A Red Sox Customer Service rep met us at Gate D with a wheelchair and escorted us—along with Sarah Jane’s oxygen bottle and a backup—to our seats, just to the left of the Red Sox dugout and only a row from the field, a perfect location for a lady who’s no longer up to much jumping around. I checked her oxy level before the game started, and the dial on top of the tank said three-quarters, deep in the green, very cool. She was good to go right through the eighth, but as the game neared the four-hour mark (we have discussed the grinding, defensive nature of postseason baseball games) and extra innings loomed, it seemed wise to switch her over to the spare tank, and she agreed to my suggestion that we leave after the tenth, if the score was still tied. With the fireballing K-Rod on the mound, that seemed likely, especially after he got Manny on a called strike three, with Pokey Reese (running for Bellhorn) still languishing on first.

Instead of leaving Rodriguez in to face David Ortiz, Scioscia elected to go with Jarrod Washburn, setting up the lefty-lefty match of which the conventional wisdom so approves. What followed was, quite simply, baseball history. I can’t report it here to any reader’s satisfaction because, although I saw it, my forebrain still doesn’t really believe I saw it. Part of this is because Big Papi so rarely hits with power to left; right field is usually his porch. Most of it, though, is simply that the man’s swing was so damn quick. The ball seemed to be off his bat and gone into the night before my ears even registered the crack of wood on horsehide.