Fall Classic Beats the Dead of Winter--Ask the Red Sox

They were one out away from Winter, and they were squeezed into a little corner of their dugout. Security cops were moving them out. “C’mon boys,” one cop said. “There’s gonna be a party here.”

Out in their bullpen, there was no bullpen. With one out to go, all the relief pitchers had already begun their long trek to the clubhouse.

And inside that clubhouse, three of their starting pitchers watched on television, sitting in their so-called “rally seats.”

“Don’t move!” said one of the pitchers, a guy named Roger Clemens. “Stay in your rally seats!”

And then, one out away from Winter, a guy nicknamed “Hindu” hit a two-run homer.

Is it Hindu or Houdini?

Anyway, the players in the dugout shoved aside those cops and met Hindu (his real name is Dave Henderson) at home plate. The relievers began their long trek back to the bullpen. And the three pitchers in the clubhouse, led by that guy named Roger Clemens, ran down to the dugout to slap everybody some skin.

Then, Clemens told everybody: “Don’t move! Stay in your rally seats!”

So the Boston Red Sox lived through their Red Scare. They went on to win in 11 innings. They don’t have to jump off the Green Monster.

“We get to play again tomorrow!” Joe Sambito screamed when the final score was officially Red Sox 7, Angels 6.

Someone said: “No, you don’t play again until Tuesday.”

“Well, Tuesday! What the bleep!” Sambito said.

Meanwhile, Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd sat at a locker stall that had no name. He was reading a paper and then suddenly, without any prompting, yelled: “We ain’t done yet! We ain’t done yet!”

Don Baylor, who had homered in the ninth inning to reduce a three-run Angel lead to just one, bumped into Angel owner Gene Autry on his way back from the interview room. Baylor used to play for Autry. Baylor likes Autry. They chatted for a minute or two, and Baylor asked Autry how he was feeling.

Baseball never came up.

Elsewhere, Bill Buckner stood at his locker saying the same thing over and over.

“Best game I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Best game ever. . . . Best game ever.”

Better than ‘75? Better than the day Carlton Fisk curled a ball around the foul pole in the ’75 World Series?

“I wasn’t there that day,” Buckner said.

Dwight Evans was.

“Yeah, the ’75 game is the only game I can think that’s better than this,” he said.

In another corner, second baseman Marty Barrett kept talking about Angel pitcher Mike Witt. Witt had been taken out in the ninth inning, and Hindu then hit his homer off reliever Donnie Moore.

“(Gene) Mauch made a big mistake by taking out Witt,” Barrett said. “I don’t know why he did it. To me, that’s what cost them the game.

“You’re sitting there in the ninth, and you’re honestly thinking you’re out of it, and you’re thinking about the games you lost and you’re mad,” Barrett said. “And Hindu hit it out. Realistically, we should be going home losers. So we’re on the gravy train now. Whatever we do now is extra. Like I said, I couldn’t believe Witt came out. Moore isn’t throwing like he did during the season. I don’t know if he’s hurt, but he’s not throwing like he was.”

By now, Baylor had finished his chat with Autry.

He spoke of his ninth-inning homer.

“I figured it was my last at-bat of the year, and I wanted it to be a quality at-bat,” he said.

Rich Gedman had five quality at-bats--a homer, a double, two singles and a hit-by-pitch.

What a weird life. Gedman’s father died in April and his older sister died on the day the Red Sox clinched the AL East title.

Of his home run, he said: “What do you want me to say? I’m not a big word man. That’s enough (interviews) for me . . . “

He walked away to be by himself.

Reliever Steve Crawford didn’t want to be left alone. He usually never pitches, but he threw 1 innings of one-hit relief Sunday, and got Bobby Grich to line out with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth.

The score had been tied.

So how was he feeling out there?

“If there had been a restroom out on the mound, I would’ve used it,” he said.

Against Grich, the count was 2 and 0, before Crawford hit the outside corner for a strike. It could’ve easily been 3 and 0, and then Crawford would have been one pitch away from walking in the winning run.

Eventually, the Red Sox scored in the 11th to go ahead, and Calvin Schiraldi, who had given up the game-winning hit Saturday night, came in to get the save.

“The fans here remembered me from last night,” he said. “They cheered me when I came in.”

Now, the Red Sox get to go home and do it again. Boyd starts Game 6, and Clemens would go in a seventh game.

“I’ll wish Oil Can the best of luck, and then I’ll get my chance,” Clemens said.

Boyd, now fully dressed, stuck two $50 dollar bills into his pocket and refused to do any interviews.

“No, man,” he said. “I don’t want to give them (the Angels) something to gun at. I ain’t saying nothin’. I got to be careful.”

Winter, you see, could come any day.