As Aaron Boone's pennant-winning home run sailed towards the left-field seats and the thunderous applause of the ecstatic Yankee Stadium patrons echoed in the collective psyche of Red Sox Nation, a recurring theme reared its ugly head.
Some things just aren't meant to be. Good child actors, romantic comedies without Hugh Grant, delectable airline cuisine, a realistic episode of "Boston Public," talented boy bands, a Jehuda sighting on campus and a crucial Sox victory over the Pinstripes.
As much as Boston baseball die-hards seem to revel in their oft-spoken "Wait 'til next year" mantra, you got the feeling that this year's team struck an even deeper emotional chord with the Beantown faithful.
During this postseason, the breaks seemed to be going their way; from Jason Varitek's savvy block of home plate during Game Three of the Division Series that prevented Eric Byrnes from scoring a decisive run to Grady Little's decision to thrust Derek Lowe back into the role of closer to clinch Game Five, the Red Sox looked more and more like a team of destiny.
But, as the BoSox have come to know so well, destiny can often be trampled by a freight train known as the New York Yankees.
After the Red Sox dropped two of three at home versus New York in the ALCS, things looked bleak.
But Boston bats were injected with some vigor in Game Six, and Trot Nixon's ninth-inning bomb off Jose Contreras sealed a much-anticipated Game Seven pitching duel.
It was Boston past against the present, and possibly future, without the mind-boggling theatrics of Game Three at Fenway.
You could almost feel a wave of relief and sheer bliss pulsating through New England as Nixon and the struggling Kevin Millar took Clemens deep, knocking the pitching legend from the game in the fourth inning. Joe Torre's quick hook for Clemens proved a harbinger of things to come and a wise decision, as Mike Mussina stopped the bleeding by escaping a potentially devastating pickle.
When Pedro, who rarely exceeds the century mark in pitch count during his regular season starts, emerged from the Boston dugout to start the eighth, an alarm must have gone off inside the head of every anxious Sox fan.
After retiring the first batter he faced in the bottom of the eighth, Martinez tried to gas Derek Jeter with a two-strike fastball up and away. Jeter took the pitch the other way for a double. With the Red Sox bullpen getting ready, Bernie Williams laced a single to center that plated Jeter to pull New York within two.
In a moment that will be remembered in the same light as Bill Buckner and Bucky Dent by unforgiving Sox fans, Grady Little then ventured out to the mound to talk with his ace.
"He asked me if I had any bullets in my tank," Pedro recalled. "I said I had enough."
Apparently not. Hideki Matsui, Japan's "Godzilla" who hasn't lived up to his power-hitting reputation, drove another two-strike fastball down the right field line for a ground-rule double. Yankee catcher Jorge Posada, who engaged in a verbal taunting match with Pedro at Fenway, proceeded to dunk a bloop hit into center that scored two and knotted the game at five apiece.
Little removed Pedro with his pitch count at a staggering 123.
After Mariano Rivera's dominant relief pitching and Boone's long-ball had given the Yankees their 39th pennant, press postmortem's vilified Little as if he had thrown the eleventh-inning gopher ball.
"Grady Little went with his slender, somewhat fragile ace who has won 166 games in the regular season," New York Times columnist George Vecsey wrote.
"It was a decision based more on loyalty and emotion than logic."
"The Red Sox would lose later," Vecsey continued, "because the Yankees had Mariano Rivera and the Red Sox do not. But this game will always be remembered in New England for Little letting Martinez stay in the game."
Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan, who more than any other local scribe tends to tackle Boston-area sports with a hardnosed attitude that reflects the sentiment of the everyday fan, wants Little ousted.
"Grady Little's own heart overruled his head," he wrote in an Oct. 18 column, "and as a result, he has certainly managed his last game for the Red Sox."
"As for asking Pedro whether he wished to continue," Ryan adds, "who was Grady kidding. Every great pitcher, from Hoss Radbourn to Cy Young to Grover Cleveland Alexander to Bob Feller to Bob Gibson to Roger Clemens to, yes, Pedro Martinez, wants to stay in. The manager's job in this matter is to be the Bad Cop."
Ryan, who goes on to say that Martinez has been given the "Ming vase treatment" by Little and Sox management for the past three seasons, also blames Little for not having a dependable support system with him on the bench.
"If Joe Torre were even considering such a thing," he writes, "you can be assured that pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, a trusted associate of long standing, would have been very happy to give Joe a metaphorical slap in the face and say, 'Joe, no! Get him out!'"
Ryan believes that Little has "become the managerial Bill Buckner" and says that Sox owners Larry Lucchino and John Henry, two "very PR- and image-conscious" executives, don't want "to be known as the complete fools who didn't know enough to get rid of the man perceived by an entire sports-loving nation to be the Village Idiot."
Contaced by the Boston Globe for his thoughts on the latest Red Sox debacle, Henry - who actually owned the Marlins at one point - refused to discuss Little's future with the club.
Instead, he focused on the positive outlook over Boston fans.
"Initially, I thought New Englanders would just finally throw up their hands," Henry said. "But their level of commitment and resolve is astonishing and deserves our full attention to moving this franchise forward without a break."
Even worse, says Ryan, New Englander's now have to "stomach a World Series that pit's the Evil Empire against the Clueless Sun Worshippers." He's referring to the fans of the Yankees and Marlins, of course, not the teams themselves.
In Chicago, where Cubs fans have endured a World Series draught that should make Sox fans feel like perennial winners, they've found their own sacrificial lamb in Steve Bartman. The 26-year-old Bartman, if you haven't heard, was the Cub fan who reached over a wall down the left field line at Wrigley during Game Six of the NLDS and deflected a foul ball that appeared headed for the glove of Moises Alou.
Bartman's ill-advised play on the ball happened with the Cubs five outs from their first Series appearance since 1945. They lost that game 8-3 after a furious Marlins rally and fell 9-6 in a wild series finale.
Bartman, a youth baseball coach who has had to request a police presence outside the suburban home he shares with his parents, was actually offered asylum by Florida Governor Jeb Bush. He even released a statement to the press apologizing for his actions. "To Moises Alou, the Chicago Cubs organization, Ron Santo, Ernie Banks, and Cub fans everywhere I am so truly sorry from the bottom of this Cubs fan's broken heart."
Adding insult to injury, Bartman was ridiculed on David Letterman's "Late Show" on CBS on Friday. Letterman's Top-Ten was a list of fake phone messages left on Bartman's answering machine. They included "You owe me $7.50 for the beer I threw at you," "Hey it's Don Zimmer, thanks for taking the heat off me" and "Hey, it's Rush Limbaugh, give me a buzz if you need something to take the edge off."
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti recently wrote a column titled, "A double curse just makes things worse," in which he laments the historic blunders of both franchises.
"Just as Cubdom added another surreal twist to its torturous history," he writes, "so did the Red Sox. In Chicago, paralyzed Chicago, we've added the Curse of the Ball Snatcher to the Curse of the Billy Goat. In Boston, sick Boston, they've added the stubbornness of Pedro Martinez to the Curse of the Bambino."
"Red Sox people," Mariotti continues, "like to claim they've lived a deeper sort of hell, but that isn't true, not when they've come within a victory of a world championship in 1986, 1975 and 1967."
Maybe things will work out next year, huh?