Red Sox

Seventh heaven

By David Lefort

October 20, 2005

Sure, the Red Sox have left you with nothing to watch on TV this late in the season for the first time since 2002, but you’ll always have 2004. In that spirit, we’re recapping last year’s historic ALCS between the Red Sox and Yankees. Today, Game 7 …

The Red Sox became the first team in history to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a postseason series, and earned their first World Series birth in 18 years with a 10-3 win at Yankee Stadium. The superstitious among us say this is the night the Curse of the Bambino was vanquished.

Some memorable quotes from after the game:

Kevin Millar: “How many times can you honestly say you have a chance to shock the world? It might happen once in your life or it may never happen. But we had that chance, and we did it. It’s an amazing storybook.”

John W. Henry: “How can this not be one of the greatest comebacks in the history of sports? This team loves each other so much. They want to win so badly for one another and they wanted to win so badly for these fans. There’s no way you can do this unless you have incredible heart.”

Theo Epstein: “There have been so many great Red Sox teams and players who would have tasted World Series champagne if it wasn’t for the Yankees. Guys in ’49, ’78, and us last year. Now that we’ve won, this is for them. We can put that behind us and move on to the World Series and take care of that.”

Johnny Damon: “We’re so loosey-goosey. After we were down, 3-0, we didn’t panic. We were joking about packing up our things, kind of playing devil’s advocate by thinking of the worst things possible and making sure the good things happened.”

Terry Francona: “It’s very amazing. To do what we did you have to have people chip in and do some special things … When we were down, 0-3, there’s just no room for error, and we didn’t make any errors.”

Dan Shaughnessy: Mark it down. Oct. 20. It will always be the day that Sox citizens were liberated from 8 decades of torment and torture at the hands of the New York Yankees and their fans. Boston Baseball’s Bastille Day.

A complete recap of Game 7:

Oct. 20, 2004:
Game 7: Red Sox 10, Yankees 3