Just finished watching the "Rolling Rally" and the inevitable highlight reels put to arena rock used by all the stations as their closes. Naturally, such montages are meant to be tip of the iceberg evocative rather than depth of analysis comprehensive. Even as they do their easy jerking job on me, I feel like the soul of this team is not fairly represented via the bombast of the game winning hits.

Where does the soul actually lie? 10 fans probably have 10 different answers to that.

For my answer I find myself thinking back to Game 4 of the ALCS which, at this point, seems like a million years/an hour ago, after A-Rod/Alice Rodriguez hit a two run HR in the 3rd to go up 2-0.

No one panicked. Derek Lowe was on the mound.

Read those two sentences again. The last we saw of Lowe at Yankee Stadium he was throwing to wrong bases and into the stands for runs, when he couldn't get them in via the long ball. People argue whether winning breeds chemistry or vice versa. Whatever the case, this was a team that had gelled, where every player was doing it for the other 24 (and the millions of the rest of us.) Of course Lowe strikes out Sheffield to end the inning. Of course he does.

You hear "play the game one pitch at a time" and your first impulse is to dismiss it as another meaningless cliché thrown too easily around to save everyone unneeded thought, but pulling that off (which is obviously insanely easier said than done, when you consider the absurd amount of scrutiny and analysis) is what the Red Sox were able to do, and the Yankees clearly were not.

Game rolls on, the Sox grab the lead in the 5th, relinquish it in the 6th.

Still. No. Panic.

(Much panic in the fanbase, particularly here at 69 Rindge, but none visible on the team. A heightened sense of the importance of execution, yes, but no signs of panic.

(An aside.. weed and sox related...Why is it that Bellhorn chooses to hold on to ground balls that he fields for a sec or two so he can say something to them before he throws to 1st? Johnny Damon? Duh. Manny? Too obvious, he just seems to be like that all the time, and is one of the big reasons he is the Buddha. Nope, Papi ain't the Buddha, he belongs too much of the realm of striving and becoming and coming and going. Manny is. Now. Presently. He plays the game one rotation of a slider at a time. Or, more accurately, completely out of time. Living and playing in the eternal now.)

Anyway, back to that game, which obviously was the turning point of everything. I loved that Millar had enough gumption to say before Game 4 something to the effect of "They'd better sweep us, they'd better beat us tonight, or watch out. This team can get on a roll, and if we do God help you." That is admittedly paraphrased, but to hear that kind of "controlled swagger" (whatever that might mean) in the situation they were in. Every player on that team KNEW they could still win the ALCS, down 0-3.

Had tickets for Game 5 on Monday. They were originally supposed to be for Game 3 on Friday, but it was rained out. Before Game 4, I'm a little ashamed to admit that I felt like "Just get swept and get it over with. I don't want to have to go watch them celebrate in our house when they clinch tomorrow. I don't want to watch that. Just lose tonight and at least it will be less painful than last year. No "what if?" other than, "what if the sox decided to show up for the ALCS." Bitter bitter stuff. The second the first pitch was thrown, of course, I was back to pulling as hard as I could for them to win, but with little to no confidence in their ability to actually do so. And even if they win tonight, the long odds of actually coming all the way back were outrageously remote. It just increases the odds of a heartbreaking loss later in the series. Another Game 7 would be ideal with regard to topping last year for heartbreak. After I looked into the teams eyes after A-Rod's early Home Run, that thinking changed, significantly and immediately.

Everyone knows how Game 4 worked out. Millar's walk, Dave Roberts pinch run stolen base. Meuller's RBI single to tie it. Ortiz two run jack to finally win it. 5:02 Longest game in postseason history. Until tomorrow night, something we did/didn't know at that time...

One of many sequences that will be remembered and shown in place of '86 and '75 highlights.

This team suddenly didn't feel like it was down 3-1. Freedom's just another word for, nothin left to lose... When you got nothin', you got nuttin to lose... etc etc

As mentioned, was at Game 5. A tense and quiet Fenway. Much accusation of jinxing by and toward one's sectionmates. Guy next to me got a serious talking to about saying "double play" prior to the Sox obliging by grounding into one. I didn't take part in the dressing down, but I fully supported it.

When Ortiz hit a solo shot in the 8th to pull us within 1 run, it may have been the least cheered home run in the history of the park. More work was clearly left to be done, and not many outs with which to do it. (Cue Jerry Reed... "Got a long way to go, and a short time to get there...") Started breathing deeper when Varitek's sac fly brought in Roberts.

There is Roberts' name again. Is he destined to become a Red Sox trivia question in twenty years? Or did we just witness the first and brightest sparkle of a player with many more memories yet to be made in a Red Sox uniform. Time will tell, although he has the bubbly personality of a person that could be very popular here, for a very long time. I could see him coming back here in a fourth outfielder capacity. I suspect Kapler will be gone, and that's a bit of a bummer, but he (and everyone else that may go) leaves if he goes with a ring in tow. But, you think about the fact that when the rings are actually given out next season, the team is 100% certain not to have everyone on it that was part of this run. Those are the sorts of things that make me really sad, but it was a great run. Being a professional baseball player must be a little like graduating from college, every season. You live with these guys for 6 months, they are your family and, at the end of each season, there is turnover, and the team that just was, will never be again.

So, everyone knows how this one ended as well. (Another sequence that lends itself easily to the arena rock quick cut montage.)

Ortiz decides to use his baseball swing in the 14th and muscles the game winning single.

Going back to New York. At least not in Fenway. Not in our house. We will not die today. Not today.

"..A day may come, when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day!
An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of men comes crashing down!
But it is not this day!
This day we fight! "

Can anyone seriously argue that Aragorn would be pulling for the Yankees? That Star Wars crap was really tiresome, particularly coming from that weasel Luccino, but a Lord of the Rings analogy? Apt and gear as all get out! One ring destroyed by winning another, though. Hmm.. seems dangerous.. we should all keep our eyes peeled for the sibilance of Theo's essess. Doubly so for any use of 'precious', or a sudden fondness for the mock turtleneck.

Now the pressure is back on them. The Yankees didn't want to have to have it come back to New York, and here it is.

Buzz building...

Game 6. Heroic Schilling start coming soon to a Bush spot near you. Facing Leiber who was lights out in outpitching Pedro. Seven innings, one run. Staked 4 via Bellhorn's Grand Slam. Bullpen closes the door. Closes, not yet slamming it shut as they will come to. 4-2 Sox. It is officially ON! And the Sox suddenly feel like the favorites some pundits were dubbing them before the series.

Game 7: The tensest 10-3 victory in the history of baseball. Odd throwing in of Pedro unwarmed up a nostalgic tip of the hat to 2003. Better to win it facing a lively Yankee Stadium, right?

Sweep delayed completed.

Watched the NLCS Game 7, picking it up now along with just about everyone else not living in Houston or St. Louis, I suspect. Found myself hoping the Cardinals won it. Thought we matched up pretty well with them. Wanted to avoid Clemens, Oswald and Backe, with ND's own Brad Lidge closing the crap out of games. Thought we would feast on the St. Louis pitching. 2-5 for the Cardinals came up smaller than I ever could have hoped, but when you build a team on an offense reliant on production out of those slots, you are vulnerable to those four guys all going cold for four games, which can and does happen, as we saw. Red Sox pitching had quite a bit to do with them going cold, it would seem... I suspect that Pujols, Rolen, Edmonds, and co. don't see pitching like they saw in the World Series very frequently throughout the season.

Then, suddenly, it is all over until April, leaving a void that all the hack musings and Hot Stove conjecture can not come close to filling.