YD7535.1397-1448 5/24/05 8:32 AM Page 1414
Sports and Recreation
dent, local favorite, and marathon legend, won drought came to define the team, much of its of New England when, five outs away from his first of four Boston Marathons in ,and history being synonymous with a deep sense of victory in the seventh game of the American Maine’s Joan Benoit Samuelson won her sec- pessimism. The Red Sox ruled baseball in the League championship series, Sox manager ond Boston Marathon in ; her time of early s and personified defeat for the rest Grady Little stuck with his obviously tiring :: was a course, national, and world of the century. They won the first World Se- ace pitcher, Pedro Martinez, and Boston fans record. One of the marathon’s most infamous ries, in , and their fifth title in . But in watched in agony once again as New York me- episodes was the crowning of Rosie Ruiz as they sold Babe Ruth, who went on to be- thodically rallied from a three-run deficit to the women’s winner in . Ruiz, wearing come the greatest player in the history of the claim yet another pennant. number W, ran onto the race course from game, to their nemesis, the New York Yankees. In the dark shadow of this dismal defeat, Kenmore Square with the men and was the The worst blunder in sports history became team management wasted little time in firing first woman across the finish line. No official central to the mythology of baseball, creating Little and pursuing more pitchers, landing star checkpoint had recorded the passage of W, the sport’s greatest dynasty in the Yankees and closer Keith Foulke and another ace, Curt however, and the characteristic pattern of consigning the Red Sox to a series of tumbles, Schilling, now paired with Martinez, to go with sweat on her clothing and the distinctive taut- broken promises, and near misses. All their their explosive offense.The result was victory at ness of leg muscles after a long run were miss- lives New Englanders had to watch as the Yan- last in , ringing as loudly in Sox history as ing. BAA officials investigated the incident kees won title after title, in all, while their the taunt of had signaled its heartbreak. and disqualified her as the women’s winner. beloved Sox endured defeat and what came to Through mid-season, the team of stars was In Boston became the first major be called the Curse of the Bambino. slowly sinking into the familiar mire of an- marathon to hold a wheelchair competition For most of the th century, the Sox were other second-place finish when general man- and in wheelchair entries became an offi- linked in baseball minds with the Chicago ager Theo Epstein engineered an audacious cial BAA division. Most notably, Jean Driscoll Cubs, baseball’s other perennial loser playing move, trading away the team’s icon, shortstop of Illinois won seven successive wheelchair in a quaint old ballpark. But the Cubs were Nomar Garciaparra, to improve its defense races between and , tying Clarence usually good-natured also-rans, shuffling off and speed. Garciaparra’s departure immedi- DeMar’s record of seven titles. Also in the to another sixth-place finish. Red Sox history ately sparked the players, and the Sox became s, the BAA imposed a standard qualifying was a recurring dream of glory that always baseball’s hottest team, combining relentless time to limit the size of the running field and crashed in flames at the last possible moment. hitting with clutch defense and superb pitch- to attract the most prestigious runners. Today, Four times since the sale of Ruth—in , ing. They entered the playoffs in top proof of qualification on a certified course in , , and —the Sox made it to the form, swept the Anaheim Angels in the first another sanctioned USA Track and Field or World Series. Each time, they lost in the sev- round, and set the stage for a drama that foreign equivalent is necessary to enter the enth game, twice in unbearable fashion.There would captivate the nation. Boston Marathon. have been three one-game playoffs in Ameri- In the championship series, the Yankees From the mid-s to the late s, the can League history; the Sox have been in two quickly took a disturbing – lead in games. Boston Marathon was supported by benefac- of them, in and , and suffered close, But the Sox pulled out a dramatic victory in tors such as the Prudential Life Insurance crushing losses in both. the th inning of game four, and then a sec- Company.In order to continue as a world-rec- The Red Sox were also on the brink of the ond win in the th inning the next night, on ognized race, the marathon became a fully pennant several times, only to fold in the end. the strength of extraordinary pitching and professional event in the s. Sponsorship In they finished the season with two slugger David Ortiz’s clutch hitting. Then in by the John Hancock Financial Ser- games in New York, needing to win only one Schilling, in a performance that reached for vices attracted elite runners from all over the to clinch the pennant. The Yankees beat them the mythological, pitched through the pain of world; runners from Africa came to run the in both. In the Sox lost the title at the end an injured and bleeding ankle to tie the series. Boston Marathon for the first time in . of the season on a base-running mistake. In When the Sox routed New York in the decid- Kenyan Ibrahim Hussein won the race, they blew a seven-and-a-half game lead ing game and players tumbled in celebration and Kenyan runners have won all but three of in the season’s final month. In the Sox led across the infield of Yankee Stadium, all of the races since then. In both the men’s the Yankees by games on July and then Red Sox Nation drank deeply from the glass (Timothy Cherigat) and women’s (Catherine staggered through one of the game’s most of redemption. It was the greatest comeback Ndereba) champions were Kenyan. The his- spectacular collapses before losing a one-game in the history of sports, and fittingly it hap- torical Boston Marathon, one of the most playoff when the Yankees’ light-hitting short- pened against the Yankees, finally breaking high-profile athletic events in the world, con- stop, Bucky Dent, popped a three-run homer the tradition of suffering that had shaped the tinues to signify the pursuit of athletic perfec- to shallow left to seal their fate. His name is memories of Sox fans for generations. Boston tion and personal bests for those who seek to still reviled throughout New England. The then hammered the point home with a crush- gain entry. Sox lost the World Series against the ing sweep of the powerful St. Louis Cardinals Boston Athletic Association, The Official Map of the New York Mets in horrifying fashion, after in the World Series, and the effect on New Boston Marathon (); Tom Derderian, The Boston being one strike away from the championship England was surreal. Marathon:The History of the World’s Premier Running in the sixth game before they imploded in a The team was formally established in Event (); Hal Higdon, Boston: A Century of Run- series of miscues culminating in an easy as a charter member of the American League ning (). grounder that dribbled through Bill Buckner’s and went through a handful of nicknames, in- Donna Jean Zane legs—the most infamous error in World Se- cluding the Americans, the Pilgrims, and the ries history—giving the Mets an impossible Puritans, before settling on the Red Sox in Boston Red Sox World Series champi- victory. Over the next decade, the Sox became . They won five of the first World Se- ons. It took years, but in the Boston the only major league team ever to lose con- ries—in , the first ever, and again in , Red Sox finally were able to claim the title secutive postseason games. In the Yan- , , and —with a team that in- again, for the first time since . That long kees left another indelible stain on the psyche cluded some of the giants of the game: Tris