The greatest baseball game I’ve ever watched was Tom Glavine versus the Cleveland Indians in Game 6 of the 1995 World Series. Glavine was playing for the Braves at the time, but this particular game wasn’t Atlanta against Cleveland; it was Glavine versus the Indians. Eight innings of one-hit, shutout baseball. Glavine was brilliant and captured the MVP along with Atlanta’s only World Series. It was a great disappointment when Mark Wohlers came on to close in the final inning. Glavine was so on his game I truly believe he could have pitched another half-dozen innings. It was Glavine’s greatest performance on the greatest of stages and has reached mythic proportions in my memory.
It would be almost a decade until I would witness a similar exhibition of grit and determination. When Curt Schilling took the mound in Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS, it was a battle of wills. It wasn’t a battle between Schilling and the “Evil Empire†Yankees; this epic match was between a man and his gimpy ankle. To this day, it’s symbolized by a bloody sock.
This week television play-by-play announcer Gary Thorne brought up a rumor during a Baltimore Orioles game saying the sock may have been a farce, nothing more than a prop. He stated Boston catcher Doug Mirabelli had said the “blood†was paint and it was just a ploy to deceive the Yankees. On the surface, the story might be true. The infamous stocking is socked away in Cooperstown and it’s not as if those folks want to find out if it’s a hoax or not so we’re not likely to see them offer up DNA testing. (The sock is Cooperstown’s equivalent to the Shroud of Turin — and the Hall of Fame is just slightly more protective of their materials than the Vatican is of theirs.) Schilling’s media savvy also seems to be working against him because nobody would doubt the crafty pitcher was shrewd enough to pull such a hoax. In the end, Mirabelli vehemently denied Thorne’s statement causing the announcer to recant and admit he may have misinterpreted context of what the Red Sox catcher had originally said. The story of the Bloody Sock that Wasn’t was dead as a national story and destined for a life on the conspiracy nut circuit.
But I’m not done with it. I’m mad at Thorne. Not because he relayed a story without having the facts straight – he’s got three hours to fill up during a game, and more than 150 games to repeat the feat. Thorne is going to speak off-the-cuff because he has to. No, the part I’m upset about is the subject matter. Why tarnish what many consider an epic moment in baseball history? There isn’t a baseball fan alive who doesn’t realize the significance of the bloody sock. You don’t even have to like the Red Sox or Yankees to know how important that game was to those two organizations and baseball in general. Curt Schilling became a folk hero that night.
I’m not a fan of revisionist history. It’s said history is written by the victors and it’s true. It’s important to look at history books with a grain of salt and realize the perspective of the author. But baseball isn’t real life. It’s a game played by grown men wanting to hold onto childhood. Fans watch to be distracted from everyday life. Why can’t we have mythic heroes? Why do the fun police have to ruin the party? Why did Gary Thorne have to go all Dorothy on us and peak behind the emerald curtain?
Whether it was blood (and I still believe it was) or paint, the sock didn’t alter the score. Sock or no sock, the Red Sox beat the Yanks that night. But let’s face it; the bloody sock makes the memory that much better.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
…Especially if he’s holding a can of red paint.
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