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Guest writer Adam Benson's live game four blog

6:20 PM: I'm already throwing up, and all Tim McCarver said was, "Jim Edmonds in Game 1." Jimmy Eat World is playing over a montage of Sox plays from the past few days. Fade out. Was that really Dave Roberts stealing second? Are you sure he's safe? Wait, doesn't he play for the Sox? I feel like that lost dog from the MasterCard commercial, going around asking, "Are you my Mommy? "Are you my Mommy?"…..

6:25 PM: The planets are literally aligned tonight. The great Chris Myers, everybody's favorite pee-off-a-hotel-room-balcony broadcaster, just informed me that for the first time ever, there's a lunar eclipse during the World Series. Who says God doesn't care about sports?

6:26 PM: Wait, is that really Jason Marquis pitching?

6:27 PM: Johnny Damon. Home run. Top of the first. Holy. Crap. As an added bonus, Tim McCarver just said, "Ground balls don't get hit out of the ballpark." This is going to be a long night, but anytime a run is scored while the broadcasters are referring to your starting pitcher in the future tense, you'll take it.

6:30 PM: Marquis pitching to Manny. Falls behind early with a 3-1 count. He already looks rattled, and who can blame him? He just looked into his soul and heard Jason Marquis respond.

6:39 PM: Derek Lowe HAS to throw first-pitch strikes early and often to keep these hitters from getting ahead in the count. Womack just drove a ball over Cabrera's head, for a single. We're screwed. I hate baseball.

6:45 PM: 24 outs to go. Lowe somehow got around Womack's single, but that doesn't mean a thing. It's like avoiding a shark but still having to tread water to survive until help arrives.

6:50 PM: As long as Cardinal fielders have to slide just to cut off extra-base hits, the Sox are in great shape. Also, Tim McCarver has entered the esteemed air reserved for smarmy and aloof broadcasters like Bob Costas and Dan Dierdorf. Was that him calling Walker's slide in right field to prevent Trotter from getting a triple a "great play"? What about Trot's hit, or Marquis's inability to find the strike zone? I know the Red Sox are anathema to McCarver's palate, but for Pete's sake, a little credit where it's due, please.

6:58 PM: It really saddens me that Blind Melon's classic "No Rain" is now being used to hawk Pepsi products. I bet there are people out there who are going to wonder if the band is touring in their town anytime soon. Shannon Hoon would be turning over in his grave to know his teen angst ballad is now a vehicle used to help quench thirst. Shameless.

7:04 PM: 21 outs to go. I can't feel my spleen. Does anybody actually need the spleen? It seems like a pretty useless vestigial organ to me, but I bet it would suck to get cancer there.

7:39 PM: I don't want to say it, because despite how they've been playing, we're still talking about the Red Sox here, but I think it's obvious how overmatched the Cardinals are against this team. Their starters have been tentative at best and running scared for the most part, while the Walker-Pujols-Rolen-Edmonds combination has had fewer hits than Martha Stewart's Web site these days. I find it nearly impossible that I'm saying this, but we aren't going to lose. We're going to sweep a National League team in October and win a World Series. This one is for you, Grandma and Grandpa.

7:45 PM: Between Pedro in Game 3 and Lowe tonight, Red Sox pitchers have retired more guys than a Florida nursing home. 26 in a row and counting. Just 15 outs to go. How is this happening?

7:49 PM: I'm sure the ratings for this World Series were some of the highest in history . . .until Fox producers decided to cut back to the game with an audio overlay of Bonnie Tyler's sappy "A Total Eclipse of the Heart." A total eclipse of the moon, fellas, is a far cry from the crap Bonnie was whining about back in 1987.

8:05 PM: Here it comes. Renteria fights for a double and then Lowe gives him third on a pitch that actually wound up in the press box. John Mabry scares me in this situation.

8:06 PM: Never mind.

8:13 PM: It's a seemingly innocuous 1-2 count to Bellhorn in the top of the sixth, but all I can think of right now are the thousands of people from Red Sox Nation who lived a lifetime not knowing how it would feel to have their baseball team win the World Series. This is more than a team or a game for us. This is everything. This is giving birth after 86 years of labor. If the Sox pull this out, nothing in my life will ever mean more. Not marriage, not success in my career, nothing. This is what I want. This is all I've ever wanted. This is when my thoughts go to watching games with Dad, sitting on that green couch and that old green rocking chair, chewing on the bill of my Red Sox hat, watching him smoke and drink and read and wondering why he's not watching and then understanding exactly why he can't watch. This is for my grandparents, who started following the Red Sox in the mid 1930s, while Ted Williams was a rookie and the Braves were cross-town rivals. This is triumph. This is the only time in my life I believe in God. The baseball is the weight of a nation, embracing this Nation and eight decades of hope. We need this to happen.

8:23 PM: If Red Sox fans never see Derek Lowe in a Boston uniform again, he'll be loved here for what he's done in the postseason. 2-0 record with a 2.16 ERA so far. He's made himself at least $8 million richer. I'll miss him when he'll most likely leave for greener pastures in the offseason, but sort of like I miss my uncle's dog that humps my leg every time I see him. It's something familiar, but makes me feel strange and uncertain about his sanity.

8:30 PM: Nine outs. In other words, the Boston Red Sox need less than 10 outs to clinch a World Series victory. The last time this happened, we were still fighting World War I. By the way, Lowe has now pitched 17 2/3 innings in the postseason and has given up two runs. His ERA over that particular span is smaller than Nelson De La Rosa.

8:35 PM: Well, Manny just swung at a pitch that I think was actually a throw to first by Danny Haren. Maybe the Sox are trying to get outs on purpose to hoist that trophy. Yes, I said hoist….and if the Sox can pull this out, I'll be hoisting myself the rest of the evening.

8:38 PM: Scott Stapp is singing "God Bless America," and of course Fox gives the requisite cutaway shot to troops stationed in Baghdad. Could Stapp suck more if he tried? I mean, this is a guy who left Creed so he could expand his creative horizons. That's like Helen Keller leaving Anne Sullivan's watch to take speech lessons. This gives me another reason to hope the Red Sox sweep: no more crappy artists (except James Taylor) singing the National Anthem and "God Bless America" in between innings and before games.

8:48 PM: I'm getting sick to my stomach. Honestly. Six outs. I'm going to have to stop typing and enter pray mode. You can almost hear the tremulousness in Joe Buck and Tim McCarver's voices as they prepare themselves to say, "the Boston Red Sox are the 2004 world champions of baseball and for the first time in 86 years have brought a World Series title home to Red Sox Nation." Even if you're not a Sox fan, that has to be music to your ears . . .well, unless you're one of those stupid Yankees fans.

8:58 PM: Hey, did you know the Cardinals had a closer? Yeah, I guess his name is Jason Isringhausen. It took the Cards 34 innings to get him in a World Series game. That's never a good sign if you're an aficionado of a team named for an avian species indigenous to much of the contiguous United States. Also, if the Sox hold on to win, Lowe gets the decision in all three clinchers. You can't ask for more than that from a starting pitcher.

9:03 PM: Pujols' play to throw out Mueller at home is all the evidence you need to see why he's such a great player. Down 3-0 in the top of the eighth, he reaches to his left and makes the throw to home, dead on to get the sliding runner. He's a gamer. Given the same crunch-time situation, A-Rod would have forgotten about baseball and just painted his lips a nice pastel shade of lavender and pruned his delightful eyelashes.

9:11 PM: Is it too early to start crying?

9:41 PM: Stop reading this. Stop. My words don't matter. I'm not alone. The words I type through my tears are being echoed and reverberated from coast to coast, and from fans not on this Earth anymore. It happened. What curse? I feel millions of arms around me, and my arms around millions of shoulders. Freeze this moment in time, because this is what we call forever. I'm exhausted, and there's nothing left except love. Love for my hometown, for my baseball team, for my family and friends and every single mother, father, sister, brother, grandmother, grandfather and anybody else who counts themselves among Red Sox Nation. Nation? I don't think so. Try Family. You can have Bill Buckner, Bucky Dent, Babe Ruth and Aaron Boone. Say all you want about the 2003 ALCS or the 1986 World Series or every year since 1918. Lovers don't give up on their love. I have to stop, because I'm done. The next hours are mine, to be shared with a select few. If you're a Red Sox fan, soak this up and let it sink deep into your veins. Let it consume you. It is you. If you're not a Sox fan, you'll never know what you're missing, or what we're feeling. Thank you boys, for bringing my heart into my throat and letting me know what true love tastes like.

Copyright © 2004 by Adam Benson

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