Road to 0-161, Conclusion

It was the last game of a Red Sox season filled with turmoil, freak injuries, and demoralizing losses. (Seriously, who knew you could lose .5 to 0, pi to 3, 0 to -1, or, my personal favorite, 4 to i? In fact, the one bright spot so far was Boston winning the Nobel Prize for discovering how to score an imaginary number of runs!) The 0-161 Sox were hosting the 161-0 Yankees. Under Brett Favre's tutelage, Jonathan Papelbon had retired and unretired many times. John Lackey never pitched all year, and demanded a trade. Daisuke Matsuzaka found out about, and subsequently joined, the class-action suit, and the Sox organization owed him a lot of money after he lost every game that season 1-0. The sellout streak was long gone, and Fenway was empty and desolate for this early October Sunday matinee. The further indignity of a winless season was staring Boston in the face.

But something amazing happened. The Sox were leading the Yanks by some truly insurmountable run total, and it was only the 4th inning. After all that had happened, one might expect the Red Sox to blow that lead. They didn't. The Yankees had accepted that they weren't going to rally, yet they were willing to do anything to avoid a loss. With two outs in the 4th, the Yankees just seemed to give up. They put in some reliever who seemed not even to be trying. The Boston players were perplexed, but gladly took their walks, easy hits, and HBP's. However, the fun would quickly turn to a feeling of helplessness as New York's intentions became as clear as the sky soon wouldn't be. The Red Sox were pouring it on, and so too would the gathering storm clouds. 

The game was still half an inning away from being official. All the Sox wanted to do was get to the middle of the 5th, and by now everyone had realized the Yankees weren't going to let that happen. The Red Sox tried to make the last out of the 4th, but New York wouldn't throw strikes or even attempt to throw out the Sox runners who weren't even running. To the Yankees, an undefeated season was far more important than the integrity of baseball. The rain came, and the game was called. Even if it hadn't, the Sox probably would have just conceded to stop that travesty of a game from going any further.

The Yankees went on to beat Milwaukee in the World Series. Or at least, that's what the history books'll want you to think. Bud Selig canceled the postseason and declared New York champs, as well as giving the Brewers the pennant as a thanks for building a statue of him outside Miller Park. And with that the 2010 MLB season concluded. There's no happy ending. The bad guys won, and the good guys lost.