Game Six by Mark Frost

as always, Yawkey stopped to offer a soft hand and exchange smiles or encouraging words with the admiring fans he greeted along the way. When they finally reached the field, the proceedings were called to order by Fenway’s longtime PA announcer Sherm Feller, who greeted the crowd with his signature phrase, offered in his familiar gravelly baritone: “Attention please, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Fenway Park.” After “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played by veteran organist John Kiley on his Hammond X-66, Duffy Lewis hobbled toward the mound tothrow out the ceremonial first pitch for Game Six, and his introduction was greeted by a long and emotional ovation.
    Lewis had thrown out the first pitch on Opening Day for the 1975 season back in April, when the Brewers came to Boston with Hank Aaron, making his debut in the American League after breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record, in order to finish his career back where it began in Milwaukee. After his own playing days ended, Duffy had put in twenty-five years as traveling secretary for the Boston Braves, the city’s longtime National League franchise—which moved to Milwaukee in 1953—and he had known Aaron when they were both with the Braves. Now, after the Red Sox’s dramatic charge to this World Series, Tom Yawkey had brought Duffy back as a good luck talisman for the difficult task ahead in Game Six. Whispered stories passed between the generations in the stands, revived memories of this half-forgotten ghost of greatness past— See that old man down there? He knew Babe Ruth, they were teammates together. That’s right, Babe Ruth played for the Red Sox back then, and Duffy saw the Babe hit his first home run. Duffy could hit, too; he hit over .400 in the Series in 1915. The consensus seemed to be that surely his presence augured well for the business at hand, and the crowd cheered wildly as Duffy’s throw reached Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk on the fly.
    Tom Yawkey watched quietly, seated beside Commissioner Bowie Kuhn in the front row, just to the left of home plate, before returning to his private box upstairs. Every person in that crowd knew how badly their team’s owner wanted a World Series trophy, and seemed ready and determined to will their Red Sox to victory that night. Yawkey had traveled to Oakland for the one-game conclusion of their surprising sweep of the A’s in the League Championship, and had also gone with the team on their recent trip to Cincinnati, but he had been taken ill there and instead of braving the cool night air in the stands at Riverfront Stadium had watched Games Three and Four on television in a room off the visitors’ clubhouse. He then flew back to Boston early on the day of Game Five, which he watchedfrom his suite at the Ritz. It was explained to the press that Yawkey was suffering from the same heavy chest cold that had hit many of his players, including Luis Tiant and Red Sox right fielder Dwight Evans.
    With the exception of his wife, Jean, and a few team executives, no one else in the stadium that night of Game Six knew that this year’s quest for a championship had taken on an even starker urgency: The seventy-two-year-old Yawkey had recently been diagnosed with leukemia, was already undergoing chemotherapy at New England Baptist Hospital, and had less than nine months to live.

THREE
    Baseball is a private game.
    G EORGE P LIMPTON
    F OR GEORGE “SPARKY” ANDERSON, HALF OF THE JOB OF managing a game was over by the time the ink was dry on his lineup card.
    Hell, we played a hundred and sixty-five games already—and we won a hundred and eleven of ’em, by the way—you know what your fellas can do, just let ’em go out there and play!
    It didn’t hurt that four of the men in his everyday lineup would amass Hall of Fame–level credentials, and three of the other four, at one time or another in their careers, were or would be All-Star-caliber players. The Reds had been called the “Big Red