Dan's Wild Ride

The story of the Boston Red Sox has always been the greatest sports story ever told, and it was my privilege to track the epic quest all the way to its dramatic culmination in the magical autumn of 2004 reaffirming how in Boston the highs are higher and the lows lower. It just matters more here.

Fortunately, players don't usually pay much attention to any of it, but my August 10 piece, in which I wrote that the fellows had a chance to be remembered as "the biggest pack of frauds," seemed to stick with some of the ballplayers. Curt Schilling and Kevin Millar both spoke with me about it, and Jason Varitek taped a copy to the inside of his locker.

In the corridor outside the visitors' locker room at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Varitek and Schilling - both drenched in champagne - passed by me after the World Series sweep.

"I guess I'm not a fraud," said Varitek.
"Frauds win," said Schilling.
Happy day.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 1 | Record: 0-0
BRINGING YOU THE NEWS BEFORE IT HAPPENS

Welcome to New England sports 2004. Your time-traveling correspondent has been working overtime, and here are some stories you can expect to read on these pages later this year.

Nov. 1 CHICAGO - Ghoulish. There is no other way to describe what happened to the Red Sox in the seventh game of the World Series at Wrigley Field on Halloween night. Leading, 5-0, in the bottom of the ninth, Sox manager Terry Francona lifted Pedro Martinez, and a quartet of Sox relievers was routed for six runs as the Cubs won their first Series since 1908.

"I guess I should have stayed with Pedro," said Francona.

FRIDAY, APRIL 16 | Record: 5-4
NEW SEASON, SAME RED-HOT RIVALRY

They are here. Yankees in our midst. Wearing road grays with "New York" splashed across the chest, the highly paid All-Star cast from the Evil Empire will take the field tonight at Fenway Park.

It will be the first time the Red Sox and Yankees have played a game that counted since October 16/17 in the Bronx, when Boston baseball's Cowboy Up season of 2003 dissolved in a fountain of sorrow. Boston's excruciating loss in the seventh game of the American League Championship Series resulted in the firing of Sox manager Grady Little and triggered an off-season of fierce front-office competition, reinforced with dueling insults from the highest levels of the two ownership groups.

The rivalry has never been hotter.

MONDAY, APRIL 26 | Record: 12-6
ALL BASES COVERED IN MAKING CASE

NEW YORK - After everything that happened over the winter, and everything that happened last October, and everything that's happened between these teams since 1920, it would be hard to script a better 10 days for the Red Sox. Citizens of Red Sox Nation - and many were here over the weekend - already are calculating the Sox' magic number and planning Yankee Elimination Day parties.

The perfect weekend had a perfect ending. Pedro "Maddux" Martinez was almost perfect in seven scoreless innings yesterday, and Yankee-wrecker Manny Ramirez hit a monstrous two-run homer, giving the Sox a 2-0 win, a three-game sweep in the Bronx, and six wins in seven games against the team with the $185 million payroll.

SUNDAY, MAY 2 | Record: 15-9
IT'S OPEN SEASON ON COMPLAINING

It was all going too smoothly. Six of seven from the Yankees. Six straight wins overall. Best start since 1918. Best record in baseball. Byung Hyun Kim getting a standing ovation. Sox executives picking up trash in the stands. A Fenway ball boy making a catch worthy of Ozzie Smith. Manny Ramirez smoking the ball and smiling. Curt Schilling and Keith Foulke coming as advertised. David Ortiz even more Yaz-like.

And then we pick up the Saturday papers and there it is: Pedro Martinez is fed up with Red Sox management and will become a free agent at the end of the season. He will not negotiate any more this year. He will pitch this year, then sell his services to the highest bidder. He also called his bosses liars.

THURSDAY, JUNE 3 | Record: 31-22
TIME TO ANSWER SECOND-GUESSERS

ANAHEIM, Calif. - In the seventh, Manny Ramirez jogged to first when he hit a flare into shallow left. The ball landed for a hit and almost skipped past Jose Guillen. Manny had a single, but would have been caught sleeping if the ball had scooted past Guillen. After another single by Jason Varitek, Manny was picked off second by the catcher after Brian Daubach lost his good sense and tried to lay down a bunt.

So what about it, Terry? How do you answer critics who want you to fine or bench players who appear to be loafing? What do you say to the idea that some players are making too many bad decisions on their own? And why are you staying so long with starters who are finished? Don't you know that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named got fired for doing that with Pedro?

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30 | Record: 42-34
LEFT WITH STRONG FEELING OF DREAD

NEW YORK - It's not even July yet, so how come it feels so much like October? The rational part of me wants to tell citizens of Red Sox Nation to remain calm. Last night's ugly 11-3 loss to the Yankees in the Bronx was only one game, and the Sox are still 6-2 against these guys this year. The pitching matchups favor the Sox tonight and tomorrow, and we're not even half-way through the season yet. On the other hand, the Yankees were 4 1/2 games behind the Red Sox on the morning of April 29, and today they lead Boston by a season-high 6 1/2 games.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 1 | Record: 56-47
IN SHORT, IT WAS TIME FOR HIM TO GO

Thank the baseball god, he's gone. We no longer have to watch Nomar Garciaparra pretend that he cares about the fortunes of the Boston Red Sox.

This is a strange story. No one ever played harder, or gave more, to the Boston Red Sox and the citizens of Red Sox Nation than Nomar Garciaparra. He was probably the most popular Sox player since Ted Williams, and rightfully so; no player was more worthy of your applause. But at the same time, no player polluted the clubhouse more than Nomar, and in the end, he was the ultimate non-team guy.

He had to go.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 10 | Record: 60-50
GARCIAPARRA GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

It was the first Fenway game of the No Nomar Era, and it was a bad night for the Boston Red Sox. Hang down your heads, John Henry, Larry Lucchino, and Theo Epstein. You, too, Terry Francona. And all you guys in uniform - you just keep telling yourselves that any day now you'll take off on a hot streak. You are 45-44 since May 1, and you have a chance to be remembered as the biggest pack of frauds ever to don the Sox uniform.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 27 | Record: 74-53
DARK DAYS HAVE HIT THE ROAD

When the history of the 2004 Red Sox is written, the hardball poets will cite July 31 as the turning point of the season. That's right, all you Nomie Krishnas, still wearing those No. 5 jerseys . . . the Sox kicked it into gear when they traded Nomar Garciaparra in a complicated four-team deal that at once bolstered Boston's defense and dissolved the dark cloud of bad karma and uncertainty that was polluting the Sox clubhouse.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 | Record: 86-56
NATION ABOUT TO ENTER WHIRL WITHOUT END

SEATTLE - They have done it to you again. The region, the entire Red Sox Nation, has once again been swallowed into the cavernous sinkhole of Hub hardball hope. It's going to stay this way for the next three to seven weeks, as your friends and neighbors, wearing all sorts of slogan-drenched Sox garb, walk around with that honey-glazed look in their eyes while mumbling . . .

This is the year.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5 | Record: 98-64
REBUILT FOR SUCCESS, SOX START QUEST

ANAHEIM, Calif. - They started planning for this at 12:16 a.m. on Oct. 17, 2003, when Aaron Boone's confetti-drenched homer plopped into the left-field stands in Yankee Stadium. In that moment of finality and despair, Red Sox management made a commitment to take the team to a higher level in 2004.

And so they fired a manager and hired a stopper and a closer. They put their highest-paid player on waivers and hired a new manager. They built a team they thought could win 100 games and a World Series, spending $130 million on player payroll. When things didn't go according to plan in the middle of the season, they traded the franchise's most popular player since Ted Williams.

And here they are again . . . on the threshold . . . 11 victories from a hardball heaven that hasn't been experienced here since the doughboys were winning World War I.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17
American League Championship Series: 0-3
HOW MUCH MORE CAN NEW ENGLANDERS TAKE? RED SOX ON BRINK OF ELIMINATION AS YANKS POUND THEM, 19-8

The Red Sox have been beaten senseless by those damn Yankees again, and the psychological toll threatens to shake the faith of a long-suffering Nation. How much more can New Englanders take? The Yankees stripped the Red Sox of all dignity last night, pummeling six Boston pitchers en route to a hideous, 19-8 victory, which gives them a 3-0 lead.

So there. For the 86th consecutive autumn, the Sox are not going to win the World Series.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22
American League Championship Series: 4-3
NOW WAIT JUST A MINUTE: SERIES STILL MUST BE WON

Let's get one thing straight: the Curse of the Bambino has not been lifted. The job is not yet done.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26
World Series: 2-0
GOING NATIONAL: THIS IS BIGGER THAN ALL OF US

ST. LOUIS - The Red Sox are a team that connects generations.

That's why this matters so much.

They remind you of your father and mother, maybe your grandfather, too. And they remind you of your sons and daughters and all that you taught them. . . . Like green eyes and freckles, love of the Red Sox is passed through bloodlines, and the shared passion can bridge the gaps that come with maturity and growth.

In every family there's inevitable distance - sometimes geographic, sometimes philosophical or emotional. But the Red Sox furnish common ground, which is why they are more than a baseball team and why this is more than a story of a surge to a long-awaited championship.

How many of you have heard from relatives in the last 10 days, may be a sibling you haven't spoken with in a while? And how many former New Englanders are watching their televisions in Colorado, Arizona, or Florida, remembering growing up with the mellow voice of Curt Gowdy pouring out of the porch radio into the humid night?

How many of you watched the thrilling comeback against the Yankees and thought of a parent or a spouse who has died?

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29
World Series: 4-0
THE FEELING IS UNBELIEVABLE

ST. LOUIS - I called the Red Sox switchboard early yesterday afternoon. It took a while to plow through the recorded message, but when an operator finally came on, she said, "Thank you for calling the . . . um . . . world champion Boston Red Sox."

It's going to take time getting used to this new handle for the local baseball team. Even the folks on Yawkey Way are having problems spitting it out. It just doesn't roll off the tongue easily. Not after all these years, fears, and tears.

Material for this article was compiled by Globe librarian Marc Shechtman. Dan Shaughnessy's book Reversing the Curse will be published in March by Houghton Mifflin.