Before settling in to watch the Red Sox-Yankees finale, take a moment to remember what happened four years ago today. There are constant reminders: everytime you go through an airport or fill up your gas tank or watch the news, but those fade into the annoyances of the daily grind. I mean take a moment to remember the images and the feelings from September 11, 2001. It isn’t pleasant but it is necessary.
Days like yesterday just don’t come around often enough. Crystal clear blue skies. Manny finding the homerun swing. Seventy-seven degrees with no humidity. Curt Schilling, bigger than life on stage in the Bronx, shutting down the pinstripes and shutting up the crowd. These are the days you wish you could bottle up and save for mid-January when you’ve just had a three-hour commute through slush and snow and masses of drivers with IQ’s under 100 and pitchers and catchers are still a month away from Florida. But you can’t, so you just enjoy it.
Fact: Curt Schilling was born in Anchorage, Alaska. Now, I’m no Steve Buckley or any kind of baseball historian, but how could I not know that? I know Jerry Remy wears a 33″ inseam and Mike Timlin likes a splash of Tabasco sauce on his eggs in the morning and Jonathan Papelbon wears socks to bed at night but I didn’t know Curt Shilling was from Alaska? Shame on me.
Today, Wakefield looks to throw a handful of dirt on the Yankee coffin that Schill nailed up tight yesterday. Friday, the pressure was all on New York. The Sox played pathetic baseball and suddenly the pressure was on them. Schilling and the bats returned the favor, and now it is once again on the Yankees. The Red Sox can, and will, play loose and confident today. I predict a Millar homerun, something I have never done before. That’s how good I feel.
