In Red Sox Clubhouse, a Silence Tells the Whole Painful Story

Sometimes, walking into a big league clubhouse after a game, you can’t tell if the team won or lost.

Some teams, like the Angels, don’t show you a lot of emotion one way or the other. Big win? Right, where’s the beer and chicken?

Big loss? Hey, there’s always tomorrow. Where’s the beer and chicken?

Saturday night, walking into the Boston Red Sox clubhouse at Anaheim Stadium, you could tell if the Red Sox won or lost.

They lost.

They lost big. They lost, 4-3, in the 11th inning after leading, 3-0, going into the ninth. I know, the Red Sox have a history of finding creative ways not to get into the World Series. This is nothing new.

But this is the 1986 Boston Red Sox, an all-new club in spirit, a tough club that doesn’t blow leads. They lost only one game all season in which they went into the ninth with a lead. Make that two.

Fifteen minutes after Bobby Grich’s game-winning single sent hundreds of fans dancing onto the Anaheim Stadium field to celebrate the Angels’ 3-1 series lead, the Red Sox were still in a state of shock.

The visitors’ clubhouse is tucked well underneath the grandstands, like a bunker, but you could still hear the fans screaming and yelling outside, having a party.

Inside, it was very quiet.

Five players sat at a table, eating their postgame buffet: Chicken cacciatore, sausage and baked beans. The last supper?

A few players sat silently at their lockers. Most of the starters retired to the sanctity of the players’ lounge, off limits to the press.

Dwight Evans sat at his locker, ice bags taped to his left ankle and right thigh, and glowered.

“We’ve handled adversity before and we’ve done well,” Evans said, glumly. “The only thing that flashes through my mind right now is Kansas City down, 3-1 (three games to one), in the playoffs and Series, and winning both.”

Then something else flashed through his mind.

“When we’re up 3-0 in the ninth, we usually shut the door,” Evans said. He paused.

“Tonight hurt. It’s hard to take. It hurts.”

If you’re the Red Sox, how do you figure this one out? Your ace of aces gets beat twice. You’re getting beat by hitters like Gary Pettis and Bob Boone, guys who couldn’t strike fear in the hearts of batting practice pitchers.

You get beat Saturday night facing relief pitchers who couldn’t make a lot of Triple-A ballclubs. Doug Corbett? Wasn’t he supposed to be a has-been? He mows down your entire batting order.

Your best relief pitcher, Calvin Schiraldi, gets hammered for the loss. He’s only 24 years old, hasn’t had a full season in the big leagues yet, but he proved himself down the stretch. You were counting on him.

To say Schiraldi took it hard would be an enormous understatement. Sitting at his locker, he looked like he was posing for a Ralph Branca statue. To his credit, he didn’t duck the press.

“That was the worst pitch I ever made in my life,” Schiraldi murmurred, barely audible even from two feet away. “I screwed up, no doubt about it . . . I screwed up.

“It was the first time that I didn’t do my job in that situation. I wanted the game, I wanted that situation and I blew it.”

In the rush to get to Schiraldi, someone jostled one of the Red Sox players, and a scuffle broke out involving two Boston reserves, a cameraman and a reporter. Heated words were exchanged, some pushing, then the near-silence of the clubhouse resumed.

This was a hard one to figure. Reggie Jackson is supposed to beat you. Wally Joyner. Donnie Moore. Where were those guys tonight?

A few players drifted in and out of the trainer’s room. Nobody talked, nobody smiled.

Momentum is a funny thing in baseball. Worthless, meaningless. The Angels look sensational in the series opener, a huge psychological advantage. Then in Game 2 they look like a comedy troupe, embarrassing themselves in Boston.

So, momentum doesn’t mean much. It lasts a night, an hour, a minute. So there’s still hope. Maybe after an appropriate period of mourning for this game, a couple hours and a couple beers, they start getting fired up about Game 5.

A new day, clean slate. Win it and send the series back to Boston.

But there isn’t much time. The clubhouse guys will barely have time to shine the shoes and launder the uniforms, and they’ll be right back out here, back in this same clubhouse, for the Sunday afternoon game. One game away from winter vacation.

Usually by now, 40 minutes after the game, someone would be talking, someone would be speaking above a whisper, asking a teammate about a certain play, discussing late dinner plans, coming out of the funk.

But there wasn’t a sound. Not even a burp.

From the hallway, the crowd sounds were fading away, and all you could hear was the noise of the clubhouse attendants knocking the Anaheim Stadium dirt out of 24 pairsof spikes.