The crowd around Fenway before game time is typical of a Yankee–Red Sox game: more loudmouth drunks, more shutterbugs and gawkers, more shills handing out free stuff, but at eight and a half back it’s hard to muster any showdown spirit. Call this one a grudge match, with the Sox trying to save some face. WEEI’s K posters say: SCHILLING IS THRILLING, and we hope he has enough to beat retread Jon Lieber.

Outside Gate E, a guy’s wearing a T-shirt that says DAVID ORTIZ FAN CLUB with a picture not of Big Papi but of Esther Rolle as Florida in Good Times. On the back it has what I hope is a fictional quote from him: “This is not hot sauce, this is not barbecue sauce, this is the Boston Red Sauce.”

Steph and I are the first in and man the corner for BP. A lot of the Sox have their kids with them in the outfield, wearing miniature versions of their uniforms.

Jeter and A-Rod throw, and Jeter backs up till he’s right beside me. He’s wearing Nike spikes with the logo of the leaping Michael Jordan.

“Now, the way Michael Jordan hit,” I ask, “isn’t it bad luck to wear his spikes?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Jeter says dully, as if he doesn’t care.

After BP, we roll around to the Sox dugout. It takes a while, since the aisles are clogged with newbies and Yankee fans who can’t find their seats. They stop and stare at their expensive eBay tickets and then up at the poles of the grandstands, as if having difficulty reading numbers. “Keep it moving,” we say.

We make it to Steve’s seats in time for the anthem, which is live and not Memorex (as it has been in the past), the proof being the guest Irish tenor botching the words—“the last twilight’s glea-ming,” “the rockets’ red glares.” Nice job, Dermot.

As the game starts, again I have this sense of letdown. It’s Friday night, a packed house, Schilling on the mound against the Yanks, but we’ve played so poorly lately that it’s sapped the drama out of the matchup. We still chant “BAL-CO” when Sheffield steps in, but halfheartedly.

When he takes Schilling out, hooking a Monster shot, all of that changes. Maybe it’s a sense of fair play, honest outrage at Sheffield getting away with his steroid use, or maybe it’s just hurt, but for the rest of the game, whenever Sheffield or Giambi come up, we greet them with “LIFE-TIME BAN, LIFE-TIME BAN” and “Mar-i-on Jo-ones! Marrrr-i-ooonnn!”

Lieber’s hittable, and in the second Trot doubles in Nomar, then Bill Mueller launches one into the bullpen, and we’re up 3–1. Millar tacks on a solo shot in the fourth, and with Schilling only up to 54 pitches, we’re looking good.