Knuckler

  Dealt a crushing blow by the Yankees a year earlier, Tim Wakefield and the Red Sox climbed up off the mat and belted the Yankees with their own knuckle sandwich.

  In the immediate aftermath of Game 7, the Red Sox clubhouse had the feel of Bourbon Street at the peak of Mardi Gras. The Red Sox still needed four more victories to record their first World Series championship since the days of World War I, but they had every reason to celebrate, to extend and cherish the moment. The Red Sox owners, executives, and players openly embraced one another and celebrated what was arguably the greatest victory in the history of the franchise, even though the Sox still had another series to play before reaching their ultimate destination.

  Wakefield quietly stood off to the side of the visitors' clubhouse at Yankee Stadium, a room that had been draped, in customary base ball practice, in protective plastic sheets as the Red Sox were routing New York. It was team equipment manager Joe Cochran who oversaw the process during the game, anticipating a Red Sox celebration that would be like no other in the history of the franchise. In the visitors' clubhouse at the old Yankee Stadium, there were stalls with one shelf (on top), a bunk (at the bottom), a chair (which usually faced the stall), and two hooks (one on each post that framed the space). Everything was painted white. Visiting players would come in and sit on the chair or bunk before putting on their uniforms, draping their clothes on the hooks, and stashing any other belongings on the shelf above. Equipment was strewn about—gloves and cleats could be on the floor, on the bunk, or on the shelf, depending on the player's preference—and it was Cochran's responsibility to make sure that everything remained dry in the inevitable champagne celebration that would follow such a monumental victory.

  Wakefield had elected to station himself in the general area of his locker, which had been in the same place for as long as he could remember. This, too, is quite customary in baseball. Every team has personnel who oversee both the home and visitors' clubhouses, and every team tries to make players as comfortable as possible. Baseball is, after all, a game of routines. A small plate just above the space was engraved with Wakefield's number 49, and his game jersey hung on one of the hooks, but the pitcher no longer had to look for either the plate or his jersey to find his space. The older a player got, the less the routine changed.

  In the major leagues, long-standing membership, especially, had its privileges.

  With friend and fellow veteran Mike Timlin stationed in the locker next to him—Timlin wore number 50—a smiling Wakefield sipped from a can of beer while many of his rowdier teammates were spraying champagne wildly and pouring beer over one another's heads. Predictably, the area near Wakefield and Timlin was far more controlled. At that point in their careers, Wakefield and Timlin had a combined 27 years of major league experience—some good, some bad—and each man was quite content to leave the heavy-duty party ing to the younger members of the team. Wakefield had not pitched in Game 7, but media members streamed toward his locker upon being allowed into the Boston clubhouse—some because Wakefield stood in one of the safer parts of the room, but most because they had all congregated in precisely the same place a year earlier, albeit under far, far different circumstances.

  "This is as big as the World Series," said a beaming Wakefield. "To be down 3–0, losing Game 3 the way we lost it (in blowout fashion), with the way we won Game 4 and the way we won Game 5, then coming back and winning Game 6 and Game 7 here, it's tremendous, not only for this organization but for the city and the fans that stuck around through thick and thin for us."

  Reserved as ever, Wakefield resisted talking too much about 2003, but the big, bright smile on his face spoke for him.

  Redemption.

  While reporters scribbled away on notepads and poked their microphones into the scrum to capture the knuckleballer's every word, the extension phone in the back of the Red Sox clubhouse began to ring, unbeknownst to Wakefield and the reporters surrounding him. Yankee Stadium was a workplace, after all, and there was an interoffice phone system that connected most every part of the ballpark. Anyone with a master phone list could pick up the phone and call just about anyone else, just as a hotel guest might call a friend staying in a nearby room.

  As Wakefield continued to speak with reporters in front of his locker, one of the attendants in the visiting clubhouse at Yankee Stadium leaned in and delivered a message to the pitcher.

  "Joe Torre's on the phone," he said. "He asked to speak with you."

  Joe Torre, his clubhouse eerily quiet following what is still regarded as the greatest collapse in the postseason history of major league baseball, returned to the solitude of his office, sat behind his desk, and picked up his phone, dialing the numbers that connected him to the Red Sox clubhouse. Excusing himself from the group, Wakefield promptly departed and joined the attendant at the rear of the clubhouse, an area sectioned off from reporters and the merrymaking and typically reserved as what players referred to as their lounge before and after games. This room was off-limits to the media so that players could eat, read, and socialize without any interference. As new ballparks were constructed, lounges would become rather sizable areas with large flat-screen televisions and card tables as well as sofas and chairs. At Yankee Stadium in 2004, however, the room was far more like a small kitchen, the proverbial heart of the home where, in this case, Wakefield picked up the receiver and accepted the well wishes of one of the most accomplished and respected managers in baseball.

  Joe Torre had spent a lifetime in the game as a player, manager, and broadcaster. From failure to success, he had experienced everything the game could muster. It was Torre's impeccable people skills, combined with his comfortable, easygoing manner, that had allowed him to be a successful and longtime manager of a storied franchise like the Yankees, in a boiling media kettle like New York, for a megalomaniacal owner like George Steinbrenner. The 2004 ALCS Game 7 loss to the Red Sox was the indisputable nadir of Torre's tenure with the Yankees, but he nonetheless felt compelled to call Wakefield in the fallout of Game 7 and deliver the simplest message.

  I'm happy for you. You deserve this. Good things happen to good people.

  "First of all, I always admired the fact that he's taken the ball and gone to the post. He's never been an excuse-maker, and he's been a great competitor," Torre remembered. "The thing that obviously came to mind was when he walked off the field after giving up the home run to Boone in Game 7 in 2003. He had pitched really well in that series, and yet, I knew his year was going to be defined by that home run. I didn't think that was fair.

  "Despite all that was going on with [the Yankees], that was all that came to mind for me. It was just like a flashback. It was a lasting image for me. We all say sometimes that life is unfair, and when I saw him walk off that field in 2003.... I don't know if this is the right word, but it was sort of a redemption."

  Wakefield graciously accepted Torre's thanks and returned to the Red Sox clubhouse. The New York manager's call would forever remain one of the highlights of his career.

  The Red Sox and Yankees of 2003 and 2004 were bitter rivals and true peers—in the 52 times the teams played in two years, the Red Sox held a 27–25 edge and each team won a seven-game postseason series over the other—but Wakefield was the only member of the Boston organization who spoke with Torre on the clubhouse phone that night. The Yankees made an incredible 12 consecutive postseason appearances during Torre's 12 years with the team: four of them culminated in victories that delivered a world title to New York, and eight of them ended with disappointing Yankees defeats. The Game 7 loss to the Red Sox in 2004 was easily among the most disappointing of those losses, and yet Torre expressed his respect for an opposing player by calling immediately afterwards to convey his congratulations.

  Wakefield knew that such a gesture was special and unusual, and so he made sure he took the time to reciprocate. Shortly after the baseball season ended, Wakefield wrote a personal note to Torre, thanking him for taking the time to call in the wake of Game 7. Torre, in
turn, locked away that memory, forging a relationship that remains intact, the two men greeting one another with heartfelt appreciation whenever their paths cross.

  "He has since written me notes," Torre said, "and the one he sent me after that year said something to the effect of, 'That call meant as much to me as winning the World Series.' I tucked that one away."

  Added the longtime manager: "You know, as a person, when you express yourself to someone and they express the same thing back, that's a nice feeling. When he made the All-Star team for the first time [in 2009], I went over and congratulated him. I think he gets lost in the shuffle sometimes because nobody wants to take a knuckleballer on an All-Star team. I think you get afraid that you might have to put him in the game."

  For Wakefield and the Red Sox, thankfully, Boston manager Terry Francona had shown no such trepidation during the playoffs, using Wakefield out of the bullpen in Games 1, 3, and 5 of the League Championship Series. In Game 5, the decision had paid off enormously. Francona, as any manager would do, had told all of his pitchers to be ready for duty in Game 7, a series-deciding game being the one scenario in which baseball managers universally manage for the short term and throw all caution to the wind. Just the same, Francona took the time to tell Wakefield before Game 7 that the knuckleballer would start Game 1 of the World Series against either the St. Louis Cardinals or the Houston Astros, so long as the Red Sox could beat the Yankees. Despite the exhilaration of their historic comeback against the Yankees, no one on the team had lost sight of the importance of that last game.

  "There's more baseball to be played," Francona pronounced after the Game 7 win. "I hope [Red Sox fans] are dancing in the streets. This is why we play and why we show up."

  But then, following a career marked by ups and downs, Tim Wakefield already knew that.

  Between Game 5 in 1986 and Game 1 in 2004, 93 World Series games were played at various locations throughout North America. Many of them were played in New York. Some were played in traditional baseball cities like Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Cleveland. Others were played in places like San Diego, Miami, and Phoenix, homes of baseball's trendy nouveau riche. There were even World Series games played in Canada.

  During that span, not a single World Series game was played in New England.

  That all changed on the night of Saturday, October 23, 2004, when the Red Sox played their first World Series home game in 18 years and manager Terry Francona identified Tim Wakefield as his starting pitcher. Wakefield had anticipated this moment for as long as he could remember—flashbulbs rippling throughout Fenway Park like strands of blinking Christmas lights—and the significance could not, would not, be lost on him. Had things gone differently in 2003—if deposed manager Grady Little had yanked Pedro Martinez after the seventh inning and the Red Sox had closed out Game 7 against the Yankees, like they should have—Wakefield would have been in line to start Game 1 of the World Series. Instead, Boston's epic eighth-inning meltdown had taken that opportunity away from him. When Wakefield ended up making his next appearance as a reliever in Game 7 of the ALCS instead of as a starter in Game 1 of the World Series, the enormous repercussions of that change included the firing of Little and the acquisitions of key contributors Curt Schilling and Keith Foulke.

  For Wakefield, the repercussions had rippled all the way into late October 2004.

  After all of that ... I get to throw the first pitch.

  By then, almost everyone was aware of Torre's affection for Wakefield, even if the details of the Yankees manager's call to the Red Sox clubhouse were not known. Following any clinching game of any postseason baseball series, the first person escorted into the interview room is always the losing manager, a man roughly 10 minutes removed from one of the most heartbreaking defeats of his life. Torre handled the event with predictable dignity. Two days later, as the Yankees cleaned out their clubhouse and took time to reflect on the events of the historic series with the Red Sox, Torre told members of the New York press that the flipside of defeat came in the fact that "guys like Tim Wakefield get to go to the World Series," a comment that quickly traveled all the way up to Boston as the Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals convened at Fenway Park to prepare for Game 1 of the 2004 World Series.

  Sitting at a podium in an interview room jammed with reporters from all over the world, an elated Wakefield happily spoke about the responsibility of pitching Game 1, which was to take place the next night. This was his moment. This was the payback for being unceremoniously omitted from the Boston playoff roster in 1999 and for being jerked back and forth from the bullpen as if he were hooked to guide wire. This was the chance Wakefield had been waiting for since he first began throwing the knuckleball, the opportunity to lead his team into one of the biggest games of the season while being showered with praise by a rival manager, Torre, one of the most respected managers in history.

  "It means a lot that Joe would actually mention my name in his interview when they were packing up going home," Wakefield said. "I have a lot of respect for that man. I've played against him for a long time and watched him win a lot of championships over there. And for him to say something that nice about me really shows how passionate he is for not only the game, but for other players on other teams.

  "You know, I'm excited. This is the first time I've ever experienced a World Series, and it's the first time the city of Boston has experienced the World Series since '86. I think it's a real honor that I'm getting the nod for Game 1. It's kind of ironic that, you know, if Derek [Lowe] doesn't pitch as well as he does in Game 7, I don't get to start. So I have him to thank for that. He pitched his tail off in Game 7 to give us a chance to win, and it's really amazing what he accomplished."

  Of course, Wakefield was right. As much as anyone, he understood the realities of being part of a team, and Wakefield also knew that Lowe's career had included a transition from starter to reliever and back with which he himself was quite familiar. Wakefield wanted to make that clear. In Lowe, he saw some of himself. Entering Game 7, Lowe was operating on a mere two days of rest. In a best-case scenario, the Red Sox hoped Lowe could give them five innings; in a worst-case scenario, Wakefield was one of their many options in the bullpen. As it turned out, Lowe gave the Red Sox six sterling innings during which he allowed just one hit, one run, and one walk while throwing a mere 69 pitches, all while the Red Sox built a bulging 8–1 lead.

  Over the course of his Red Sox career, more often than not Wakefield had been the one making the same sacrifices that Derek Lowe also had made.

  And everybody knew it.

  "I think I spoke about it after Game 3 [of the ALCS, the 19–8 loss], the traumatic night here. We got kicked around a little bit," Francona said. "I know I told Wake after the game that as tough as that night was, I was so proud of him and what he did for us that it really helped get me through that night.... He saved a couple of our pitchers, and that actually helped us win [Game 4]. Dave [Wallace, the pitching coach] and I were in the dugout trying to figure out where we're going in [Game 3], and [Wakefield] was over my left shoulder with spikes on and his glove. It wasn't halfhearted—he was ready to go—and an inning later he was down in the bullpen throwing. That's the type of guy he is. Joe Torre commented on how happy he was for Wake to be in the World Series. On the flipside of that, not only is he a very good guy, but he's a very good pitcher, and he's feeling very good about himself. There were some periods this year that were a little rough on him. He feels good about himself. His confidence is high."

  Said Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek of Wakefield: "We asked a tremendous amount of him in the last series, and he threw a lot of pitches in different ways. Tim's been through the war quite a bit, and he's been through the war in this city for a long time, and I couldn't be happier for him."

  By the time Game 1 finally started at precisely 8:09 PM, the New England weather, precisely as one would expect, was something of a factor. The game-time temperature was a crisp 49 degrees, but of far greater concern to Wakefield was the w
ind blowing in from the northeast. At Fenway Park, that meant Wakefield would take the mound with the wind at his back, which was always something of a concern for him. While conventional pitchers preferred to have the wind behind them—which made it far more difficult to hit home runs and allowed them to operate with a greater margin for error—Wakefield preferred a slight wind blowing against him. Though this increased the likelihood for home runs—particularly because knuckleballs produced more fly balls than ground balls—Wakefield found that wind resistance increased the movement on his pitches. Again, it was a matter of physics. A well-executed knuckler, thrown against the wind, resulted in more acute movement of the pitch. The ball might travel farther if it was hit into the air, but it was also much harder to hit squarely. Wakefield had long since discovered the benefit of this trade-off.

  By contrast, when the wind was at his back, Wakefield had great difficulty controlling the pitch. The knuckleball frequently would sail when aided by any significant gust of wind, which worked against Wakefield on multiple levels. For one thing, wind made it even harder to throw strikes with a pitch that was extremely difficult to harness in the first place; for another, if the ball sailed, it was less likely to have the sharp, downward movement that Wakefield needed to get outs. Instead, his ball would remain elevated through the strike zone, and every hitter knew the mantra with regard to hitting the knuckler.

  If it's high, let it fly. If it's low, let it go.