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The Red Sox have to get over the ALCS debacle - and so does everyone else

This is one for the record books, folks--an 8 ½-month hangover.

'Twas October 16 of last year that the New York Yankees sent the Boston Red Sox home for their traditional long winter's nap, as players and fans across Red Sox Nation snuggled warm in their beds, with visions of Aaron Boone's Game 7 home run dancing through their heads.

It's more than eight months later, and the Sox are still feeling the effects. More than eight months later, and the home run is still hanging over Beantown like an 800-pound gorilla. More than eight months later, Aaron Boone himself isn't even with the Yanks anymore--he's in Cleveland, and yet it seems SportsCenter can't go a single, solitary day without showing that bloody clip. More than eight months later, the Red Sox still look shellshocked from the whole experience.

Have you seen them lately? This isn't the Boston Red Sox we're supposed to see. This isn't the team we all fell in love with last season. No, this is an aberration, a cheap imitation of last year's would-be American League champs.

It doesn't make much sense, really. The Sox are floundering as a team, slipping further and further away from the first-place Yankees and edging closer to the third-place Devil Rays, despite the fact that two of their sluggers--David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez--are having MVP-type seasons. Ortiz leads the American League in homers, RBI, doubles and total bases (as of Wednesday). Ramirez is in the A.L.'s top 5 in batting average, home runs, RBI, doubles, walks, total bases, slugging percentage, on-base percentage and OPS. Starting pitchers Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez are the winningest duo in baseball. The Sox have the best bullpen in the league.

And yet, something's not right.

Never mind injuries. Clearly the team has missed Nomar Garciaparra, Trot Nixon and Bill Mueller in their absences. But the Yankees have had their share of injuries as well, and they've been practically unstoppable since April. Injuries may be part of the reason for Boston's struggles, but they're no excuse.

On paper, this is a far superior team than last year's version. Schilling has been added to the rotation, and Elmer Fudd is no longer calling the shots. They have to be better, right? Wrong.

Instead of last year's playoff hero, Todd Walker, Boston has Mark Bellhorn, who has solid RBI numbers but has also struck out approximately 748 times. Kevin Millar, the heart and soul of the team down the stretch last season, has just 21 RBI this year after driving in a career-high 96 runs a season ago. What happened to him? What happened to Derek Lowe? What happened to Tim Wakefield? Weren't these guys supposed to be . . .you know, good?

What happened, guys? You're breakin' my heart here.

But it's not as simple as a few subpar performances. It's bigger than that--much bigger.

The fact is the Red Sox still haven't recovered from that Game 7 loss, no matter how much they try to tell us it's behind them. Watch them on the field--you know they're thinking about it, replaying it in their minds, asking the what-ifs. Losing in such dramatic fashion took its toll on the Sox, and the effect has carried over into mid-summer 2004. Last year's group was defined by its fire, its passion, its energy. It was like a Little League team with Major League talent. You don't see any of that this year. They're merely going through the motions, walking through the regular season, staying in the thick of the playoff race on talent alone.

But talent alone won't break The Curse, and it won't beat the Yankees.

Wednesday night's 4-2 loss to the Yankees--which dropped Boston 7.5 games behind New York in the A.L. East--epitomized the team's season-long struggles. Up 2-0 in the seventh, the Sox had a chance to blow the game open, loading the bases with nobody out. Last year's BoSox would have put three or four runs on the board in that situation, no sweat. This year's version netted three-straight outs, stranding all three runners on base. From that moment on, it was over. Like clockwork, Boston's dreadful defense committed two careless errors that led to three runs, which was all the Yanks needed.

I was in Denver two weeks ago to see the Sox play a pair at Coors Field. In the Wednesday night game, the Rockies went into the ninth inning with a 7-4 lead. Boston promptly put two runs on the board and a couple more runners on the bases, positioning themselves to come from behind for the improbable victory. Instead, Dave McCarty stranded the last two runners and flied out weakly to right.

Last year, the Sox would have won that game. No matter who was at the plate, once the flood gates opened, the Rockies would have been done for.

Way back in April, when the Sox took six of seven from the Yankees, some people thought that was really something, apparently operating under the mistaken assumption that games in April actually mean something. Well, they don't, and now that the games really count, the 2004 Red Sox are showing their true colors. Since April, they've put the ship on Auto Pilot and they've been playing .500 baseball. They're careless, they're erratic, they don't come through in the clutch as they did so often last year, and they show none of the competitive fire that drove them all last season. They've been mailing it in this year.

Like the Oakland Raiders following their disastrous Super Bowl loss to the Tampa Bay Bucs two years ago, the Red Sox have not been able to recover. They can't forget what happened. Even worse--they won't forget. Worse yet: No one will forget. No one can let it go.

It's like everyone's been stuck in a time warp since last October. No matter that it's now July, all people want to talk about is October 16, 2003. When was the last time anyone heard Steve Bartman's name? When was the last time anybody saw a clip of that infamous foul ball? Doesn't anyone remember that the Cubs blew a 3-1 lead in the NLCS? Doesn't anyone remember that the Cubs, too, were five outs away from the World Series, and that they, like the Sox, also blew a three-run lead in the eighth inning and lost out on a bid to the Series?

But how many times have you all seen Boone's home run replayed again and again? 700? 750? Doesn't anyone remember that, despite all of Boone's heroics, the Yankees got spanked by the Florida Marlins in the World Series?

Nope. Of course not. All anyone wants to talk about is the Red Sox chokin' away another one. Eight and a half months ago.

Move on, folks. Move on, SportsCenter. Move on, Kevin, and Tim, and Nomar, and Theo. It's ancient history. Move. On. Because until you forget about last year, last year will be as good as it gets.

This hangover's gotta wear off sometime. Drink some black coffee, take a cold shower, get some rest, and get over it.

And that goes for you, too, Pedro.

Copyright © 2004 by Chris Bellamy

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