Recipe For A Miracle

My sons were still boys when the Sox lost the World Series in 1986. They had not lived through the heartbreaking losses in 1967 and 1975. They had not witnessed Bucky Dent's bloop homerun in 1978. Finding me in tears, they tried to console me. "Don't worry, Mom, they'll win next season." I did not have the heart to remind them that we hadn't won since 1918, and that the chance might never come again in our lifetime. Forcing a smile, I said. "That's right, there's always another season."

There would be time enough, I thought, for them to learn a harsher truth. But not yet. Not till they're older. Then, as they continued their concerned assurances, I realized that my mature wisdom was a deception. They were right. They were absolutely right. There would be another season. There would be another chance.

That chance came this year - a season that will occupy our imaginations for as long as we live. Though my sons are now grown and scattered across the globe - the oldest in art school in California, the middle one writing in Vermont, the youngest in the Army with the First Armored Division in Germany - we were all on the phone to each other within minutes after the Sox had captured the world championship, exchanging screams, shouts, and expressions of joy.

While reason suggests that Boston won the World Series because it had better pitching than St. Louis, those of us who still believe that the actions of the fans influence the fortunes of the team can take comfort from the dynamic between the faithful and the players that developed in the course of the miraculous surge.

It took hold, I suggest, because these players believed so strongly in themselves that they cast a spell upon us, and once we truly believed in them, it redoubled their strength. The best men, Eleanor Roosevelt once said, thinking of her husband, retain all their lives a lot of the little boy in them. This team played like boys - high-spirited, fun-loving, confident boys, untroubled by past demons, enjoying every minute of the game. Even before they won it all, they had transformed us from cowards assuming the worst into bravehearts expecting the best.

The transformation was not easy. I was still my old self during the Anaheim series. When the Angels were up with men on base, I became so agitated that I had to leave the room, handing my scorebook to my husband, hoping that when I returned, the threat would be over and we'd be up at bat. When Anaheim scored five runs in the seventh inning of the third game, I was sure the downhill slide had begun. We'd lose this one, and the next one, and the one after that. But David Ortiz had different things in mind when he came to bat in the bottom of the 10th, cranking out the walk-off homer that sent us to the next round.

Still, old habits die hard. After each of the three losses to the Yanks, I couldn't bear to read the newspaper, even though I was supposed to be commenting on the presidential election. In the third game, I even stopped keeping score - an almost religious habit my father had instilled in me when I was 6 years old. Fully expecting we'd lose the fourth game, I tried to think of spring training, of the equipment truck heading south, of a new season, but that made things much worse, for I couldn't imagine, after this humiliating loss, that it would ever be possible to hope again. Thoughts of my first confession surfaced - when I had to tell the priest that I wished harm to others, namely, that when I said my prayers at night, I wished that various New York Yankees would fall down their stoops, cutting their knees, spraining their ankles, or even breaking their legs.

But while I was consumed with darkness, our boys of summer had the character and heart to see us through. The improbable win in Game 4 led to the thrilling victory in Game 5. The players began to exude an astonishing confidence, evincing no fear, smashing the ball repeatedly with two strikes, scoring runs with two outs. Watching games 6 and 7 with a dozen friends, I no longer felt the need to run away when the Yanks were up well, not quite true. When Pedro Martinez was brought in to pitch the seventh inning of the seventh game, I suffered a temporary relapse. I bolted the room, running coatless into the night air. The cheers from our frenzied group carried me back to enjoy the rest of the game and the spectacular moment when we finally, finally, beat the Yanks when it counted.

From that moment on, I was no longer afraid. The gutsy team had altered my image of myself as a fan. I had no fear of the World Series. I watched every play of every inning of the four games with the Cardinals, never once feeling the need to close my eyes, leave the room, or run away. Gone was the constant dread that had been my companion through decades of loving the Sox.

The players' exuberant faith in themselves was contagious. It changed the character of the fans. We were no longer afraid of what the next batter or the next inning might bring. Whatever happened, they would see us through. And they surely did, bringing us the greatest victory in sports history, one that, with luck, may have forever altered our temperaments as Red Sox fans.

Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin is the author of Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir. She lives in Concord.