’04 World Series Remembered 7 Years Later

As the 2011 World Series could wrap up tonight with the Texas Rangers one win away from clinching their first ever championship, it is this date that will forever be engraved in Red Sox history.

The date was Wednesday, October 27, 2004 and the setting was Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri.  The Boston Red Sox entered the game like the this year’s Rangers, one win away from glory; one win away from the sweet taste of champagne on a soaked clubhouse floor; one win away from erasing eight decades of misery and cementing a legacy in baseball eternity.

Then starter, Derek Lowe, took the mound for the Red Sox and he was spotted an early 1-0 lead when Johnny Damon belted a solo shot to right field.  David Ortiz and Trot Nixon would both double in the top of the third, securing two more runs and a 3-0 lead.  Lowe was brilliant, throwing seven shutout innings, the third straight game in which a Red Sox starter had not allowed an earned run. 

Red Sox closer, Keith Foulke would come in to work the ninth and after a Pujols single to lead off the inning, Foulke retired the next two batters.  Edgar Renteria was all that stood between the Red Sox and the ultimate victory.  What happened next can only be remembered as fate and as any Red Sox can recite, the words of Joe Buck were music to a Nation’s ears:

“Back to Foulke, Red Sox fans have longed to hear it: The Boston Red Sox are World Champions!” – Joe Buck calling game 4.

How sweet it was.  Even seven years later it still provides goose bumps when I think of that magical October.  The sweep of the Angels in the ALDS and then the immpecable comeback against the hated Yankees.  Down 3-0 to the biggest rival, the Red Sox rallied and not only wrote themselves into the history books, they proved that this was a year of destiny.

For all the greats that have come and gone through Fenway Park that were never able to break the “Curse of the Bambino;”  Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Rice, just to name a few.  This win was dedicated to all those that came before this group of self proclaimed “idiots.”

The ’04 World Series was also the 100th year that baseball’s was crowned.  How fitting was it that on such a historic year, the 100th year, the Red Sox not only won the championship, but did so in stunning fashion.  All the while breaking a historic curse.  Not even Hollywood could write a better script.  Boy, when it’s your time, it really is your time.

We’ve heard that the baseball gods can be cruel and all Red Sox fans will attest to that.  To show they have a sick sense of humor, the ’04 championship that the Red Sox won, was clinched on the same day that the New York Mets won the 1986 World Series.

Everyone remembers what happened 25 years ago, in game six of the ’86 Fall Classic.  The famous Buckner, behind the bag play gave the Mets life and they would eventually win the series, stealing it from the Sox.

Another ironic twist of fate in ’04.  The Red Sox won it all on the same day they had a championship ripped from their clenched fists 25 years earlier.

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