Red all over

The pundits said the 2000 Red Sox were supposed to
win the World Series. The pundits were smoking crack.

by Jason Gay

What the heck just happened?

Major League Baseball's regular season is over, and as you read this, your beloved Boston Red Sox are cleaning out their lockers, polishing their golf spikes, and making plans to spend the winter months with their families and favorite cocktail waitresses. Meanwhile, you -- you poor, pathetic sap -- are forced to plop yourself in front of the tube and grudgingly watch the competition -- the dreaded Yankees, the Mariners, the A's (the freakin' A's! ) -- compete for a World Series title.

What went wrong? This, after all, was supposed to be the year -- the end of the drought, the jinx, the Red Sox' World Series curse. The 2000 Sox, we were repeatedly told last spring, were supposed to have the arms, the legs, the firepower, the vets, the kids, the karma, the juju to seize the trophy that has eluded them so resolutely since 1918. Even that puppy-paper-training rag Sports Illustrated thought so: it anointed the hometown nine with the hyperbolic (and, in retrospect, ominous) cover line WHY THE RED SOX WILL WIN THE WORLD SERIES -- REALLY!

Yeah, well, so much for that. Instead of a World Series ring, or anything close, we got a Red Sox season less satisfying than a Dunkin' Donuts bagel, more bizarre than Anne Heche after a long drive in the desert, more dramatically frustrating than Kelsey Grammer's summer turn as Macbeth. Instead of Nomar Garciaparra holding up a championship trophy, we got a guy named Izzy Alcantara dogging it around the bases like a gimpy mule. Instead of manager Jimy Williams joining the Red Sox' pantheon of bench legends, we got rumors that he'd ditch the Hub for Seattle or Tampa Bay. Instead of newcomer slugger Carl Everett leading us to a title, we got newcomer slugger Carl Everett going bonkers in full public view. Instead of Jeff Fassero, well, we got Jeff Fassero.

It was a season of disappointments, and yet the Sox were in it until the final week of the season. Kind of. The mighty Yankees weren't as mighty as people expected, and the Toronto Blue Jays -- really, did you ever take the Toronto Blue Jays seriously? The final record shows that the Red Sox finished only two and a half games from the playoffs this year. In the course of a 162-game season, that's not missing by much. But if you thought these 2000 Red Sox were really going to take a piece of the World Series pie, well, there's a gentleman named Rick Pitino down the street who's got, um, a championship basketball team to sell you.

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Jason Gay, who grew up in Belmont, is a staff writer for the New York Observer.