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| Kevin Youkilis bids Red Sox nation farewell. |
Kevin Youkilis walked to the top step of the dugout, turned to the sellout crowd at Fenway Park, and raised both his arms above his head. 37,565 cheered one last time for their beloved third baseman, their applause caught somewhere between reverence and heartbreak, and taking the kind of regretful cry that at once adores and resists the moment. Youk held up the number one on each hand – one for 2004, another for 2007 – and then, like a runner crossing the finish line, descended back into the dugout and down the hollow, muffled locker room hallway.
The crowd then quieted down and retook their seats, reverting their gaze to the battle between pitcher and hitter. But the mood had changed inside Fenway Park; their minds and their hearts were elsewhere. They watched the final two innings of a 9-4 Red Sox win, but it all felt stale and obligatory, and bereft of that blissful oblivion that so often pervades the ballpark in Boston. There was a lingering cognizance in the air, a painful realization. The Fenway fans, ever the most entrenched, enraptured ones of their kind, could not give themselves fully to the game. They could not drift off in its sights and sounds and depart from their everyday lives, the way baseball invites them to. Something was tugging at them, holding them back. There was a second consciousness in a ballpark that almost always has but one.
Baseball had betrayed them. It had become real. The cold, rigid actuality of the outside world had seeped into their realm of romance, it had poisoned it, stolen its innocence. The Green Monster, and the rest of the walls to their sanctuary, may well have toppled to the turf. They weren’t invulnerable anymore. Their perfect game had reared its ugly business-driven head, and their perfect team had been made to look like puppets, each one of them attached to a string dangling from the luxury box of the unfamiliar owner. And for the fans, many of them clad in the hometown team’s jerseys, the feeling was unnerving, to say the least. They felt played, as if someone had invited them to a costume party that no one else dressed up for. And now, the jerseys they wore felt a little less comfortable, a little less their own. Those donning the lovable number 20 on their backs started looking over their shoulder, wondering with unease when they might be disposed of as well.
It was not a good day to be a Red Sox fan (and this comes from a Yankees devotee), even if they had beaten the Braves and taken the three game series, 2-1. The heart and soul of their team, and its de facto captain, had been shipped out of town. It’s what fans hate about sports, the frosty reality of it all, the dreary truth that they are ultimately inconsequential. No matter how feverishly they root for an outcome – whether in a game or an administrative decision – the ending rarely takes them into account. They can only hope.
But the woe for Sox fans goes deeper than that. When Youkilis sauntered down the locker room hallway Sunday afternoon, before being swallowed up in its unknown darkness, the craned necks and squinting eyes caught the last glimpse of Boston’s most recent folk-hero. The Fenway faithful will never see him in a Red Sox uniform again. Their sonorous chants of “Youuuuuuuuk” will go unsung, their cherished number 20 jerseys will go unworn, and their well-groomed, bushy fake beards will be returned to the squirrel’s nest from where they were taken. Hopefully they were fed with something other than stray hotdog mustard in the interim. When Red Sox fans look to third base from now on, they’ll no longer see their burly, heavy-footed, mechanically-flawed 8th round draft pick who fails every eye-test by baseball standards and who “would have played for a six-pack of beer,” as his father once said. Instead, they’ll see an athletic, springy five-tooled 23 year old who makes scouts drool and who will be the cornerstone of this team for years to come. And somehow, it still feels like a downgrade.
See, Youkilis and Red Sox nation have an uncommon bond. They are united by faith in one another, and by a deep-rooted, inveterate love for the game of baseball. Coming up, Youkilis was always told he wouldn’t make it. They said his stance was too anomalous, his fielding too raw, and his temper too turbulent. No one was willing to take a chance on the unorthodox kid out of Cincinnati. Except, of course, the Red Sox. At the urging of scout Matt Haas, Boston selected Youkilis in the 2001 draft, and their marriage was happy and complementary and successful. Youkilis spread his infectious ardor for the game throughout the clubhouse, and showed his teammates how to compete. He dirtied the Red Sox jersey every time he played – a mark of distinction among an increasingly urbane and purified cast of ballplayers these days – and probably rubbed dirt on it even when he didn’t. He wasn’t a shiny, polished player, and he didn’t want to be. The Blue-collar, fiery fans of Fenway could relate to this. In 2006, the Red Sox gave him the chance to be an everyday player, and he embraced the task with aplomb, a year later leading Boston to its second world championship of the decade. Boston made Youkilis a star, and Youkilis made Boston a winner. The two parties brought out the best in one another.
But in the years since 2007 – and one could even argue 2004 – the Red Sox have lost some of their magic, some of their flair for the dramatic. They play with less gusto now, less stubbornness. They aren’t as tortured by defeat it seems, and thus not as covetous of victory. The self-proclaimed Cowboys that toppled The Curse of the Great Bambino in 2004 have left and gone away, their replacements more gentlemanly in nature. (It’s hard to imagine Adrian Gonzalez telling the Yankees to go f*** themselves, even if he’s a great player.) Even many of the diehard heroes from the 2007 team have departed Boston, either by choice or by compulsion, and what remains of them is a disjointed, aging bunch.
This process of attrition started with the departure of Pedro Martinez in December of 2004. His departure alone took much of the vehemence out of the Red Sox spirit, wiped much of the foam from the team’s mouth, as Pedro was the master of incitement and ever the foil to the high-minded, law-abiding Yankees. He delighted in this role. He thrived in it. With him removed from the rivalry, its incendiary flavor was cooled, its combustibility quelled. But his truculence lived on in the form of the feisty Kevin Millar and the game – if quirky – Johnny Damon. Until 2005, that is, when these two ringleaders were abandoned as well. Red Sox-lifer Trot Nixon received the same fate a year later, and slowly but surely, Boston’s spunky, plucky “do anything to win” identity was fading from their fabric, like smeared, spotty eye-black that drips from a player’s cheeks in the game’s late innings.
This fierce vitality was revived in 2007, due in large part to the contributions of the defiant Curt Schilling, the eccentric Manny Ramirez, the fearless Mike Lowell, and the flippant Jonathan Pabelbon. But Schilling retired in the ensuing offseason, and Ramirez was traded the next year in a move with drastic identity implications. The Red Sox were tired of his carelessness, and his spotlight-craving, me-first attitude so they shipped him out for Jason Bay, a far more reserved, far more introverted personality. Bay was a strong hitter, a solid leftfielder, and a good teammate. He stayed out of controversy, was in the headlines for the right reasons, and competed hard. But there was a level of detachment in Bay’s disposition, a distance in his eyes that spoke to a man overwhelmed. When he succeeded in Boston, he wore a wild look of relief; when he failed, a defeated look of “what the hell am I doing here?” It happens a lot to understated stars in big cities and divorce is often the only remedy. (Why Jason Bay next tried out the high-profile New York Mets beyond me; his best years came as a member of the invisible Pittsburgh Pirates where he was Rookie of the Year in 2004 and a two-time All Star.) Regardless, Manny’s transcendent value quickly became clear to the Red Sox, when they went down in flames in the ALCS to the Tampa Bay Rays, not so much because of a lack of execution but a lack of fortitude. (Youkilis did his best to will the Sox to the World Series in 2008, hitting .333 in the ALCS, but he was let down by two floundering Old Reliables in David Ortiz and Jason Varitek.)
They have not been that close to a title since. They just don’t seem to own that charisma anymore that every championship team must have. There were times, during the Ortiz-to-Schilling era when it seemed the Red Sox, once destiny’s punching bag, were actually on fate’s good side. In all honesty, there was no scarier scenario as a Yankees fan during this span than taking a one run lead into the bottom of the 9th inning at Fenway, even with the best closer in the world. You just felt like you were going to lose. It was a premonition that stemmed partly from the ever-faithful home crowd (and 86 years of futility will do this to you), but mostly from the guys in red socks. They never looked intimidated against Mariano Rivera, the way so many hitters do. They never appeared desperate, even if they were. And they never looked afraid of losing, because they firmly believed they were going to win.
But they have lost this aura. It’s a difficult thing to maintain. It takes the right players and the right personalities, the combination of which is hard to come by. Lowell retired in 2010, Papelbon was not resigned this past offseason, and just like that, two more pivotal pieces to the Red Sox revival were gone. Entering this season, a 36 year old Big Papi and an injury-plagued Youkilis were the only two carry-overs from the 2004 team. Now it’s down to one.
The Red Sox turn now to a new core to take them back to the promise-land. Led by Dustin Pedroia, who was a key contributor on the 2007 championship team, this team has a lot to figure out. They’re in 4thplace in a wickedly tough A.L. East, their starting rotation has been inconsistent, and their bullpen is less of a sure thing than a New England winter. But their holes are bigger than all that. The Red Sox suffer most from a lack of fire, an absence of desire. Their biggest flaws are character ones.
When Kevin Youkilis disappeared down the tunnel yesterday, the Fenway fans bidding him a forlorn farewell, he took an era – and an aura – with him. Red Sox nation might not admit this fact, but they can sense it. You could hear it in the way they cheered for Youk for the last time yesterday, taking one big gulp and trying to thank him, and his fallen comrades, for eight amazing years.
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