And what puts the icing on the cake, the absolute perfect cherry on the banana split? The Yankees lost. Oh, wait—did I say lost? With a final score of 22–0, I think it would be fair to say that Cleveland administered a pants-down butt-whuppin’. Pricey midseason acquisition Esteban Loaiza gave up not one but two three-run homers in the ninth inning. The question, of course, is where the Yankees go from here. When the Houston Astros no-hit them by committee a year ago, it served as a wake-up call… but that was earlier in the season, before their bullpen had taken such a severe pounding (Yankee starters have recorded just one win in the team’s last sixteen victories). Baseball has seen plenty of amazing late-season chokes; this could be the beginning of yet another.

But the Red Sox players would undoubtedly say they can do nothing about the Yankees. They have thirty-two more games of their own to play, and the next eight are going to be very tough. I hope to be at Fenway for as many of them as I can.

September/October HANGIN’ TOUGH

September/October

HANGIN’ TOUGH

September 1st

SK: “The Yanks have a cake schedule the rest of the way…” And they start off by getting beat by Cleveland, 22–0. That’s some cake.

SO: There ain’t no steroids in humble pie (and that was a BIG pie).

I haven’t been to Fenway since this terrific Red Sox run began (eight in a row now; 21-7 for the month of August), and I’m astonished by how radically the atmosphere of the old park has changed. The glums and glooms of July are gone, replaced by a giddy nervousness that’s not quite a playoff atmosphere. Seconds before Bronson Arroyo throws his first pitch, the PA announcer informs the sellout crowd that it’s seventy-seven degrees—the exact temperature of perfect childhood summer evenings, if I remember correctly. New England’s First Church of the Baseball Unfulfilled is once more ready to rock, my son and three-year-old grandson are with me (the latter more fascinated by the Hood blimp cruising overhead than anything happening on the field), and the Yankees are now almost close enough to touch.