No team in major league history has ever come back from an 0-3 hole to win a postseason series (no team in an 0-3 hole has even forced a Game 7), but it’s been done twice in the NHL. The last time it was done, it was done to my team. I was a Pittsburgh Penguins fan in 1975 (I’m still a Penguins fan, dammit) when the New York Islanders came roaring back from 0-3 to shame us, winning by the slimmest of margins game after game, several of those in overtime. I was at Game 6 at the Civic Arena, and there was a dispiriting sense in the crowd that we were doomed to lose even though we had a 3-2 lead in games and were playing the last two on home ice. It was like a nightmare, knowing the horrible thing was going to happen but being powerless to stop it. Once we’d lost Game 6, there was hardly any point in playing Game 7, and everyone knew it. We were cooked, broken, useless. We barely showed up, and the Isles push-broomed us into the dustbin of history. Now, granted, the New York Yankees aren’t the Pittsburgh Penguins, but I must say that these Red Sox are as hungry as those young Islanders—a team, you might remember, that matured and went on to win four straight Stanley Cups.

SK: Almost game time. Will they play? I think maybe they will. And Mr. Schill? Father Curt? I think maybe he will. And if the Red Sox do instead of die, I’ve made arrangements to be in Yanqui Stadium tomorrow night for the kill. Drive those banderillas home, boys! One from Arroyo! Two more from the magickal Mr. Lowe! And one more—in the ninth—the killer—from Pedro, the Closer from Hell.

SO: It’s on. Gotta hit, and gotta field behind whoever’s on the hill. We’ve overcome big injuries all year, so why change now? I hope to hell you are there tomorrow, and the boys bring it home. And if not, we made ’em sweat blood.

Billy Mueller in the #2 slot—good move. Bellhorn and Cabrera weren’t getting it done. Billy Mueller, Yankee Killer!

October 20th/ALCS Game 6

At Fenway Park this morning, the groundskeepers will continue their little field-grooming chores instead of embarking on the larger chores that go with making a major league baseball field ready for winter. The concessionaires remain on standby, and the spectator gates will still be up on Yawkey Way. Incredibly, long after the baseball pundits on ESPN’s SportsCenter and the sports cannibals in the Boston media had given them up for dead, the Boston Red Sox remain alive; in the words of the immortal Huey Lewis, the heart of rock ’n’ roll is still beating.