The chances were always better with Wakefield, who was as much a leader as anyone who ever played for the Red Sox.
in the American League Championship Series, and now the league trophy was being passed around from player to player. But when it got to Johnny Damon, the Sox outfielder had only one thought: He wanted to get that thing to Tim Wakefield.Such was the dispatch with which Damon couriered the trophy to Wakefield that it was as if winning the American League pennant and heading to the World Series wouldn’t be official until it was in the hands of the old knuckleballer.
Wakefield, who was 57, was never the best player on the Red Sox, not even the best pitcher, and he wore no captain’s C on his uniform. Quotable? Nope. The snarky, funny commentary was delivered by Damon, David Ortiz, Kevin Millar and that crowd.
But there was also this: One year earlier, in this same ballpark, Wakefield served up the pitch that Aaron Boone clouted for a game-winning home run leading off the 11th inning of Game 7 of the ALCS. As the Yankees celebrated another trip to the World Series, Wakefield left the park that night believing he’d just cemented himself as a goat, his name forever to be brought up in any discussion about Boston’s decades-long failure to win a championship.
And look what happened just one year later, in 2004, when the Red Sox and Yankees met again in the ALCS. As the Red Sox were getting hammered by the Yankees in Game 3, Wakefield approached manager Terry Francona and said he’d be willing to pitch, and keep pitching, if it could help preserve the pitching staff for a hoped-for comeback in Games 4, 5, 6 and 7.
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