Hadn't they been down to the Cards, three games to one, and playing in St. Louis? The Cards didn't even pack for the return trip, remember? Hadn't Lonborg stopped them twice before on only one run and four hits? If anyone could win it for us today, it was Jimmy, Jimmy. But no, the fairy tale would have no happy ending.
On the corner of Jersey and Brook-line, a lone hawker stands shivering. "Get your girl a souvenir garter," he barks, waving a cardboard with a lone garter. "Get your genuine World Series garter, last one left." There are no takers.
Behind him half a dozen men pack several cartons of garters, buttons and pennants into a Hertz Rent-a- Truck. "Go-Go Red Sox," one box reads, "Dick Williams for President." says another. Down the way, the NBC color television crew winds its cables and packs its lights and cameras into three large vans.
Across the street is the Pennant Grille. When the Sox clinched the pennant two Sundays ago, the Grille broke loose in a wild brawl that brought half a dozen mounted police men galloping to the scene. Now the Grille is almost empty--the television off, the jukebox playing a tinny polka. Huge autographed photos of former Red Sox stars line the walls Ted Williams, Pumpsie Green, Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio-but the men at the bar are discussing boxing. "You know goddamn well we're going to be up there again next year," a drunk in a back booth shouts, but he is ignored.
The Red Sox information sign, stripped in the pennant celebration two weekends ago, still proclaims hopefully, "World Series Game Time 1 p.m." On the Brookline Bridge over the Mass Pike, two high school girls with Red Sox pennants and beanies pass by. "The Sox will rise again," one girl says hoarsely, "the Sox will rise again.
Smokey Joe's at Ken more Square. Remember that Sunday, drinking beer from pitchers and cradling transistors tuned to the Detroit game. "YAZ, YAZ ,YAZ," we shouted as the fiddle player swung his instrument at an imaginary pitch, and clapped as the band struck up with "Hold That Tiger."
Kenmore Square was rocked by riot that night, with traffic backed two miles up Brookline Avenue. Remember how swarms of college boys commandeered cars to parties on Beacon Hill? Remember the motorists doing somersaults on their hoods?
Traffic is light now. A fat lady with a fat shopping bag jammed full of Red Sox pennants stands on the corner waiting for a bus. "I'm taking them back home for my nephews," she starts to explain, but no one asks.
"Excuse me, sir," drools a red-faced drunk with stringy-haired girl in tow. "We're conducting an on-the-street interview here--would you like to say a few words?" he asks, holding out a half-empty Schlitz microphone. We're alive, we're alive." Boston is dead.
A huge spitting-stinking cripple eases his way down the stairs to the Kenmore Square subway, propped up by a cane and a Louisville Slugger. "It's Dal Maxvill's bat--the one he got the hit with." he says. "I got it from the Cardinal clubhouse."
"Hey, Lyle's going to be good next year--Brett too. George Scott will be great if he stops fishing. It won't be so close with Conciliar back. See you next year, you're going to win again."
A block from Fen way at the Souvenir Shoppe, a young boy buys a red pennant saying "Boston Patriots.