A Strike Away . . . : For Stunned Red Sox, It Was Terribly Familiar: What They’d Done to Angels, Mets Do to Them

The insanity of the 10th inning was still fresh in their minds, but the Boston Red Sox had as much difficulty dealing with it as they had with the two-run lead that had amazingly, astonishingly, shockingly slipped away.

Don Baylor answered one question and then grabbed a plateful of barbecued ribs and took sanctuary inside the trainer’s room. There, he joined Bill Buckner, whose error capped the New York Mets’ 6-5 comeback victory in Game 6 of the World Series Saturday night. Camera crews waited around Buckner’s locker . . . and waited . . . and waited.

In another corner of the clubhouse, Calvin Schiraldi, Boston’s late-inning closer who couldn’t close the team’s most significant game in nearly 70 years, looked as if he hadn’t slept since September, his eyelids all but glued shut and his voice a raspy whisper.

Bob Stanley, who unleashed the game-tying wild pitch and served up the game-deciding grounder to Mookie Wilson, sipped a beer and tried to think of a worse moment in his 10-year career. He couldn’t.

And then there was Dwight Evans, veteran of the World Series loss of 1975 and the great collapses of 1974 and 1978, staring into the television camera lights and attempting to apply some philosophy to the latest Red Sox failure.

‘I guess we got a little bit of our own medicine,” Evans said.

Remember that original dose of despair the Red Sox prescribed for the Angels, Boston’s opponent in the American League playoffs? Game 5, ninth inning. One strike from elimination, Boston’s Dave Henderson crushes a 2-2 pitch by Donnie Moore and crushes the Angels’ pennant hopes.

Ever since, the Red Sox have been living on borrowed time--and fairly living it up.

Then, in Game 6 of the World Series, with the Mets one strike from elimination, the Red Sox run face-first into a twisted, not-so-simple twist of fate.

This was to have been Stanley’s moment of vindication, his chance to get in the final word against all the Fenway Park patrons who so deride him, channeling decades of frustration in his direction. From spring training on, this had been Stanley’s hope--one opportunity to stop the booing by saving the World Series.

“That was my dream,” Stanley said. “It just didn’t work out.”

Instead, all Stanley wrote was another chapter of anti-heroism. Was it the worst chapter?

“I would think so,” he said. “I’ve never been in a World Series before. . . . I can think of a lot better feelings I’ve had.”

Like Moore on that fateful Sunday in Anaheim, Stanley had a 2-2 count on the hitter. Like Moore, he needed one more strike, one more out.

Like Moore, he never got it.

Stanley offered an inside fastball to Wilson. Very inside. The ball sailed past catcher Rich Gedman and rolled to the backstop, enabling Kevin Mitchell to score the tying run from third.

“I’d been working (Wilson) away, away, away,” Stanley said, “and he kept fouling it off. So we decided to go inside.

“I threw it too far inside.”

Moments later, Stanley threw another pitch that Wilson bounced up the first-base line. Normally, it would have been a routine out--bring on the 11th inning.

But Buckner, the Boston first baseman, failed to make the routine play. The ball skipped past his glove for an error--and Ray Knight scored from second base to bring on Game 7.

Stanley saw the play from up close.

“I was there to cover the bag,” he said, “(Buckner) just got a bad hop. I don’t think this is the greatest field in the world. It went right over his glove.

“We had it (the victory) right there in our hands. And we messed it up.”

Buckner finally appeared and walked to his locker to meet the reporters.

“I feel lousy,” he said. “I saw the ball well. It bounced and bounced and then it didn’t bounce--it just skipped. I can’t remember the last time I missed a ball like that, but I’ll remember that one.”

None of this might have transpired, however, had Schiraldi been able to record the third out. He got the first two on easy flyballs to the outfield, then surrendered three straight singles to Gary Carter, Mitchell and Knight before giving way to Stanley.

Evans kept talking bravely, saying, “This was one of the greatest games I’ve ever played in, and let’s leave it at that. It doesn’t matter if we lost, 15-2 or 10-0, or whatever. It’s over with and let’s get ‘em tomorrow. Tomorrow’s another day.”

That wasn’t enough to console Schiraldi.

“That doesn’t make it any easier to take,” he said. “Not when we had the game won.”

Schiraldi flashed back on another moment from the playoff series with the Angels--Game 4, when Schiraldi hit Brian Downing with a pitch to bring in the tying run, then surrendered an RBI single to Bobby Grich to bring in the winning run. Schiraldi broke down in front of the TV cameras in the aftermath of that defeat.

“Twice in two weeks,” Schiraldi muttered. “This is worse. We had a chance to be drinking champagne this time.”

Stanley called it “the story of my life, the story of my season.” He said he could, now, empathize with Moore’s anguish of two weeks ago.

“We won one on the last pitch, and now we’ve lost one on the last pitch,” he said. “But we’ve been coming back all year. No one said it was going to be easy . . . and it hasn’t been easy lately.”

For the Red Sox, it hasn’t been easy for 68 years.