September 22 Crowd Reacts

A weary batter who had a rough week finds himself in a big moment for his team. What he did was timely and amazing and his reward...The Roar of the Crowd on September 22, 2004 at Fenway Park

The 2004 Boston Red Sox season was the 104th season in the franchise's history in Major League Baseball. The Red Sox were in a tight race with their main rivals the New York Yankees for the American League East Division. Every game mattered as Boston trailed New York by 4-1/2 games with only days remaining in the season. The BoSox were in the lead for a wild card birth but only by a slim 3-1/2 games. The Red Sox were entertaining the Baltimore Orioles who were hovring about 10 games below .500 on the season. As the Wednesday game got in the later innings, the stadium erupted when the Beantown faithful learned that the Yankees had lost to the Toronto Blue Jays. The pressure was on for Boston to win this game and gain ground on the Yanks.

At the end of nine innings the score was knotted at 6 all after the Orioles put a run across the plate in the top of the ninth. A couple of more innings of stalemate went by until the game was in the 12th inning. In the top of the 12th Orlando Cabrera was the first man up. Cabrera had a rough week leading up to the game. He had to fly home to be with his ailing wife, who had an undisclosed surgery back in his home country of Columbia. He had flown back on the 6 hour flight to the New York, sleeping a bit here and there and then had to get from the Big Apple to Boston before game time. Rick Bauer was pitching against the Boston leadman that inning and the count was worked up to 2-2. Bauer received his sign from the catcher, wouond up and delivered. Cabrera watched the delivery and then exerted all his energy into crushing the ball over the Big Green Monster in left field to lift his team to victory. You could see his relief mixed with excitement as the exerting week had taken its toll but had culminated into this moment. One where he took his victory lap around the bases to the Roar of the Crowd, and celebrating with teammate Pedro Martinez at home plate completing the walk-off home run. 

The Red Sox did gain a game on the division leading Yankees but they did not win the division that year. The team managed by Terry Francona, the Red Sox finished with a 98–64 record, three games behind the New York Yankees in the American League East. The team did earn a spot in the AL postseason as the wild card. In that first round of playoff Boston swept the Anaheim Angels in the ALDS, and faced the Yankees in the ALCS for the second straight year. After losing the first three games to the Yankees and trailing in the ninth inning of the fourth game, the Red Sox became the first team in major league history to come back from a three-game postseason deficit, defeating the Yankees in seven games. The Red Sox then swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, capturing their first championship since 1918

The banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of Baseball game score donated by Salmaboskey boskey

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from Newspapers.com and the September 23, 2004 Santa Maria Times with an Associated Press story.