Lowe has no problem with the bottom of their order (Bernie, Tony Clark and Enrique Wilson will go a combined 1 for 10), and in our half of the second, Contreras hits Mirabelli, gives up a smoked single to Kapler and then serves up a pretty Pesky Pole shot to Johnny, the ball rising into the night, then hitting the woven metal skirt of the pole and dropping straight down. We’re still celebrating when Bellhorn takes one out. It’s 6–2 and only the second inning.

Contreras picks up his second hit batsman of the inning when he throws behind Millar. The crowd is pissed and loud. After Friday night’s game, and how blatant the pitch was, I expect he’ll be heaved to keep order, but no, Wendelstedt just issues a warning to both clubs. So the Yanks get two free ones. When a pitch gets through Mirabelli and knocks Wendelstedt’s mask off, sending him to one knee, there’s a sense of frontier justice.

Torre decides to save the pen and let Contreras hang, and it works for the most part. The unstoppable Millar hits a Coke bottle shot in the fifth, and the two runs we tack on in the sixth are partly reliever Felix Heredia’s fault, and partly Matsui’s, when he gets fooled by a fly to left. Earlier in the series, he got caught too close to the wall and a ball hopped over his head; now he plays too far off it and David Ortiz’s slicing fly hits the padding about five feet off the ground, and a catchable ball becomes a run-scoring double. Millar singles Ortiz in for his fourth RBI. It’s 9–2, and the game’s turning into a party.

John Kerry’s sitting two sections over from us, right by the end of the Sox dugout, along with John Glenn, Joe Biden, Tom Brokaw, Tim Russert, and a gaggle of other Democratic National Convention celebrities. Between innings, the teenage guys sitting in front of us gesture to him with a ball they want signed. Kerry waves it on. The kid’s throw is short, hitting Katie Couric. Kerry signs it, and since I’m the only one with a glove, he throws it back to me. When the next half-inning’s over, I catch Kerry’s eye with the ball I snagged from Miguel Cairo and toss it to him—the right distance, but wide. I think it’s going to bounce onto the field, but Kerry reaches over the wall, stretches and makes a sweet one-handed grab. I point to him, surprised; he points back and nods. After he signs, his toss is perfect, head-high, and again we point at each other. Oil Can Boyd and John Kerry in one day!