was rocking. Around the time Petey came in, certain morons (I'm guessing the "newly minted" Sox fans) started chanting "Nine more outs" until they were threatened with bodily harm and STFU. As Timlin was warming up, I spoted the bartenders busting out the bottles of bubbly and, as a recognized face in the bar, I recieved one. As soon as Pokey fielded that grounder and cleanly threw to first the place fucking EXPLODED! You probably could've heard us downtown. Not a soul was spared from being drenched with champagne/beer/ whatever else could be thrown. The party flooded into the street and blocked traffic until the cops showed up to clear it out. Epic Sweetness- unlike any I had ever tasted (and no, I doidn't make it to work the next day)

This memory will keep a smile on my face the rest of the day.

[Pat]

I didn't read last year's strip because I hadn't heard of the site. Wow. The venom, anger and the level of bitterness that Red Sox fans had the day AFTER a tremendous win is just amazing. It really does suck to be you. You stereotype Yankee fans as smug and arrogant, like the Marty character. Here's one for you: all of you are the greasy Ben Affleck character from Good Will Hunting: bad accent, big mouth, no brains, no class, shaking down an interviewer for cash while wearing flood pants.

Congratulations to the Red Sox still on a great series in 2004. I don't dislike your team at all. But you Red Sox fans really do blow chunks. And as for WS champions, congratulations. You have as many modern championships as the Phillies and the D-Backs, with MUCH less class. Continue to live in the past chumps.

[pawsoxpop]

That's CHAMPS, not chumps, chimp.

[h.b.]

You stereotype Yankee fans as smug and arrogant...

Ah, The Soxaholix stereotype everybody, including themselves.

It's, er, sort of the whole point of the strip.

Pat's probably headed over to The Onion right now to tell them their stories aren't real news and aren't true.

[pawsoxpop]

And a WANKEE fan criticizing others for anger and bitterness after a win is simply hilarious. But wait, I guess you can't remember far enough back to recall your mood after the last time the Stinkees won, can you? I mean other than winning a tie for the technical lead of the AL East. Woo woo!

[NV in SD]

"Continue to live in the past chumps. "

Wow- lemme guess Patty- you're one of the classy MFY fans who has never said anything about 26 rings, babe ruth, bucky dent, or bill buckner.

$114 mil commited to 11 players, oldest team in baseball, owner suffering from dementia, no pitching coach, no GM, lame-duck manager. How's that for living in the present, lady?

[Bob]

Remember that Saturday Night Live character, "Pat?" Couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. We finally have definitive evidence of his/her identity: a troll.

[Kaz]

I watched from my friend's place in Brookline. We went apeshit when Pedro started giving up hits. "How could he put him in??" "What was he thinking??" "Oh my God, it's happening again!?" 8-1 and then 8-3 and suddenly I was worried about the outcome of the game. A 5 run lead and there was this gnawing feeling that it wasn't enough.

The game over, we headed out and proceeded down Beacon St to Kenmore/Fenway and revelled in the streets for nearly an hour.

[AJM]

"Continue to live in the past chumps."

The ultimate ironic line, coming from a fan of a team that has won nothing this century.

I watched Game 7 last year at Kettle of Fish in the West Village, after I couldn't get into the Riviera across the street. Great crowd, I was wearing my Fisk '75 throwback jersey and was afraid to shift my position even a millimeter because we were doing so well (yep, superstitious old fart). When Bellhorn clanged the hr off the foul pole in the 8th, anyone thinking rationally knew that it was over, but that didn't stop me from screaming at some young guys in their early 20's who saying that to STFU because it wasn't over yet. When Minky caught Pokey's throw for the final out, I hugged everybody in the room for about 2 miinutes apiece, and then jumping into the arms of this big kid who was a trader on the street, like Yogi jumping onto Don Larsen's (sorry for the disturbing MFY visual, but that's what it looked like). Then we emerged into the street, where a mob of RSN citizens had completely surrounded the Riviera, chanting "Who's Your Papi?!?" A half dozen NYPD cars had to come and put up barricades to make sure we didn't complete annex the West Village.

Oh, and I was at the Stadium in 2003 when Grady screwed us; I wouldn't be surprised if 'Pat' was one of those magnanimous MFY fans that night who was more interested in taunting me and every other Sox fan in the place after Boone's hr than in celebrating their pennant. Classless winners, indeed.

[illegitimate son of dwight evans]

One of my buddies was at the OB Grille with you, NV. It's supposedly the San Diego Red Sox-exile bar non pareil.

I need to go back and watch my copy of game 7 again. Pat's post made me want to go look at the crowd shots of the Bronx Toilet. You know, the same crowd that was crowing at Pedro a year earlier.

[Jason O.]

Get your celebrations in now the Sox better watch out....Larry Bowa's going to be doing his best Norman Stansfield (Gary Oldman in "The Professional") impression at third this year...a third base coach with schizo-affective disorder will surely distract the Sox....

[Jason O.]

i.e., Varitek's on third, Bowa drifts over...

"YOU DON'T LIKE BEETHOVEN......"

[Aaron]

Let me see if I've got this straight:

The originators of the "1918," "Bucky," "Buckner," etc chants are getting on our case for rubbing in last year's win??!?!? The irony of it all is that guys(?) like Pat don't seem to understand that the reason we enjoyed rubbing their noses in it last year is precisely because we've all had to listen to their shit for years. Every Red Sox fan who doesn't know at least one Marty or Pat, raise your hand. I'm betting no one will.

So please accept our condolences over your inability to take precisely what you've been dishing out for so long. Payback's a bitch, ain't it?

[Pat]

The Ocean Beach Grille is lame. Wrong side of town, wrong clientele, stale beer, toothless bartenders. Tre gauche. Oh wait, it's perfect for you.

Again: The Red Sox fan stereotype: The greasy Ben Affleck character from Good Will Hunting: bad accent, big mouth, no brains, no class, shaking down an interviewer for cash while wearing flood pants. Unrefuted.

One modern era championship can not erase multple generations of bad breeding. And, it's back to chumps, bitches.

[h.b.]

All the Red Sox fans I know despise Ben Affleck.

But what do I know?

If anything the Red Sox fans tend to be stereotyped about being "elitist" or "overly literary."

This is why, for instance, in the Wall Street Journal (that's a little NYC newspaper you may have heard of) in an article about this site (which happens to be a Red Sox site authored by a Red Sox fan) Stefan Fatsis wrote:

"Literary infatuation with the Red Sox dates to John Updike's 1960 essay about Ted William's last game. John Cheever declared that "all literary men are Red Sox fans." Poet Tom Clark wrote about pitcher Bill Lee. In 1973 the Boston Globe published an Opening Day story written entirely in Latin. On page one."

But if you want to believe in your "greasy" thing, Patti, that's cool. If that gives you comfort. And goodness knows you Yankees fans need some sort of solace in these trying times.

Man, who knew beating the Yankees would be this fun, getting to kick back and watch people like Pat rage and stomp around like petulant children who can't believe they can't get their way.

Amusing to say the least.

[Bob]

"That's Pat" keeps harping on "modern era championships." Uh, Pat, baseball's "modern era" started in 1903, with the advent of the World Series. Of course, being a stereotypical Yankees fan (300+ pounds, gold chain, Brill-cream hair, beard that looks like pubes -- and that's just the women), you'll probably say the modern era started in 1923 when the Skanks won their first championship. You'll say that while eating another box of that rancid Famous Ray's pizza, and cleaning the feces and urine off your stoop in Staten Island. H.B.: have you done a check to see if BigLie has assumed another ID, this time as That's Pat? Even if it's not, he/she fits the BigBri profile to a T: lives in Mom's basement, works at a comic book store, and posts online that he/she is an rich exec somewhere. "Bad breeding" indeed. I'm sure Pat came over on the Mayflower; as a cleaning woman for our New England ancestors.

[AJM]

I guess all the attention and acclaim for this site comes with a price, h.b.

"I need to go back and watch my copy of game 7 again. Pat's post made me want to go look at the crowd shots of the Bronx Toilet. You know, the same crowd that was crowing at Pedro a year earlier."

I agree that this is one of the many joys of watching the DVD. Particularly enjoyable is the shot of that insufferable tool Billy Crystal looking completely despondent at the end.

Watching it live at the Kettle of Fish, even though I was nervous until the final out, when they showed a shot of a small boy in an MFY cap with a very sad face around the 8th inning, I had the whole bar cracking up when I yelled out "IT BUILDS CHARACTER,KID!!!"

[pawsoxpop]

More likely as a louse in somebody's beard.

[pawsoxpop]

That's a louse on somebody's beard on the Mayflower. Sorry AJM, didn't know u were posting at the same time.

[pawsoxpop]

But come on folks, let's have some sympathy for Pat. Don't forget, from his point of view this is the one-year anniversary of THE GREATEST CHOKE in sports history. So if coming here and annoying us keeps him from beating his mom and kicking her dog and throwing rocks at the neighborhood children walking home from the school bus, it's a small price to pay for helping cut down on mindless violence in Yonkers.

[Devine]

Ah, Pat, you think you can annoy me when I'm busy remembering the joy of last year. Fuck, you could club me to death with a baseball bat (would that make you feel better?--how 'bout if it were the Babe's bat?), and I'd die with a huge grin on my face.

[pawsoxpop]

But if the one-year anniversary of the Greatest Choke of All Time is not enough, Pat and his fellow Wankee fans have to get ready to watch the World Series become the Yankee SPAZ (Starting Pitcher Alumni Zone) ... So go a head Pat, vent on us. Your misery is our joy...

[Aaron]

To quote Dieter from Sprockets (as long as we're dragging up old SNL characters, anyway):

"Your pain is delicious to us, Pat!"

[AJM]

On the subject of the MFY's interest in Larry Bowa as bench coach:

Are they worried that when Sheffield retires in a couple years, that their clubhouse might actually get deficient in acrimony and disdain? Hey, since Boomer Wells wants out of Boston, I'm sure he'd be more than willing to add to thejerk factor in the Bronx one last time.

[Pat]

Touched a nerve with you girls? That's funny. You would like us Yankee fans to be all down and shit. Guess again. The Yankees have won the AL pennant 39 times in the last 100 or so years, with 26 WS titles resulting in those 39 trips to the WS. But that's 74 times that they didn't win the whole thing. We know what it's like to lose at the end, we're just not as accomplished and bitter about at it as you are. They don't have to apologize to me or you for not winning it every year. But I know damn sure that my team will move heaven and earth to try to win it all in 2006. Your team will still be popping in that CD from 2004. Enjoy.

Perhaps one day you'll understand what it's like to win with class. This year was not an example. I doubt that you'll get another chance, but pigs can fly and hell can freeze over. We all saw that last 10/21/04.

And, BTW, I'm thrilled to be able to watch Jose Contreras, Roger Clemens, Andy Petitte and any other former Yankee player play in the WS. Wish they were still with the Yankees.

See? That's the stature of the Yankees. No one talks about so and so being a former Red Sox player. It's pitiful. Roger Clemens is now thought of as a former Yankee. That's a shame and you have NO ONE but yourselves to blame.

Enjoy your one year anniversary. No matter how much you try to shout me down, the fact of the matter is you live and revel in the past. I'm looking forward to AL East number 9 in a row, pennant number 40 and the 27th title returning to NY.

And HB, congratulations on the WSJ mention. It still doesn't clean up or educate the Affleck fan base.

[Pat]

The great poet Jasbro said it best on NYYFANS.com:

"Nothing is guaranteed in baseball, and while I was stunned that we lost the ALCS, I was not surprised.

It was an eventuality that Boston would win again, and it was also an eventuality that they would beat us at some point. The way it happened was particularly painful, but every time we don't get to the series it hurts.

Long before we lost last year I made a conscious decision to never let myself define the Yankees or my feelings about the Yankees in the context of anything that has to do with the Sox. To do so artificially elevates the Sox, and places far too much import on them.

They are just another Wild Card team that happened to win the WS. There have been others before them, and others will follow. Just because it took them 86 years to finally do it again doesn't make what they did any more special.

I fully understand that the fact that they went through us, and overcame a 3-0 deficit in the process, made their win a perfect one for THEM. But I would have been just as upset blowing a 3-0 lead to any other team as I was losing it to Boston.

Dealing with their insufferable cast of characters AFTER the loss and watching the stupid RSN fad come and go was actually the worst part about it all, IMO."

Pure poetry.

[h.b.]

Dealing with their insufferable cast of characters AFTER the loss and
watching the stupid RSN fad come and go was actually the worst part
about it all, IMO."[sic]

I've read the above 3, now 4, times now, ... and still it doesn't make the least bit of sense.

I'm just sayin'

[vancouversoxfan]

The lady [Pat] doth protests too much, methinks.

[AJM]

You know, it just hit me that h.b. talking to us through the T trolley is kind of our version of the burning bush talking to Moses and the Isrealites.

And I have to admit...I like Ben Affleck. Yes, he's a terrible actor who makes crappy movies. Yes, he turned his personal life into a national joke. But I don't doubt that he's a real Sox fan, and aside from narrating that stupid HBO c-word documentary, I usually enjoy it when he does something Sox-related:
The stints in the NESN booth, followed by a hysterical interview on the Score where he made amends w/Merloni.
Hosting the Sox' spring press banquet, and telling Johnny Damon that he's overexposed.

And the character he played in Good Will Hunting was one of his few good acting performances. h.b. is right, of course, that one of the Sox fan sterotypes is the elitist literary slob, not the Affleck character. Of course, an MFY fan calling Sox fans greaseballs is pretty hysterical, given the cretins that sit in the Toilet.

[David Phillips]

To be heard at 7 game series for the next 100 or so years:

" is down three games to none to . Of course, we all know that the only team this milleinium to give up such a lead is the 2004 New York Yankees in the ALCS."

That certainly adds to the mystique and aura, no?

--David

[Pond]

I kind of liked Good Will Hunting. If it were me, I would have gone to Game 6, but whatever.

Living in the heart of the Empire, I really got to object to Pat's writing "us Yankee fans." All the time when I walk across Manhattan with my Sox hat, complete strangers give me shit, and I give them shit. It's all good natured. Sometimes the best place to watch a game is in a crowded Yankee bar -- especially when we win 17-3. The best baseball ever played was between the Yankees and the Red Sox. Part of that is because they both have a hardcore dedicated fan base which not only cares for their team but for the sport itself. Winning last year's ALCS was so much sweeter because it was aganist the Yanks. Because we can rub their noses in the infield dirt for years to come, just like they've been doing to us when we've deserved it. Don't live in the past? I'd like to see how many times YES has replayed the 2003 Game 7. I don't get NESN but I'd be willing to bet they've put our series on the air a few times too. It's the offseason. There is no present. What else do we have to do other than speculate about the 2006 season and remind the Yankees how much they ate it. Just like they do for us. But lets be sportsmen about it.

I really enjoy talking about baseball, facts and statistics, history and memories with true fans, fans of whatever team. Pat isn't a fan. He's an asshole. The law of large numbers rules that every group must have them. Let's be honest; Red Sox Nation is pretty big. We probably have one or two ourselves.

[Pat]

Starting with you Pond.

[Devine]

Oh Pat, you're going to pretend the Red Sox aren't as "important" as any other team to the Yankees? Bullshit. That's a lot of fuckin' history re-write. Why don't you consult all of the players for both teams through the years or the majority of both fanbases and ask them if they think there's a difference between the Yankees playing the Marlins ("just another Wild Card team that happened to win the WS") and the Yankees playing the Red Sox? That "1918" thing was on for years, and you claim we aren't/weren't important to you? That still gonna be the case if you beat us in 7 games in the ALCS next year? The Red Sox (former) status as consistent loser to your (former) consistent winner was very much a part of what defined both fanbases.

All right, I'm done addressing him/her/it. Sorry to drag the tone down there, h.b. The Red Sox beat the Yankees (a year ago and it still feels good)!

[tessie]

I wish I'd seen this on the anniversary date but it still brought a tear to my eye!

[RonF]

After the 2003 ALCS loss, my brother-in-law, a Chicago transplant to the NY area who turncoated against the Chicago White Sox and became an MFY fan, called my house when I was not home and sang "New York, New York" into my answering machine.

A couple of days after the glorious ending of the 2004 ALCS, he made the mistake of calling his sister when I was home. Once I realized who she was talking to, I yelled "GIMME THAT PHONE", grabbed it from her (she forgave me) and blew him shit until I ran out of breath.

The night of the 2004 ALCS's final game I called my 80 year old father, who never thought he'd see the day. He is now the proud possessor of an "A-Rod slaps balls" T-shirt that he wears every time I can get to Indy to visit. I've got to get you guys a picture. I also called my daughter, who's going to grad school in Boston. She was raised a White Sox fan, but 5 years on Boston made her a Red Sox fan too. She was in a bar and between the noise, the cell phone, and our mutual drunkeness it was hard to communicate. But the emotion was there!

This year, I flew in from Chicago, my brother-in-law drove up from New Jersey, and he and I and his sister/my wife and his kid (an MFY fan, poor kid) went to the game at Fenway that was Schill's first appearance in relief after coming off the DL the second time, the one where A-Fraud hit a homer off Schill to help the MFY win 8-6. His kid tried the "26 Championships" line on me, but "Biggest choke in baseball history" shut him up. I believe it will continue to shut him up for about, oh, until I die. His old man rode me a bit on the loss but knew better than to bring up history.

[JimmyZ]

Pat-

Why are you on a Red Sox blog again?

"------Long before we lost last year I made a conscious decision to never let myself define the Yankees or my feelings about the Yankees in the context of anything that has to do with the Sox. To do so artificially elevates the Sox, and places far too much import on them.--------"

Your denial is painfully obvious. You're an idiot- get over it.