Livin' the Dream: A Celebration of the World Champion 2013 Boston Red Sox
96
Livin' the Dream: A Celebration of the World Champion 2013 Boston Red Sox
96eBook
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781623687441 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 12/12/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 96 |
| File size: | 78 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Livin' the Dream
By Janice Page
Triumph Books
Copyright © 2013 The Boston GlobeAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62368-744-1
CHAPTER 1
Redeem team
Nothing fazed Boston's sons of destiny
By Christopher L. Gasper, Globe columnist.
The Next Great Red Sox team isn't an organizational catch phrase or a distant vision. It became a reality when the Red Sox won the 109th World Series. What was the Unthinkable Dream in February was as vivid and brilliant and real as the October foliage.
A year after finishing last in the American League East, the Red Sox are the last team standing. From pariahs to parade-planners, the Red Sox capped a remarkable turnaround with a 6-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 6 at Fenway Park to capture the franchise's third World Series title since 2004.
It couldn't have ended any other way. These retooled Red Sox were really, really good, with gamers and grinders, chemistry and camaraderie, run prevention and run generation. And they had destiny in their dugout. Certain seasons, certain teams just can't lose. The 2013 Red Sox were one of those teams.
Their fourth-choice closer, Koji Uehara, turned out to be the best closer in baseball. A pitcher they would have put in the Salvation Army donation bin if they could have, John Lackey, turned out to be their most consistent pitcher and won the clinching game of the World Series. The guy everyone in baseball said they overpaid for, Shane Victorino, won a Gold Glove, stopped switch-hitting, and came up with two huge bases-loaded postseason hits batting righthanded against righties.
This redoubtable team full of bushy faces and Boston Strong shoulders was a freight train on fate's tracks and nothing was going to derail them, certainly not the St. Louis Cardinals.
"People counted us out and we kept proving them wrong all year and now we're here with this trophy," said Red Sox ace Jon Lester.
It didn't all go right for the Red Sox this postseason, but it was close.
It started in the very first game, when Tampa Bay Rays right fielder Wil Myers inexplicably pulled off of a routine fly, paving the way for a five-run fourth inning and a 12-2 victory. It continued in the first game of the World Series, when the Cardinals played defense like the baseball was an invisible object.
On Oct. 30, fortune smiled on the Sons of Fenway once again. Victorino, who had been 0 for 10 in the series, hit a bases-loaded double in the third that gave the Sox a 3-0 lead.
With one out and Jacoby Ellsbury on first in the third, Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, perhaps by popular vote of the good folks of St. Louis, finally decided to stop pitching to David Ortiz and ordered an intentional walk.
But St. Louis starter Michael Wacha hit Johnny Gomes with two outs to load the bases. Victorino who delivered the Red Sox to the World Series with a seventh-inning grand slam in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series against the Detroit Tigers, drilled a three-run double high off the Green Monster.
He took third on the throw and pounded his chest with both hands while letting out a primal scream.
"Obviously, no one is 100 percent this time of year and for him to go out there and compete and get that big knock, that's just our team," said Ellsbury. "That's just our team all year."
Victorino was a late scratch from Game 4 with lower back tightness. The man who replaced him, Gomes, ended up hitting a three-run homer that broke a 1-1 tie and powered the Sox to a 4-2 win, perhaps the single biggest hit of the series.
Victorino was out for Game 5 too, as manager John Farrell went with Gomes and Daniel Nava. The Sox usual No. 2 hitter, Farrell dropped him to sixth for Game 6, and he went 2 for 3 with four runs batted in and a pair of bases-loaded hits.
Fate.
If there was any doubt that the Red Sox were destined to win this World Series, it was put to rest with a three-run fourth.
Stephen Drew, who had last gotten a hit on Labor Day — OK, that's an exaggeration, he was 4 for 51 (.078) in the postseason — belted a first-pitch fastball into the Red Sox bullpen to lead off the fourth.
"He actually told me that he was going to hit a home run today," said first baseman Napoli, who took batting practice with Drew.
Of course he did. That's the way the 2013 Red Sox rolled.
With Ellsbury on third and two outs, Matheny intentionally walked Ortiz again. But he lifted Wacha, who had fanned cleanup batter Napoli twice. Napoli singled, of course, off Lance Lynn to drive in another run.
Victorino hit a bases-loaded single to left to score Ortiz and make it 6-0 and the barricades were going up outside of Fenway Park in anticipation of a flood of the Faithful.
Six runs was more than enough for Lackey, who could drink all the beer he wanted in the clubhouse after this one. Lackey left with two outs in the seventh and a 6-1 lead and tipping his cap to crowd.
Lackey had gone from an object of enmity among the Fenway Faithful to an object of idolatry.
"It gave me chills to hear the response that he deservedly received here," said Farrell. "It's almost fitting that he is the guy on the mound tonight to close it out. He mirrors the remake of this team and this organization."
The Red Sox joined the 1991 Minnesota Twins as the only teams to go from worst in their division to World Series winners. They also put 1918 to rest for good, becoming the first Red Sox team in 95 years to celebrate a World Series championship inside the baseball basilica in the Fens.
To paraphrase Ortiz, the World Series MVP, this was just the Red Sox bleepin' season.
CHAPTER 2It all worked
With 2013 Red Sox, chemistry trumped talent
By Dan Shaughnessy, Globe columnist.
We are Boston. We love sports. We have brains and energy and tradition and history. Our young people carry their love of Boston teams when they move to other parts of the country and the world.
And those of us who have lived here for a while simply cannot believe what just unfolded with the Boston Red Sox in October of 2013.
The Duck Dynasty Sox got to ride the duck boats. They wheeled down Boylston Street past the sad spots where the bombs exploded in April. They did the right thing, just as they have done all season. They honored the dead and the maimed and the families of victims. And they were thankful for being allowed to help lift a region after the heinous events of Patriots Day.
Though it feels like this team invented Boston Strong, the Sox are only a major league baseball team, and it's neither fair nor respectful to overstate their role in our city's recovery from the tragedy. Still, manager John Farrell had it right when he said, "There's a civic responsibility that we have wearing this uniform, particularly here in Boston."
"We were playing for something more the rest of the year and we understood that," Dustin Pedroia said on ESPN.
Bottom line: After the death and disruption of mid-April, the 2013 Sox made most everyone in New England feel good again. The Sox were likable, and more important, they liked one another. A franchise famous for "25 guys, 25 cabs" became a magic bus of harmony, teamwork, and camaraderie. These highly paid, professional ballplayers actually enjoyed playing baseball and ignored the white noise that is so much a part of the Boston baseball experience.
In "Midnight Train to Georgia," Gladys Knight sings, "LA proved too much for the man." Boston baseball can be that way. Boston was too much for Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford. Fortunately for Sox fans, Hub Hardball was a perfect fit for David Ross, Jonny Gomes, Mike Napoli, Stephen Drew, Ryan Dempster, Koji Uehara, and Shane Victorino.
They were the gang of seven free agents acquired by methodical, underrated general manager Ben Cherington after the train-wreck summer of 2012. Relieved of $261 million in future payroll obligations when the Dodgers took Carl and the Cooler, Cherington spent relatively short money on veteran "character" guys who had played in big markets and/or big games.
Everything worked. This Red Sox team was not as talented as the 2004 or 2007 teams. The Bearded Brotherhood is a classic example of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.
In a way, the Sox were like a high school baseball team, snapping towels, giving wedgies, and assigning one another fuzzy nicknames. It would be easy to imagine the 2013 Sox holding team dinners at Mom Pedroia's house, wearing their uniforms to school on game days, and singing songs on the bus en route to rival schools. The 2013 Boston baseball season was played at the intersection of "Moneyball" and "Friday Night Lights."
This was the ultimate Team. It was worthy of your love and dedication from the jump. Unfortunately, after the Bobby V Show, folks were mad at the Sox and few fans got on board early. Many in the media doubted this team's ability to sustain its winning ways. We were wrong.
The 2013 Sox truly were a gift.
Living the Dream
The Red Sox connected with their fans in a new way in 2013. There was beard bonding (Will Middlebrooks and David Ross were still playing up that note during the victory tour) and numerous nods to Boston Strong. "I'd just like to say thank you to the Red Sox for bringing all these people back to the streets for something so great to celebrate," said one parade-goer.
Living the Dream
Game 6 winner John Lackey finally let down his hair and mingled with fans, and a particularly poignant moment came when Jonny Gomes and Jarrod Saltalamacchia joined the crowd in singing "God Bless America" at the Boston Marathon finish line.
Living the Dream
Hundreds of thousands of fans converged on Boston for the parade, which rolled through the streets and into the Charles River on an unseasonably warm November day. Boston Police officer Steve Horgan reprised his victory pose, David Ortiz got behind the wheel of a duck boat, and Jonny Gomes held the trophy high, for all to see.
CHAPTER 3World Series
This was getting to be a habit – the Red Sox have never faced any other World Series foe more than once, but this was their fourth clash with the Cardinals. As in the ALDS, Boston bolted to an easy (8-1) Game 1 victory. That is where the tracks diverged, as the Red Sox proceeded to lose two games in a row for the only time in the 2013 postseason, capped by the puzzling defeat by obstruction in Game 3. The gritty Sox went on to sweep the final three games, thanks to patchwork pitching in Game 4 and dominant starters Jon Lester and John Lackey in Games 5-6, not to mention the occasional timely hit, by Jonny Gomes (three-run homer in Game 4), David Ross (go-ahead RBI double in Game 5), and Shane Victorino (three-run double in Game 6, his second critical Game 6 blow of the postseason).
GAME 1 LIVIN' THE DREAM
In a repeat of their sloppy start to Game 1 of the 2004 World Series, the Cardinals made costly miscues that allowed the Red Sox to grab a quick 5-0 lead. Jon Lester scattered five hits and a walk to extend his career Series shutout streak to 131/3 innings, and David Ortiz homered and knocked in three runs.
LIVING THE DREAM
The Red Sox returned the favor in a tight Game 2, making a pair of costly errors that wiped out a 2-1 lead forged by David Ortiz's two-run homer. The Cardinals pulled off a double steal and scored the go-ahead run when Craig Breslow airmailed a throw to third base.
Living the Dream
Junichi Tazawa and Ryan Dempster (46) worked in relief, and his mates celebrated David Ortiz's run that made it 3-0 in the first inning, after the umpires overturned a call by Dana DeMuth at second base that had John Farrell livid. Mike Napoli and Xander Bogaerts reveled in the victory.
GAME 2 LIVIN' THE DREAM
The Red Sox returned the favor in a tight Game 2, making a pair of costly errors that wiped out a 2-1 lead forged by David Ortiz's two-run homer. The Cardinals pulled off a double steal and scored the go-ahead run when Craig Breslow airmailed a throw to third base.
Living the Dream
Jonny Gomes made a game effort on Carlos Beltran's line-drive single in the first; Jacoby Ellsbury, Stephen Drew, and the Sox lineup struggled until David Ortiz's two-run homer in the sixth; Craig Breslow (32) couldn't watch as the Cards celebrated taking the lead on his overthrow.
Living the Dream
Boston batters, including Jonny Gomes, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and Dustin Pedroia (who had a loud foul) were frustrated by Michael Wacha. John Lackey was typically reluctant to leave the game.
Living the Dream
Craig Breslow's throw sailed over Stephen Drew, allowing the go-ahead run to score, after the Cards had executed a double steal. David Ortiz greeted Mariano Rivera, who was honored by MLB before the game.
GAME 3 LIVIN' THE DREAM
St. Louis took a 2-1 Series advantage despite giving up a pair of two-run leads to the Red Sox. After Boston made it 4-4 in the eighth inning, Allen Craig touched up Sox closer Koji Uehara for a double, then lumbered home for the walk-off victory thanks to an obstruction call.
Living the Dream
Jake Peavy worked out of a couple of jams, but left trailing, 2-0; Xander Bogaerts was safe at third in the fifth inning; Shane Victorino and Jacoby Ellsbury made outs, and Peavy conferred with Jarrod Saltalamacchia.
Living the Dream
Junichi Tazawa allowed a two-run double to Matt Holliday that scored Carlos Beltran, but he avoided further damage; Shane Victorino was hit by a pitch in Boston's eighth-inning rally; Xander Bogaerts awaited the late throw as Kolten Wong stole second in the eighth inning.
Living the Dream
The Sox were in shock after Saltalamacchia tagged Allen Craig out, only to have the game end on an obstruction call against Will Middlebrooks. Earlier, Dustin Pedroia lent a hand to David Ortiz and Stephen Drew failed to connect.
GAME 4 LIVIN' THE DREAM
Clay Buchholz managed to give the Sox four innings of one-run pitching despite shoulder fatigue, and the Sox used erstwhile starters Felix Doubront and John Lackey to help get the game to closer Koji Uehara, who preserved the victory forged by a dramatic three-run homer by Jonny Gomes in the seventh.
Living the Dream
Koji Uehara and Mike Napoli celebrated their game-ending pickoff of Cardinal pinch-runner Kolten Wong. David Ortiz kept himself in the game and got the Red Sox on the board in the fifth inning. Xander Bogaerts was solid at third base.
Living the Dream
David Ortiz was safe at home in the fifth, Clay Buchholz gave the Sox four innings on a tired arm, and outfielders Jonny Gomes, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Daniel Nava celebrated the victory, which was sealed by Mike Napoli's tag on the Cards' Kolten Wong. Felix Doubront was solid in relief. Before Gomes struck in the seventh, Pedroia fanned in the fourth.
Living the Dream
John Lackey contributed an inning of relief after Gomes celebrated his long ball. Matt Carpenter (43) logged the Cards' only run in the third, and Craig Breslow left the mound after a disappointing outing.
GAME 5 LIVIN' THE DREAM
Jon Lester shut down St. Louis on one run and four hits while walking none, and batterymate David Ross drove home the go-ahead run in the seventh inning. "How many times can you throw the best game of your life?" asked Sox pitcher Ryan Dempster of Lester's postseason performance.
Living the Dream
David Ross congratulated Jon Lester as Lester exits in the seventh inning. Red Sox hitters such as Jacoby Ellsbury (center), Ross and Lester (attempting a bunt) were stymied, but David Ortiz had three hits.
Living the Dream
David Ross was out at home trying to score the fourth run, but Red Sox infielders Stephen Drew and Dustin Pedroia made the key plays and Koji Uehara got the final four outs to send the Sox back to Boston happy. David Ortiz (right) was a familiar presence on the basepaths with three hits, including a double.
GAME 6 LIVIN' THE DREAM
Shane Victorino launched a three-run wall double to give the Red Sox the lead, and John Lackey and three relievers took it from there, scattering one run on nine hits to give Boston its eighth world championship and third in the past 10 years.
Living the Dream
It's unanimous, Jonny Gomes is safe at home on Shane Victorino's three-run double, staking John Lackey to an early lead. Lackey coaxed John Farrell to keep him in, and Jacoby Ellsbury wriggled out of a Cardinal pickoff try. Stephen Drew came through with a solo homer in the fourth inning.
Living the Dream
Shane Victorino hit the wall, Jonny Gomes got hit, and Mike Napoli hit the ground running after an RBI single.
Living the Dream
Dustin Pedroia and John Farrell basked in the victory after players swarmed the field to celebrate the final strikeout by Koji Uehara.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Livin' the Dream by Janice Page. Copyright © 2013 The Boston Globe. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
A Celebration of the World Champion 2013 Boston Red Sox,Introduction: Full circle,
Redeem team,
It all worked,
World Series,
ALCS,
ALDS,