If you’re a Red Sox fan you may still be coming down from their dramatic, ninth inning, come from behind victory yesterday. You may be singing the praises of Iglesias and Ellsbury. Yes, they contributed their mite, but the real hero’s name shall never be celebrated, even here, though I can at least document the achievement of this nameless-to-history titan of sports. For I was there, and I know.
We took our seats in the bleachers just before the game started, well within shouting distance of the visitor’s bullpen. My seat was two seats from the aisle, and shortly after I arrived the day’s future hero arrived, with his bride, and the twosome sat next to us, he on the outside seat. He was drunk when he arrived and like a true hero, he made the sacrifice of keeping himself drunk throughout the game, the better to perform his service to the cause.
Around the sixth, with the Sox behind, he started hectoring each Indian reliever as he warmed up. Nothing personal, mind you, just emphasizing to each how much he sucked and assuring him that he would so suck when he took the field. Adroit he was at keeping within the limits of a fan’s right to heap abuse on a player; he was warned, but never removed, more than once proclaiming his sacred first amendment rights were being threatened. No Indian reliever was exempt from his abuse save one, a fellow named Hill, who got a pass, the hero loudly proclaimed, because Hill was a native and resident of South Boston.
Each reliever took the field, and each failed in his appointed task. But the most abuse was heaped on Chris Gomez, the Indian closer, who was instructed in colorful, and often quite funny, terms to blow the save when his time surely came. And blow it he did, in such humiliating fashion that he had to fake an injury to get off the mound, after which his also (quickly. given the circumstances) abused successor surrendered that final, fateful pitch to Ellsbury.
You may say that baseball players are used to this sort of stuff, and pay it no mind. But you can’t convince me of that, nor any of the other folks who were there near the bullpen that glorious day. Ballplayers are people too, and each of those unlucky relievers was primed to fail as he took his fatal trot to the mound. Sure he was a drunken lout, but give credit where credit is due: to the unknown fan. The Sox would have lost without him.
Post a Comment