RED SOX : When Young Calvin Just Couldn’t, Then Boston Just Didn’t

The weight of the world wasn’t on Calvin Schiraldi’s shoulders. Just the weight of the World Series.

It was a World Series the Boston Red Sox should have won in six games--but didn’t, because Calvin couldn’t. It was a World Series the Boston Red Sox could have won in seven games--but didn’t, because Calvin couldn’t.

It is too early to write such an epitaph to a major league career that began three months ago. Calvin Schiraldi is 24 years old. Until July 19, he was a Triple-A pitcher. He will have many more opportunities, receive many more assignments to save many more games.

But before his career could get off to a kicking start, Schiraldi received two brutal kicks to the stomach--with an entire nation looking on and 68 years of Red Sox history hanging over his head.

Twice in the final innings of Games 6 and 7, Schiraldi had the chance to close the door on Johnny Pesky, Bill Lee, Mike Torrez and all the gnashing of Red Sox teeth since 1918, the last Boston baseball world championship. Since then, no Red Sox pitcher has been closer to the brink than Schiraldi was Saturday night in Game 6. All he needed was one more out.

He never got it.

But unlike many who have fallen before him, Schiraldi received a second chance. Monday night, Boston Manager John McNamara entrusted Schiraldi with protecting a 3-3 tie in the seventh inning of Game 7.

The rookie prepared for his moment of redemption.

“I was ready,” Schiraldi said. “I wasn’t as nervous as I had been two nights before. I had good stuff in the pen; I felt things would work out this time. I went in there thinking I would do the job.”

Schiraldi pitched to four batters.

The first, Ray Knight, homered to left field.

The second, pinch-hitter Lenny Dykstra, singled to right. Dykstra then took second base on a wild pitch by Schiraldi.

The third batter, light-hitting shortstop Rafael Santana, singled down the first-base line to score Dykstra.

The fourth, pitcher Roger McDowell, sacrificed Santana to second. Santana eventually scored on a sacrifice fly.

Schiraldi had turned a 3-3 tie into a 6-3 Met lead. Two innings later, New York won, 8-5, and owned the World Series title that nearly belonged to Boston 48 hours earlier.

Seldom has any first-year player, in any sport, received crueler treatment from the spotlight.

One can only wonder if and how Schiraldi will recover from the glare.

Schiraldi wonders himself.

“I don’t know how long it will take,” he said, his eyes fixed on the locker room floor. “I don’t have any idea.”

Someone tried to console Schiraldi, mentioning something about having to take the bad with the good. Schiraldi was inconsolable.

“I thought we took the bad last game,” he said. “I thought this was going to work out good.”

But what of his fine half-season, his team-leading 9 saves, his 1.41 earned-run average, his contribution to a club that won the American League pennant?

“That’s no consolation now,” Schiraldi said. “None whatsoever. We should have won this damn thing. We should have won the World Series Sunday or Saturday or whenever the hell the last World Series game was.

“I feel responsible for what happened. I am responsible for what happened. I ought to feel this way.”

Joe Sambito, the veteran reliever who replaced Schiraldi, tried to offer some perspective from a couple locker stalls away.

“You can’t blame Calvin,” Sambito said. “No, definitely not. Calvin is still young. He has a half-year under his belt. Yet he pitched in more pressure-packed situations in three months than some get in a career and he responded very well.

“He can’t let this devastate him. Once he gets removed from it, once he’s a little ways down the road from it, I think he’ll look at the big picture. I think he’ll feel better about himself and this season.”

Sambito is 34. At 24, would he have reacted the same way as Schiraldi?

Sambito thought about it for a few seconds.

“Yeah, maybe,” he finally said. “When I was 24, losses used to stay with me. They would stay with me a long time.”

The memory of these consecutive crushers may stay with Schiraldi as long as certain questions stay with McNamara.

Why did he pull starter Bruce Hurst in a tied game after six innings? Why did he bring in Schiraldi in the seventh, early for a team’s bullpen stopper? Why didn’t he bring in Oil Can Boyd, the man McNamara said Monday would be his first pitcher out of the bullpen?

Boyd didn’t want to talk about it. He spent the first five minutes after the final out sitting in front of his locker, his head buried in his hands, weeping. He then broke away to take a shower, before eventually returning to answer the inevitable question.

“Talk to Johnny Mac about it,” Boyd said angrily.

McNamara said his game plan called for Boyd only if Hurst faltered in the early innings.

“I told (Boyd) that if we used him, it would be early,” McNamara said. “Once it got to the seventh, we had Schiraldi and (Roger) Clemens could’ve pitched the ninth.”

In other words, Boyd, the Red Sox’s 16-game winner, the man who would have started Game 7 had it not rained Sunday, was relegated to mop-up duty.

“Once Hurst got into the sixth inning, I knew I’d be spending the rest of the night in the bullpen,” said Boyd, who never even got up to loosen up. I didn’t get to throw one ball all night.”

Boyd admitted it pained him to sit and watch.

“I was hurt,” he said. “I was biting my nails out there, having mixed feeling. I wasn’t hoping anything go wrong, but I was ready to pitch.”

McNamara defended his bullpen strategy.

“Calvin Schiraldi is one of the main reasons we were here in the World Series,” McNamara said. “I saw it as the same pattern as the playoffs.

“In the fourth game, Schiraldi hit Brian Downing with a curveball with the bases loaded and we lost the ballgame, but he came back the next day and was the pitcher who clinched it for us. I thought the same thing would happen here--he’d come back to clinch it after what happened the other night.

“I’m not afraid to give him the ball.”

Nor, McNamara said, is he afraid of the fallout these two World Series finishes will have on the psyche of his young pitcher.

“I don’t believe it will affect him,” McNamara said. “I think he has better makeup than to dwell on it.”

But will history allow Schiraldi not to dwell on it?

All of New England looked for Schiraldi to grab the Red Sox by the collar and lift them above the dregs of their inglorious past. The notion had almost a Biblical quality to it-- And a child shall lead them.

But instead, because of a matter of two frightful innings, Schiraldi has become an unforgettable part of that past.