2004 Red Sox: The View From Above the Crowds

For reporters covering the Red Sox, the 2004 baseball season started in the earliest hours of October 17, 2003.

That was when Boston suffered another in four-score and five years of excruciating defeats, a 6-5 loss to the Yankees on Aaron Boone’s game-ending and series-ending – Game Seven at that – home run in the American League Championship Series.

In our business, news is like cash. There is no such thing as too much. This time there was, though, considering how much happened in such a short span and past deadline for that matter. For some of us, what happened after Boone’s home run was more important than what happened before, an event that spoke to a future none of us could envision.

There were two elevators from the press box to the basement in the old Yankee Stadium. One was for VIPs and if some unfortunate and unaware person blundered into it by mistake, something bad happened. We didn’t know what, since nobody ever came back.

Our elevator was small and slow. On this night we had to wait in line as shift after shift of writers was ferried to the respective clubhouses. About 25 of us were in the third wave, crammed in and barely able to inhale – all things considered, a blessing – when the door finally began to close.

Suddenly an arm came through the door from out of the waiting area. A heavyset figure backed into the elevator to the groans of its occupants, squeezing things even more uncomfortably. From the hairstyle it was easy to see who it was – Donald Trump.

Rather than wait for the VIP elevator, he encroached on ours. With him in there, the door wouldn’t close no matter how often the elevator operator tried and that must have been five, maybe six times. We were overweight, too, and the alarm started going off.

Meanwhile, the interviews of players and managers were beginning in the question-and-answer room. We were all missing some of it, probably the most important parts. Still the elevator stayed at the top of Yankee Stadium, alarms ringing, the door opening and closing futilely.

Eventually the operator said, “If this elevator is gonna move, somebody’s gotta get off.”

Somebody did – a baseball writer, maybe two – but not Trump. He just didn’t care about anyone else, care about how his actions might affect a bigger picture than his own personal one.

Some things never change.

When everyone finally reached the interview room, manager Grady Little was about to leave. We had no idea at that time that it was his last press conference as Red Sox manager. Little was fired before the month was over, then replaced by Terry Francona.

At the time, it seemed like just another nonsensical Boston managerial move. Like Joe Kerrigan replacing Jimy Williams, Butch Hobson replacing Joe Morgan, Mike Higgins replacing Billy Jurges, who had previously replaced Higgins.

Little had been good to deal with and hardly anybody was happy to see him go. If he had been a radio station, his format was Soft Rock. Little had tried cotton farming in between two stints with pro baseball, and baseball turned out to be better even if you could get fired.

Francona was coming off a disastrous four years managing the Phillies.

He was, it turned out, the perfect pick. Francona was a study in contrasts. He was approachable, but mercurial. It was easy to get a rise out of him, but he would eventually calm down and sue for peace. Most big-league managers hate being called “coach.” With Francona, that sin bordered on mortal.

There was a radio lightweight in Chicago who invariably referred to him as “Coach Tony Francona,” not even getting the first name right, and Francona could barely restrain himself from coming across his desk and throttling the dweeb.

In group settings Francona was careful to the point of boring. With reporters he knew and trusted, he was available, candid, and insightful.

One of the first things he said after taking over the team was prophetic, although nobody knew it at the time. “I will never,” he said, “tell one of my players – ‘Back when I was a player, we did it this way.’”

Little known fact at the time – Francona hated to drive. He was the guy going 50 on the Mass Pike, although always in the slow lane. Francona was not rude, just cautious. His years in Philadelphia were mostly miserable and he told us that after he was fired – he deserved to be fired, he said – he did not think he ever wanted to manage again. His attitude changed, as did the fortunes of the Red Sox.

The 2004 Sox were a fairly easy team to cover. They were good, which makes everybody happier and more approachable. General manager Theo Epstein was also cautious in public but candid with trusted reporters, a good source for on-the-record contributions and valuable background.

The new owners were approachable, too, especially Larry Lucchino. He enjoyed the give-and-take with reporters more than John Henry but Henry would talk to us, albeit softly. He could be candid, too, if caught at the right time and place.

One of those times and places was October 26 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, where the Red Sox had a two-games-to-none lead in the World Series. Henry was in the Boston dugout before the game doing some baseball chit-chatting when Associated Press reporter Jimmy Golen asked him, out of the blue, “Are you a billionaire?”

Henry shook his head and grimaced a bit, answering, “Oh, no. No, no, no, no.” At least he answered.

Boston had several players who enjoyed talking to the news media. That had not always been the case in years past. In fact, it was rarely the case. The ’04 Sox, though, had Kevin Millar, Johnny Damon, Derek Lowe, and Bronson Arroyo. David Ortiz was in the early stages of his Hall of Fame career and was approachable. Trot Nixon was a serious interviewee, thoughtful and candid even if he ruffled feathers along the way. Jason Varitek was professional, approachable, and available – but essentially colorless.

Then there were Curt Schilling and Nomar Garciaparra.

In 2004 Schilling was standing at the edge of reason but had not yet gone over it. All we needed to know about him happened on the first day of spring training when Red Sox public relations scheduled, at Schilling’s request, a group interview at 12:15 at the minor-league complex in Fort Myers.

We waited and waited and waited for Schilling to show up. He finally did at 3 P.M. and that was  just the way it was going to be with him. Schilling’s nickname throughout baseball, by the way, was “Table for One.”

Garciaparra became difficult as his years in Boston accumulated. It got to the point where he had the team create a red line in the carpet of the clubhouse floor, in front of the lockers. Reporters were not supposed to venture beyond it in visiting with players. According to the Major League Baseball rules governing access, the red line was absolutely unenforceable and Boston was the only clubhouse with one. Still, the message was clear: Keep Out.

As often happens where there is a new manager, the team got off to a very strong start. Boston was 31-19 after 50 games and was in first place by a half-game on the morning of May 31.

Then the Sox slipped into mediocrity. They were 24-26 in their next 50 games, the end of that stretch coinciding with the trade deadline of July 31. By that time, Garciaparra’s misery was palpable and destructive. Finally, right at the last hour of the deadline, Epstein dealt him to the Cubs as part of a complex four-team trade. 

The Red Sox were in Minneapolis at the time, the Twins still in the dreary Metrodome. Reporters had had a very long wait in its sterile tunnels before Garciaparra finally emerged from the Boston clubhouse. He stopped to talk about the deal, then tried to go out on a high note. He shook hands with everyone in the media contingent encircling him, then kept going for another round.

The All-Star shortstop realized what was happening, stopped, and said sheepishly, “I wanted to thank every one of you, and some people more than once.”

The deal brought shortstop Orlando Cabrera and first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz to Boston but was not an immediate season-changer. The Sox went 4-4 in their first eight games after it, but then began to put things together. Starting with August 16, Boston went 22-3 in its next 25 games, reestablishing itself as one of the best teams in baseball.

The Sox clinched a playoff berth on September 27 in Tampa Bay. The next day Damon was asked to compare the 2004 team with the previous season’s. The ’04 clinching celebration was much subdued than the one in ’03. The reason, Damon said, “We’re a bunch of idiots, but we’re grownup idiots now.”

The playoffs started on October 5 in Anaheim. The day before was a workout day, an easy one for reporters. I got to the ballpark early. Anaheim Stadium was surrounded by acres of parking lots. They were empty that afternoon save for a solitary human orbiting the fringes of the ballpark.

Upon closer inspection it turned out to be Manny Ramírez.

“Hey, man,” was his standard greeting and that’s how he called out to me. “How do you get into this place?” I told him I was not sure either, but follow me and we’ll find a way in, which we did. I always wondered whether if I had not happened upon Manny in the parking lot he would have wound up at Disneyland or Knott’s Berry Farm and missed the Division Series.

Boston swept that series, setting up a rematch with the Yankees in another ALCS. We know how that turned out. I was very friendly with two former Red Sox players wearing Yankees uniforms, catcher John Flaherty and reliever Paul Quantrill, and talked with them whenever possible. Clubhouse access is limited during the postseason, though, so the conversations were relatively short.

They did give me a sense of what was going on with the Yankees, though. After their overwhelming Game Three victory at Fenway Park, the team was in a bubble of invincibility. Even after Ortiz’s dramatic home run to win Game Four – I had mixed feelings about it because Quantrill, one of the most standup guys ever to wear a Boston uniform – was the New York pitcher.

After the Sox won Game Five, though, the Yankees’ team demeanor changed a bit. They sensed that they had a real chance to be the first team in baseball history to lose a series after leading three games to none.

Which is exactly what happened.

Game Seven at Yankee Stadium ended on Ruben Sierra’s groundball to second baseman Pokey Reese with Alan Embree on the mound. This time there was no Donald Trump to deal with, only champagne. That was easy. In the press box postgame, it was apparent that there were still a lot of Red Sox fans in the ballpark, some still cheering, most just taking it all in.

The Yankees essentially let them stay for as long as they wanted, a very classy act.

The World Series was not anticlimactic, but it was the hot fudge on the coffee ice cream of 2004. Game Four was on October 27, a damp night in St. Louis. Busch Stadium was on its way to abandonment and the press box roof leaked, forcing us writers to find a dry spot wherever we could.

The bottom of the ninth arrived with Boston leading, 3-0. It had an eerie feel to it. We understood that this Red Sox team was a different creature from previous ones and would likely be celebrating a World Series title in a matter of minutes. Still, there had been 1946, ’67, ’75, ’86, 2003, and etc.

My wife, Debbie, was in town with me but not at the game. She was watching it from our hotel bar, cheering for the Sox as the game progressed. When the ninth inning finally arrived, a Cardinals fan sitting with her asked, “Why aren’t you celebrating?”

Debbie responded, “You don’t know much about the Red Sox, do you?”

When Edgar Renteria came up, I called my wife. If she could not be at the ballpark to see the Red Sox win the World Series, she could at least hear the moment.

The first thing I said was, “I wanted you to be able to hear.…” and at that moment, Edgar Renteria bounced a groundball to Keith Foulke. There was a brief moment of suspended animation, then it was official.

“My God,” I said, “the Red Sox just won the World Series. I have to write.”

Before I headed to the clubhouses, I called my daughter – Abigail Brinkman – in Chicago. Her husband, Charles, had grown up a White Sox fan and actually worked as an usher at the original Comiskey Park. The White Sox had not won a World Series since 1906. Between husband and wife there were 184 seasons of baseball misery watching the TV.

Abby was literally delirious. She was making noise but none of it made sense, so I finally just said goodbye. Who would ever have imagined that one year later the White Sox would end their World Series drought? What were the odds of that? But aren’t things like that the reason baseball is the world’s most compelling game?

At the time, almost all of us in the press box were glad the drought was over. It had become tiresome answering the same old questions every year. None of us, though, had any inkling this would be merely the first of four such championships in 15 years.

Would the next three have happened without 2004? Probably, but we all knew that from there on out, covering the Red Sox would never be the same.

BILL BALLOU has been a SABR member since Cliff Kachline had his office in Cooperstown, and returns there as often as possible even if SABR has moved. A lifelong resident of Whitinsvillle, Massachusetts, he saw his first Red Sox game in 1959 and later covered the team for the Worcester Telegram from 1987 through 2018. He covered every game of Boston’s playoff run in 2004 (but still considers the Impossible Dream Red Sox of 1967 to be the most exciting team in franchise history). A member of the Boston Chapter, BaseBall Writers Assn. of America, Ballou has been a Hall of Fame voter since 1998.