Commentary : Red Sox May Have Destiny on Their Side

Never mention the Boston Red Sox’ misfortunes again. No more with the ghosts, hexes and star-crossed destiny. Can a team collect 68 years worth of dumb luck in two hours and 47 minutes?

For once, all the angels were on the Red Sox side Wednesday in Fenway Park. The bumbling California Angels, that is. And the quixotic angels of fate, too.

Baseball can’t be played much worse than the Bostons performed it in Fenway Park in Game 2 of the American League playoff. Here, take the pennant, we don’t want it, the Red Sox said time and again with their slapstick play. Yet every cream pie had diamonds inside.

By all rights the Red Sox should be breathing their last now. No playoff team (and only one World Series outfit) has survived after losing the first two games at home. Make no mistake, the Red Sox should be in that two-to-zip hole right now. Instead, after a ludicrous 9-2 win, they’re laughing and frisky with a pennant just waiting to be won.

Both the quantity and quality of the Boston breaks were absolutely beyond baseball belief. The more crimson the sins of the Carmine Hose, the more easily they won.

Dwight Evans hit what should have been an inning-ending popup to the center of the field in the fifth inning. It fell untouched, lost in the sun by Bobby Grich, for a tie-breaking, game-winning “double” and a 3-2 lead.

In the sixth, Boston pitcher Bruce Hurst -- “I pitched a nifty 11-hitter” -- gave up three straight hits. But what did he see? That same Grich and Angels third base coach Moose Stubing getting their wires crossed so badly that Grich got caught in a rally-snuffing hotbox.

In the seventh, the Red Sox still up by that one fragile run, Evans and Rich Gedman came up with the bases loaded. Both hit made-to-order double play balls, either of which should have killed the rally. Instead, the first ball skidded off the infield lip and caused an error by Doug DeCinces as a run scored. The next became a two-run catastrophe when Ducky Schofield’s otherwise perfect relay throw nicked the hand of the sliding Evans and went wild. Suddenly, 6-2.

All this just continued the Boston benedictions that began from the very first Red Sox hitter, when Wade Boggs lofted a fly to center and watched the wind and a goofy carom turn it into a triple. He soon scored. In the second inning, a perfect DP grounder by Owen took a freak hop over Schofield. Boggs then hit a chopper to the mound, and Kirk McCaskill lost it in the sun. Thus was another scoring rally built.

With this game, even seeing wasn’t believing. If a black box can be found in the wreckage, maybe we can piece together this accident in a couple of months. Only a post-mortem list brings home the level of Boston’s buffoonery and its equally blessed luck.

Boggs kicked two ground balls at third. Spike Owen at short never got a routine grounder out of his glove and also dropped an easy popup. Those four gaffes resulted in only one run. Marty Barrett got trapped off second base, which cost the Red Sox a run. Were they punished? No way.

Regardless of how much the fates conspired to aid the Bostonians, they staunchly refused pleasure in the best Puritan tradition. A triple, double and single in the first inning? Oh, one run will be enough, thanks. Can’t be greedy. Four hits in the second inning? No, no, just one more run, please. We won’t take more.

While the Red Sox turned down second helpings, the Angels wouldn’t even take firsts. With the bases loaded in the fourth, Bob Boone and Gary Pettis each popped up the first pitch. When Reggie Jackson might have been sent up to pinch-hit with the bases loaded and one out in the seventh, Grich and Stubing did their comedy routine just in time.

The Angels were left befuddled, bitter and full of bleak humor.

The Red Sox heroes Wednesday were wind, sun and shadows, not to mention Bobby Grich and Moose Stubing, who wear California uniforms.

After this, can there be any doubt?

Okay, there can be doubt. These are the Red Sox. But if any team was ever presented an enormously important victory gift-wrapped, it was Boston Wednesday.

“It looked like a spring training game in Yuma in the wind and sand,” said California’s Don Sutton. “Last night (Boston’s Roger) Clemens wasn’t Clemens and today we weren’t us. I’ve seen uglier games, but I can’t remember when. Oh, yes, I do. It was back in Clio, Alabama. We hadn’t quite completed the cultivation and there were still some piles in the field.

“It seemed like one thing after another went against us.”

Normally, all-star quality veterans would cut out their tongues before citing luck when competition reaches this level. But the Angels were left reeling. “Everything that could happen for Boston seemed to happen,” said Grich. “They got every break,” added DeCinces. “Seemed like ten of ‘em.”

The Angels also knew they’d been devils. “We just played a lousy game and gave them extra outs. You keep rolling over a lineup like that and you get hurt,” said Brian Downing. “They could easily have scored in double figures after two innings. But McCaskill pitched his butt off and gave us a chance for seven innings.”

The symbol of Angels’ frustration was Grich, the man who (1) never saw Evans pop in the sun, (2) got run down rounding third too far and (3) set the stage for the three-run, three-error Boston seventh by booting a grounder.

If the Red Sox hoist a few between now and Friday night in Anaheim, they should toast those great Boston heroes who, this afternoon in the Fens, took the Olde Towne Team from the brink of disaster to the hope of a pennant.

Here’s to wind, sun and shadows. As California Manager Gene Mauch said of the sun factor, “Yeah, it was bad. Terrible on those ground balls.”

Here’s to bad hops, bonehead plays and flukes. Moose, this noose’s for you.

Here, on the 30th anniversary of Don Larsen’s perfect game, is a clink of the cup to the playoffs’ greatest imperfect game.

Now that the Red Sox have hit their crisp clutch stride, can anything stop this team of destiny?