Tim Wakefield

I’m going from memory, but I swear this is what happened.

Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series. The Red Sox are up on the Yankees in the eighth inning, but the starting pitcher, Pedro Martinez — Pedro Fucking Martinez — is out of gas. The Yankees are threatening. Grady Little is the Red Sox manager and as he walks out for a mound conference everyone is expecting Petey to hit the showers. The Boston bullpen had been the team’s one weakness all season, but they’d been lights out in the playoffs. Everyone knew it was time to make the change. Everyone except Grady Little.

The mound conference went on. And on. And Grady wasn’t taking the ball. And I swear to you this is not hindsight, this is not arranging the facts to suit the narrative, but we were screaming at our television to take Pedro out. Screaming. Grady left him in. The Yankees tied it, the Sox couldn’t retake the lead, and we went to extra innings.

The only pitcher available for Boston at a certain point was Tim Wakefield, the old knuckleballer. It wasn’t fair for him to be out there at all, let alone putting the hopes of a team that had absolutely blown it on his shoulders. Aaron Boone blasted a no-doubter game-winning home run to win the series for the Yankees, and as Wake trudged off the field, head down, surrounded by jubilant leaping figures in pinstripes, he looked like the loneliest man in the world.

By that point it seemed like Wake had been on the Red Sox forever. He’d been there since 1995, long enough to have played with Roger Clemens and Mike Greenwell. He played with the core of the good, not good enough Red Sox of the late 1990s. He saw the coming of Nomar Garciaparra and Pedro Martinez. And he just kept throwing that knuckleball.

Over Wakefield’s long career he netted out as roughly a league average pitcher. But those averages really obscure what was amazing about watching him throw. When the knuckleball was working — whether for a few innings, a few games, or a few months sometimes — it made major league hitters look like fools. It danced like Bugs Bunny’s screwball. When it wasn’t working — when the knuckleball wouldn’t knuckle — he may as well have been tossing batting practice. Then, of course, there was the stress the pitch’s unpredictability put on catchers. They missed it just as as often as hitters did.

In 2004, the Red Sox looked better than ever. They’d addressed their biggest flaws by signing a premium closer in Keith Foulke and a second ace in Curt Schilling. Pedro Martinez was no longer the God he had been at the turn of the century but still among the game’s best pitchers. Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz formed as fearsome a 3-4 punch as you could find in a major league lineup. This was a team built to win. As though destiny had drawn it up, once again the Boston Red Sox found themselves facing off against the New York Yankees in the ALCS.

And it all went as badly as possible. Schilling was hurt. Nobody in their Moneyball-inspired, OBP-heavy lineup could get on base. They dropped the first two games in the Bronx, and came back to Fenway to promptly get shelled in game three. After two hard-fought losses, they were getting humiliated on their home turf. The final score of that game was 19-8. Who was out there soaking up one thankless inning after another in hopes of preserving the bullpen for one last prayer of a game the next night? Tim Wakefield. Of course he was.

Some pitchers look terrifying up on the hill. Imagine your Nolan Ryans and your Randy Johnsons, scowling over their gloves with a fury that would make all but the most cocksure batters a little wobbly in the knees. Then there are guys who just know they’re better than you, smarter and more prepared, your Pedros and your Greg Madduxes. But Wakefield just went out there and loped one knuckleball after another with the easiest delivery you’ve ever seen.

He knew what he was throwing. The catcher knew what he was throwing. The batter knew what he was throwing. What none of them knew was what, exactly, the ball was going to do. Sometimes it skittered like a video game glitch. Sometimes it dropped off the shelf right in front of the plate. Sometimes it looked like a meatball and stayed looking that way right up until some lucky fan in the bleachers snagged himself a home run ball.

No matter what happened, Wake kept going out there and pitching. He’s the all-time Red Sox leader in innings pitched, and had a chance to go out as the leader in wins, too, but he retired before he could have eclipsed Roger Clemens and Cy Young. Somehow that feels right. He wouldn’t have wanted to seem bigger than the team.

In game 1 of the 2004 World Series, Tim Wakefield got the start. He didn’t exactly shut down the St. Louis Cardinals. It was a high-scoring game, but for once the team around him had enough talent to come out on top. That was a squad with an outrageous collection of ability and personality. The self-anointed “Idiots” had no shortage of characters, from David Ortiz, the clutch slugger with the 1,000-watt smile, to Curt Schilling, whose refreshing candor turned out to augur 20 years and counting of becoming ever more of an odious shithead. They had crazy hair and beards, multi-step handshakes, and a second baseman who looked in his official team portrait like he had just taken a monster bong rip. And Wake, well, he was like an elder statesman. Along with Jason Varitek, he was one of the leaders by example, one of the guys who was happy to play straight man when Kevin Millar was goofing off for the cameras again.

The Red Sox won the World Series in 2004. It was their first championship in 86 years. Plenty of ink has been spilled on the topic. Legends were made. Big Papi, Pedro, Manny. The Comeback. The Bloody Sock. The Steal. For some players it was the last hurrah. For others it was the start of a new, 21st-century dynasty. Still others were short-term rentals with the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time.

They all played a part. But if I’m directing the movie about the team that broke the Curse of the Bambino, I’m starting with Tim Wakefield walking off the mound at Yankee Stadium on October 16, 2003, and I’m ending with Tim Wakefield holding up the World Series trophy on October 27, 2004.

Because Tim Wakefield was the Boston Red Sox. For 17 seasons, for 3,000 innings, for the lowest lows and the highest highs, Wake went out to the mound and threw that knuckleball. One after another. (Plus the very occasional 78-mph fastball that could lock up a hitter like any gas Randy Johnson ever threw.) He wasn’t the biggest star or the best soundbite. He was the guy who showed up to work every day and did what he could to help his team win. He became, in my estimation, one of the greatest to ever put on the Red Sox uniform — and we’ll never see his like again.

Like I said, I’m going from memory. But I swear that’s what happened.