I had a big day yesterday. The sixth of my Dark Tower novels, Song of Susannah, was officially published, and I was in New York to do promotion (mostly those morning-radio drive-time shows—not glamorous, and grueling as hell when you pile them up, but they seem to work). The original idea was to fly in from Maine on the evening of the 7th, get a night’s sleep, get up early, do my thing, and fly back late the next afternoon. Instead, I rearranged things on the spur of the moment so I could go to Boston instead. The attraction wasn’t so much the opening night of interleague play—this year the San Diego Padres are in Fenway for the first time—or Pedro Martinez, who has been less than stellar this year, as it was the bruited return of Nomar Garciaparra.

Funny thing about that bruiting. Not only was Nomar not in the Red Sox lineup, he wasn’t even in Boston. He was in Rhode Island, where he played six innings for the PawSox and went 0 for 3. And no one seemed sure just how everyone got so sure he was going to make his major league debut last night in the first place. As I settled into my seat on the third-base line—call last night’s locale halfway between Kevin Youkilis and Manny Ramirez—I couldn’t even remember where I had gotten the idea. I even played with the notion of skipping the game altogether. I’m really, really glad I didn’t. Last night’s tilt would certainly have to go on my list of Steve’s Top Ten Games at Fenway Ever.

The thing is, you never know when you’re going to be reminded whyyou love this game, why it turns all your dials so vigorously to the right. I’ve been at Fenway for three 1–0 shutouts, and the Red Sox have won all three. Wes Gardner, an otherwise forgettable Sox righty, pitched the first under a gorgeous full summer moon one night in the eighties; Roger Clemens pitched the second on a sweltering weekend afternoon in the early nineties; Pedro Martinez and Keith Foulke (who worked a one-two-three ninth) combined on the third last night.

“The Pods,” as they are called (as in Pod-people, from The Invasion of the Body Snatchers? one wonders), may be strangers to Fenway, but their starter, David Wells, knows it well…and we, the Fenway Faithful, know him. Never inarticulate, Boomer has often expressed his distaste for pitching in the Beantown venue. And with good reason. Until last night, fresh off the DL, I’d never seen him pitch well there.[20]