
The 2004 ALCS made me miserable
It was four games to a train wreck
Some questions are hard to answer.
This one was not.
Being a sports fan has its share of disappointments, and if I could, I’d have Dale Earnhardt survive the crash at Daytona.
I’d make Keith Smart miss the shot.
Steven Gerrard wouldn’t slip against Chelsea.
The San Diego Chargers would find a two-car funeral they couldn’t screw up.
But if I could only change one outcome, the Yankees would have won one more game in the 2004 American League Championship Series.
I moved from the Albany area to Cape Cod in December of 2002, and quickly learned that for a Yankees fan in Massachusetts, it’s basically as difficult as the people around you are willing to make it.
But there was one thing I had over all my Red Sox-loving friends … not strictly 1918, but that none of them had ever seen the Sox win a World Series.
Let’s just say that after my loved ones, I want Aaron Boone’s 2003 homer to be among the first things I see after I pass through the Pearly Gates.
My first game at Fenway was a Yankees-Red Sox game in 2004, and Red Sox fans were strangely convinced the Yankees were engaging in certain homosexual acts when not playing baseball. They had T-shirts made and everything.
And then, later that year, was the Cheap Shot Heard ‘Round the World.
The problem was that the Red Sox were good. They probably should have beaten the Yankees the year before, but it seemed like they went from thinking they could beat the Yankees to knowing it.
That was going to be a bad thing if the Yankees and Red Sox met in the ALCS … except the Yankees then took a 3–0 lead, winning Game 3 19–8.
It was a glorious time to be a Yankees fan, but …
I’m not going to say my wife lost the ALCS for the Yankees.
After all, she didn’t make a bad throw in Game 4 when a good one might have gotten Dave Roberts.
She didn’t forget how to hit against the Red Sox bullpen or give up game-winning hits to David Ortiz in Games 4 and 5.
And she sure as hell wasn’t the one who didn’t tell the players to bunt against a one-legged pitcher in Game 6. (Although I hope we have a lot of years left, but if Joe Torre goes before me, after the Pearly Gates, the loved ones and the Aaron Boone video, I’m going to ask him, “WHY THE @#%* DID YOU NOT TELL YOUR PLAYERS NOT TO BUNT ON CURT SCHILLING!)
But after Game 4, when I was spitting and sputtering, trying to calm me down, she said, “All they have to do is win one more game.”
Even then, something felt wrong.
I had decided I wouldn’t watch Game 7, but coming home from work that night, I turned on the radio.
Johnny Damon hit the next pitch for a grand slam.
I turned off the radio.
For the most part, my co-workers decided not to make the next day too difficult. Maybe I was giving off an “I do NOT want to hear it vibe.”
The Red Sox don’t win the World Series since 1918, and then they win three since I move to Massachusetts.
Go figure.
If the three, 2004 was the worst, because the Yankees were involved. The other two, I didn’t like it, but I kept out of it.
Of course, when the Yankees won in 2009, I wore my jersey to work the next day, and my co-workers claimed they didn’t know the World Series ended.
I guess I couldn’t expect the Red Sox to never win a World Series again, but if I could have arranged it, they wouldn’t have beaten the Yankees on the way.

