The seemingly forever baseball season which began March 27 ends tonight with the ultimate game between the champions of the American and National Leagues, respectively the Toronto Blue Jays and the defending 2024 World Series victor, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Have you ever attended the seventh and deciding game of a World Series?
I have. In 1975. In Fenway Park as the Boston Red Sox tried to end the curse of the Bambino that had suffocated them and their fans since the team sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1919.
On that night in 1975 I was sitting along the third base line with John Membrino, a fellow reporter on The New Haven Register, courtesy of comp tickets from our sports department. John was an ardent Bosox fan. As a lifelong New York Yankees fan I was not. I kept my prejudice to myself as the game against the Cincinnati Reds proceeded.
A cherished edifice of Beantown architecture, Fenway is a bandbox of a ballpark where fans sit so close to the action they feel they can almost touch the players. John and I sat along the third base line, in the lower, covered deck. It was the night after the Red Sox had triumphed in what some people argue was the best World Series game ever, a contest tied in the bottom of the eighth by a three-run home run by Bernie Carbo and won four innings later by a solo shot over the Green Monster down the left field line by Carlton Fisk, a home run forever immortalized in film by Fisk’s willing the ball to stay fair to give Boston a 7-6 victory and a chance to win its first championship in 57 years. (Some might equally argue that the third game of this year’s series, won by Los Angeles in the bottom of the 18th inning via a walk-off home run by Freddie Freeman, topped that 1975 epic, though Fisk’s physical antics surpassed Freeman’s exuberance.)
Despite the exhilaration from the night before, Boston fans, including my friend John, seemed to me to carry an air of resignation on their shoulders, even after the home team took an early 3-0 lead. They seemed to be waiting for someone to foul up, to make the error that opened the floodgates for the Big Red Machine.
Sure enough, in the sixth inning, second baseman Denny Doyle, a mid-season acquisition based on his defensive skills, made his second error of the game, a miscue that prolonged a Cincinnati at bat. Tony Perez promptly made Boston pay by smacking a two-run homer. From then on the home town crowd’s emotional support never revived. Like prisoners waiting for their turn before the firing squad, the fans waited patiently for the coup de grace. Cincy scored single runs in the seventh and ninth innings to win the game and Series, 4-3.
With the exception of Reds players and their families, I probably was among the few fans to leave Fenway a happy fellow that night. I don’t like the Boston Red Sox. My only regret is I could not openly express my feelings. I’m not stupid, after all. No way would I openly cheer against the home team in Fenway.
If there’s another team that ranks among my despised, it is the Dodgers. I grew up in Brooklyn, but unlike my brother who rooted for the Dodgers, I followed my mother’s devotion to the Yankees, though she also liked the New York Giants (she did, after all, grow up in the Bronx and Manhattan). I was a mere lad of six when “Dem Bums” of Brooklyn beat my Yankees to cop their first crown.
I was a more devoted, older fan when Sandy Koufax, seen cheering on the Dodgers during this year’s telecasts, began the 1963 series by striking out five straight Yankees including Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris enroute to a 15 strikeout, complete game win, the first of a four game sweep by Los Angeles. Of course, last year’s Yankee loss to the Dodgers also did not sit well with me.
I have another regret, not tied to the Red Sox or the Dodgers, but to baseball in general. My business travels took me to every major league city. I regret not watching a game in each ball park. Too late now.
Only one other time did I possess a ticket to the seventh game of a World Series. It was in 1998. Yankees vs. the San Diego Padres. My employer had four season tickets to Yankees games which accorded the right to purchase two additional seats. As our son, Dan, was celebrating his 20th birthday during the week the series was being played, I asked company president Roger Friedman for two tickets to the seventh game. Roger agreed. I mailed the tickets to Dan at school. He was thrilled. The Yankees, however, finished off the Padres in four games. Dan had to mail back the tickets for Roger to obtain a refund, but I still scored points for the thoughtful gift.
