The Miracle on 161st st by Jerry Feitelberg
Tonight, the Boston Red Sox made history by coming back from a 3 game deficit and defeated the New York Yankees 10-3 to earn a trip to the World Series. No team in baseball playoff history had ever come back from such a deficit but the Sox did it. And they did it against the team that has tormented them for 84 years.
Click below for more from Jerry!In 1949 the Reds Sox had a 1 game lead with 2 games to play
and went into Yankee Stadium needing to win one game. They failed and heartbreak for their fans.
They made the World Series in 1946, 1967,1975
and 1986 and lost in the 7th game to add to the list of heartbreak for their fans. In 1978,they blew a 14
game lead and lost a playoff game to the hated Yankees as Bucky Dent’s flyball made it over the Green Monster. In 1999 they beat the Indians and then lost in the playoffs to the Yankees and who could forget last year. Aaron Boone’s home run off Tim Wakefield crushed the Sox and their fans.Grady Little was criticized for letting Pedro Martinez stay in too long.
So lets go to tonight’s game. The Red Sox had clawed their way back into the playoffs with 2
exciting ,pulsating comebacks and won in extra innings and now had to got to Yankee Stadium. Curt Schilling pitched his heart out and the Sox got even. All Red Sox fans were now hoping for a miracle. Over the years, they know that fate has not been kind to them and they approached tonight’s game with great excitement but with great fear that something would happen and the Yanks would send them home once again.
The stage was set in the 1st inning. Johnny Damon was thrown out at home. Yikes ! But David Ortiz
put the Sox up with a 2 run homer. Derek Lowe had
his sinker working but you never know. A 2 run lead is not much when you face that awesome Yankee lineup. In the second inning the Sox loaded the bases. Johnny Damon came to bat. Damon’s performance up to this point had been,to put it mildly,pretty poor. However, Johnny became a new hero as he unloaded a grand slam home run
and the Sox lead 6 to zip. It was only the second inning and I kept saying to myself “don’t get excited”. Lowe continued to pitch well. He Hit Miguel Cairo wth a pitch in the 4th and Cairo stole second. Jeter got a single and it was 6 to 1.
I got a little nervous. Johnny Damon hit another home run and now the score was 8 to 1. Lowe was pitching well and gave up 1 hit through 6 innings and as he came out at the end of the 6th, Terry Francona and the players in the dugout gave him high fives and hugs. He was coming out of the game. He threw 69 pitches and had a great rhythym going. Was Francona nuts? Pedro Martinez had warmed up and was coming in to pitch the 7th.
I started to really get nervous, Why? It brought the
crowd back into the game.”whose your daddy”
reverberated through the old stadium and the Yanks scored 2 runs to make the score 8-3. The Yanks had many late comebacks and with their hitters they had 2 innings left to mount a charge.
Mark Bellhorn hit a home run in the 8th off the foul pole to make it 9-3 and I started to breathe a little
easier.Timlin pitched the 8th and Doug Mientkiewicz
made a great scoop to get an out. The Sox scored in the top of the 9th and extended the lead to 10-3.
Timlin and Embree worked the 9th and Ruben Sierra ground out to end the game.
I let it go. I was really excited. The Red Sox have to win 4 more games but they overcame the Yankees. It was the 1st time in all the years that
did it in a 7 game series with anyone since 1918.
For all the Red sox fans out there,this series will be remembered for a long,long time. It was one for the ages.
Jerry Feitelberg
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