World Series opening games can feel like a sunny day at Camp 6, a deserved picnic where we enjoy the fabulous views we’ve attained and contemplate the last push to the summit, but all images of the sort flew away quickly last night, when the inept Cardinals gave up five runs in the first two innings at Fenway Park, in the course of an 8–1 pasting by the Red Sox. Jon Lester, the lefty Boston starter, struck out eight Cards over seven and two thirds innings, and David Ortiz knocked a home run and a single and a sac, driving in three runs: thrilling star material on a better night, but only satisfactory here. The Cards, the best defensive team in the National League, were stinko, with three infield errors, two of them by shortstop Pete Kozma. The pattern of the game became clear when the veteran Cardinal starter Adam Wainwright could only smile wanly after allowing a feeble pop by Stephen Drew to drop like a thrombosed dove at his feet, to begin the Sox’ second. One never knows, do one, as Fats Waller said.
Big Papi’s most telling blow may prove to have been his fly ball out to the rim of the Sox’ bullpen later in the second—a near replica of that grand slam in the A.C.L.S. sixth game that pinwheeled the Tiger right fielder Torii Hunter. This ball, not quite a line drive, came down a yard or two north of that one, and was plucked back niftily from beyond the barrier by the Cards’ Carlos Beltran, who slammed heavily into the four-foot wall there but held on. (Tim McCarver, the sterling Fox commentator, pointed out that that low bullpen wall is safe enough for outfielders when their backs are turned but deadly whenever they raise their arms.) Beltran’s contused rib forced him to leave the game, and his absence tonight and perhaps later on, removing his powerful bat from the order, would be worse for the Cards than losing a trifling opener.
The Never Before moment arrived early, when Ortiz, the fourth Boston batter of the evening, hit a soft grounder to the right, where second baseman Matt Carpenter flipped to Kozma to begin a potential double play. When the ball came loose out there, second base umpire Dana DeMuth signalled that Kozma had held it long enough for the force, even though everyone in the northern hemisphere, including my watching fox terrier and I, could plainly see that Kozma had barely touched the toss with the tip of his glove. The out stood up, stare decisis—or would have in an earlier era of umpiric reasoning. Here, though, and to my amazement, five neighboring umps came circling in, like crows or undertakers, and, after consultation, DeMuthed the call—safe on an error, the out cancelled. Justice and common sense had prevailed (along with a snub to the possibility of instant electronic replay to decide such calls next year), but a part of me felt a twinge of loss. Umps should always be right, even when they aren’t. In their hearts, as Bill Klem said, they never missed a call.
Photograph by Rob Carr/Getty.
