Barnicle Brothers<\/a>, kept trying to balance was, as Nick Trotta used to say in his conception, this was the spiritual sequel to\u00a0Moneyball<\/i>, but this is the difference, the difference is that after the Red Sox won, think about what baseball looks like\u2014that\u2019s the significance of what this story is.<\/p>\nWhy are baseball games four and a half hours long? Because Joe Torre and the Yankees were trying to get Pedro Martinez out of the game, so they were taking pitches. Suddenly, pitch counts are the most important stat for a pitcher. After Theo succeeded, and now he is in the copycat league, everyone has to be a 28-year-old Ivy leaguer to run a baseball team. That\u2019s from the Red Sox. That\u2019s from this story. And then, of course, because of the 2003 disaster of (Red Sox Manager) Grady Little, as I said, but it didn\u2019t make the film, that was the night that Billy Martin died. That was the night Tommy Lasorda died. That was the night Casey Stengel died and Sparky Anderson and all those managers who were the face of the franchise. When Grady Little left Pedro Martinez in the game and the minute Aaron Boone hit that home run, the front office would make those decisions from now on. The front office would tell you who would face the lineup the third time through the order and who would set the lineup. The manager was no longer the face of the franchise. And that is the sequel to\u00a0Moneyball<\/i>, at least in a small way. That was the significance of what this has been all about. This championship series changed how baseball is played. It changed who runs the game.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0Theo<\/b>\u00a0Epstein is an interesting guy. I remember when he was hired as general manager; there was a reaction in the baseball world that this was insanity. Theo seems to have a deep well of self-awareness. He knew that people in and around the game looked upon this decision as crazy. You have to have one hell of a spine to take this job on at 28 and keep pushing, especially after \u201803.<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0And to apply it the way that he did, because the thing about Theo\u2019s arc is why this doc could have been five or six parts. I love the character-driven nature of three things in particular, and they weren\u2019t highlighted that much in the film, but if you follow the story along, it\u2019s fascinating. Colin Barnacle did a terrific job in episode one, breaking down the effects of that Aaron Boone game. It\u2019s that Theo Epstein did something that nobody thought was possible, and that was trading a superstar in Boston in his prime. You don\u2019t trade superstars in Boston. Superstars were all we had; we didn\u2019t have the championships, but we had stars. So those guys were huge outsized characters in Boston: Clemens, Yaz, Rice, Mo Vaughn, and Nomar. To trade Nomar was Theo\u2019s gangster moment. That is the moment where he says; I have a vision of how this is supposed to be, of what this is supposed to look like. That was his legacy. That was his way of breaking with the past. Once again, anything that comes before winning is losing. And one of the things that came before winning was that you catered to the superstar in Boston. Theo decided no more of that. I am the 28-year-old GM unafraid to look at a giant in that town, Nomar Garciaparra, and say you\u2019re the problem. We\u2019re going to be better without you. Nobody would have ever risked that.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0It\u2019s stunning. And Nomar was at his peak. He tailed off pretty fast after he left.<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0Exactly. Theo saw that Nomar was never going to be the same player. He was never close to the same player. He never made another all-star team after he was traded. For Theo to do that is the beginning of his origin story. He showed a level of unsentimentality you never saw in Boston. And it did shake people up. It\u2019s another demarcating line. You look at that and say, as a Boston fan, are we better off?\u00a0Yeah, you\u2019re better off. You got your championships. And now you\u2019re a player in the game in a way that you had never been before. You\u2019re not the same franchise anymore. Do you have the stones to go after Curt Schilling and not let him go to the Yankees? He wasn\u2019t willing to just give in to the Yankees. When working on these projects, you think about how much people care about this. It\u2019s the same thing when I\u2019m working on a book project. This is interesting to\u00a0me<\/i>, but is it interesting? Is the Theo Epstein arc going to resonate in Nebraska with the people who don\u2019t care about the Red Sox? That\u2019s where you have to do an excellent job creating the character so the character is of interest to people who don\u2019t care about his occupation.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0I\u2019m stunned that the \u201803 manager, Grady Little agreed to be a part of this. When discussing those lines of demarcation, Grady Little references himself as a gut-feeling guy, which was definitely what the Red Sox wanted to get away from. In game seven of the \u201803 LCS against the Yankees, you see him mismanage his way out of going to the World Series. Pedro was shot after the seventh. He had given everything, and then Little brings him out for the eighth. Then there\u2019s that morbidly hilarious quote of John Henry saying, \u201cCan we fire him now, or do we have to wait until the end of the game?\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0He was fired immediately after the season, and they brought in Terry (Tito) Francona.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0Francona\u2019s eventual success is interesting because the season didn\u2019t start out well. The Sox struggled for several months before they hit their stride. To have withstood these expectations and to sputter along as long as the team did says something about Francona.<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0I am one of the luckiest reporters in terms of the people I got to cover as managers and coaches. I got Art Howe in Oakland. I got Joe Torre in New York. I got Grady, and I got Tito. And then I got Joe Gibbs when I went to football. Tito is a baseball man. His father played with Hank Aaron. Tito grew up in the game, and Tito had wanted another managerial spot. Tito started in Philly and then went to Boston, two of the three hardest cities to manage in. New York\u2019s the other one. They go down 3-0, and Tito may get fired if they get swept.\u00a0The Red Sox and John Henry, during that period, this was their\u00a0Empire Strikes Back<\/i>. They like to call the Yankees the evil empire, but the Red Sox had gotten ruthless. You fired Grady, which I understood because management had major philosophical differences with him. Tito was following the plan, but they weren\u2019t getting the results. So who\u2019s to say if they go out there after all of this, you lose the Aaron Boone game, you go after A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez) in the offseason, you hire Francona, you get Curt Schilling, and then you get swept the next year after losing 19-8 in Game 3? I don\u2019t know if Tito survives that. All of this success happened by a hair. John Henry was not going to be that patient.<\/p>\n
During the season, there were people in the Red Sox front office who referred to Tito as FranCOMA because they didn\u2019t like how he was managing the team on his pitching changes. Things had gotten to a real boiling point in Boston, where it was all right; everybody\u2019s fair game. And that runs counter to the genteel country club; I love my players of the Tom Yawkey era. We\u2019re going to coddle the players, and we\u2019re not going to do\u00a0everything\u00a0<\/i>it takes to win, but boy, people are going to love our players, which is not that different from the Cubs. The Red Sox never had a ruthless front office. They had an incompetent front office. They had a bumbling front office. They had a coddling front office\u2013they weren\u2019t ruthless. Henry plus Theo became much more businesslike, much more professional, and much more what does it take to win? John Henry refers to it as an epic quest. I think of a scene in\u00a0The Untouchables<\/i>\u00a0where Costner says to Connery, I need to get Capone. Help me get him. How do I get him? It\u2019s become an obsession. How do we do this? How do we win? Tito had the right personality to let the team do their thing. When he talks about the team being loose after being down 3-0, If they go out and get beat 10 to nothing, Tito would have gotten hammered because his team was too loose. If they go out there and do shots before game six and lose 13 to nothing, he\u2019s going to get fired because he was letting his team do shots before an elimination game. So the story is shaped by the result, and the results came up aces for him.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0One of the series\u2019 arguments is that the Red Sox needed a personality change, not just a facelift but a heartlift. That 2004 team had its stars and established players like Pedro, Schilling, Manny, Jason Varitek, Johnny Damon, and Orlando Cabrera. The Red Sox also emphasized finding players that other teams don\u2019t appreciate. You see that in Big Papi (David Ortiz), Kevin Millar, Mark Bellhorn, Pokey Reese, Dave Roberts, and Doug Mientkiewicz. They were digging, not just buying.<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0They were broke and had to figure out a way to re-engineer what they were doing. To me, it all starts with Ortiz. He changed everything. This is the point that I was trying to make, and I don\u2019t think it made the documentary when I sat for it, but I\u2019m not saying Dennis Eckersley wasn\u2019t tough. I\u2019m not saying Louis Tiant wasn\u2019t tough or that Jim Rice, Fred Lynn, Fisk, Nomar, Roger Clemens, or Mo Vaughn weren\u2019t tough. I\u2019m saying Ortiz was different from everybody in his ability to deliver in the biggest moments. For every tough guy that the Red Sox had, the Yankees had an equally tough guy and more, but they had no answer for\u00a0this<\/i>\u00a0guy. The Yankees recognized that. He delivered against them in a way that went beyond the numbers. He\u2019s the difference maker and the guy that begins to shift the tables. 2003 was the last season that ended where everybody knew what was going to happen. We know the Yankees will win, and the Red Sox will lose. That culture stopped when David Ortiz came to the plate. He just changed the rhythm of it all. Whereas the Red Sox used to be afraid of Reggie Jackson, the Yankees were afraid of Ortiz.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0There\u2019s one real enigma on that \u201804 roster. On the productivity side, he was hard to beat. But can Manny Ramirez be explained?<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0No, he can\u2019t, and he wouldn\u2019t sit for the doc, and I wasn\u2019t broken up over that. Every team needs some form of Manny. Even J.D. Drew, in some way, is a form of Manny. Just like in some way, Mike Mussina is a form of Manny. You need somebody who is oblivious to the maelstrom around you. When Mussina went to the Yankees, you would look at him and go no way is he going to fit in New York, and he thrived in New York. It ran completely counter to his entire personality and what you think you would know about Mike Mussina.\u00a0Same with J.D. Drew, the guy doesn\u2019t have a pulse. And yet here\u2019s J.D. Drew, winning championships with the \u201807 Red Sox. The combination of Manny and Ortiz with Damon at the top of that lineup, and even the Yankees with Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, A-Rod, and Gary Sheffield, the two teams matched each other. There\u2019s no clear advantage there. And that\u2019s what I mean about being short. The old Red Sox would have been like we got Rice back there. Whereas the Yankees would have said okay, we\u2019ve got Reggie, Winfield, and more. The point is that the Red Sox were always a player short. Are you trying to win, or are you trying to win what it looks like? When John Henry bought that team, the Red Sox didn\u2019t care what it looked like. The hell with the salaries, the hell with the luxury tax, the hell with the optics; just get guys who can win.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0I know you do not like the expanded playoff system. The Red Sox made the playoffs that year despite coming in second to the Yankees in the division, but only because Major League Baseball had expanded the playoffs.<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0Baseball had expanded the playoffs at the begging behest of the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox were the team pushing the loudest and the longest for a wild card. Why? Because we can\u2019t beat the Yankees over 162 games, but if we can get them in a playoff series, we can beat them in seven. Lo and behold, look what happened. This goes back to winning a certain way. The Red Sox conceded the division to the Yankees because they didn\u2019t believe they could beat them. Now they had a backdoor to get there, and they still didn\u2019t win a division until \u201807, when they won the World Series again. The \u201804 team was a wildcard team; the \u201803 team was a wildcard team. The \u201805 team was a wildcard team. It wasn\u2019t until \u201807 that they won the division outright. This is another example of history shifting as the rules shift.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0We\u2019ve touched on this, but it\u2019s worth reemphasizing that no team in a seven-game series in the history of baseball has ever come back from 0-3 down, and no one has since. People forget games four and five went into extra innings.<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0They were losing in the eighth inning of both games.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0Have we lost the sense of the enormity of the accomplishment, and maybe that\u2019s part of what the documentary does, is bring that back?<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0It does. It also does what these types of projects are supposed to do, which is to give you a lot of reflection. I was curious to see how Colin was going to play this. I thought the elegiac nature of time would be a bigger character. Twenty years is a long time, especially with ballplayers. And I love the idea of using age as a character. The documentary was more of an event-driven doc than a character-driven one. The event, of course, was them winning. That was the end of the story. We didn\u2019t have time to do the whole soup-to-nuts thing. We signed that deal with the Barnicles in July of 2023. And Netflix was asking for the whole doc. I don\u2019t think we began shooting and conducting interviews until the first week of November, right before Thanksgiving. You want to talk about a tight turnaround. It was about five months total before we had to start handing Netflix cuts. I give Colin and Nick Barnicle all the credit in the world for pulling this thing off. Nobody else could have done this because of Nick and Colin\u2019s sourcing and the sourcing that I contributed to, simply to get the subjects to respond, never mind getting them in the chair. Going through all the traditional channels, we would have run out of time. They had the Rolodex to make this happen, and I had part of the Rolodex to also reach out to players.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0When they went down 0-3, the Boston media were brutal, and I think reporter Dan Shaughnessy is the perfect person to characterize that brutality\u2013to call them \u201cfrauds.\u201d The 86 years of frustration were boiling over into sportswriting. Shaughnessy\u2019s a good writer, but was that a bit far to call them frauds?<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0Oh, that\u2019s been Dan\u2019s language. I didn\u2019t think about it very much because when you\u2019re in it, you\u2019re not thinking about it that way: this is over the line. In retrospect, people don\u2019t write like that anymore, but back then, they did. Dan\u2019s been doing this since I was in the fourth grade. Dan is a giant in that town. Watching it 20 years later was jarring, but he\u2019s tough. And this is what happens when you come to Boston. Do you want to play in the big city or not? This is the language here. This is the language in New York. This is the language in Philadelphia. That\u2019s the challenge of coming to these East Coast baseball cities and playing, whether for or against. There used to be a saying in baseball that the toughest out is a called third strike in the ninth inning on the road in Boston or New York. Even the umpires were intimidated. They\u2019re not going to make that call. You better put the ball in play. We are not ringing up a game here and live to tell about it. Was it tough? It was tough. Is Danno tough? One hundred percent, and Will McDonough before him and all the old columnists in Boston. It was their job to hold the team accountable, and they\u2019d let you have it when you didn\u2019t get it done.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0Curt Schilling is one of the most divisive personalities in the history of baseball. But the bloody sock game and the details about the cadaver experiment were just fascinating, and you have to be one bullish competitor to do what Schilling did while injured in game six.<\/b><\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/thecontending.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Screen-Shot-2024-11-10-at-4.19.20-PM-300x169.png\")
<\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0I don\u2019t really care about Curt Schilling or Curt Schilling\u2019s politics. Would they have won that series if Curt Schilling had been pitching for the Yankees? No. Curt Schilling is a legendary postseason performer. He\u2019s one of those \u201cwe\u2019re not losing tonight on my watch\u201d guys. And, as a Hall of Fame voter, I don\u2019t know. He\u2019s close, but he is borderline. And the reason why he\u2019s borderline isn\u2019t because of his politics. The reason why he\u2019s borderline is because of the first half of his career. The second half of his career is a Hall of Fame career. He just wasn\u2019t great enough, long enough. He messed around by his own admission for seven or eight years of his career. And if he gets in, it won\u2019t bother me. I never voted for him because I thought he was just borderline. I actually enjoyed him that season because he was so tough\u2013he was such a committed professional. Personality stuff came later, but there is no doubt what he meant to that team, which is why I was happy that he did the documentary: he and the Red Sox weren\u2019t getting along. I was glad we had spoken to enough people to ask Curt, do you really not want to be part of this? You have to be part of this. He hates me, and I\u2019m not fond of him, but I have huge respect for him as a professional. How do you not respect what he did?<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0Alex Rodriguez gets exposed in the series. He was the most productive player on the Yankees. There is no better distinction between the Red Sox and the Yankees of that year than Papi\u2019s engaging personality and A-Rod\u2019s being very pleased with himself. That moment when he swats the ball out of Bronson Arroyo\u2019s mitt is one of the worst visuals in playoff baseball history.<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0A-Rod is the most fascinating piece of this. They went after A-Rod, who was almost in a Red Sox uniform, and the trade fell apart. And then he\u2019s a Yankee. And everyone is expecting the worst, right? Then we get into the fight in the summertime, in July, and everybody is all happy that Jason Varitek pushed A-Rod around, although he tried to lift him and couldn\u2019t, which shows you how big a guy A-Rod is. He\u2019s a big dude. But when A-Rod hits that home run off Arroyo in game three, If the Yankees win game four, he\u2019s the MVP of the ALCS, and the whole story changes. So he goes from that to the guy slapping the ball out of the hands of the pitcher in desperation, trying to get a rally going, which is an embarrassing, unprofessional baseball play, to the point where on the internet when that happened, people were sending out memes of him with a purse and high heels making that slap. It was the nadir of it all in terms of the proud Yankees in total desperation, watching it all slip away. A-Rod doesn\u2019t recover from that until \u201809 when the Yankees win the championship. Before 2004, the Red Sox and Yankees were never a rivalry. It was hammer and nail.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0It was like Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova in tennis\u2013a rivalry in name only.<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0Exactly. Now if you saw what happened in game 5 of the Dodgers\/Yankees World Series this year, it\u2019s the Yankees who can\u2019t close anymore. It\u2019s the Yankees whose fans have that Red Sox feeling of dread that somehow we\u2019re going to find a way to mess this up. It\u2019s the lordly Yankees who have, in a lot of ways, never fully recovered. Why do we have an amateur draft? Because the Yankees were too powerful in the amateur market. Why do we have a wild card? Because the Yankees were too powerful over 162 games. Why do we have a luxury tax? Because (Yankees owner) George Steinbrenner kept spending after the strike. And now, why do we have expanded playoffs? To keep the Yankees and the Dodgers from running the table because they\u2019re going past the luxury tax. Now, you can go out and win 98 games and have a 9% chance of winning the championship.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0You can also win 85 if you\u2019re in the right division and make the playoffs.<\/strong><\/p>\nHoward Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0And have a 9 percent chance of winning the championship, which is ridiculous. And they\u2019re going to expand the playoffs next year.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0Wait until a team with a losing record gets in.<\/strong><\/p>\nHoward Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0Exactly. And the guys are going to be throwing underhand. You can\u2019t rely on the things you did that got you there because you\u2019ve stretched the limits of what\u2019s humanly possible on a pitching mound. But it\u2019s true, and this all goes back to what we discussed earlier about the import of this individual series. The Yankees have never been the same. The Red Sox were never the same. The Red Sox won three more titles. The Yankees have never beaten the Red Sox in the playoffs since. They\u2019re 0-3.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0That was something I did not know.<\/strong><\/p>\nHoward Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0They haven\u2019t played each other in a seven-game series since. But the point that I\u2019ve been trying to say is when we talk about the actual legacy of something, it\u2019s what you left behind. You may still hate the Yankees, but you don\u2019t fear them as you used to. You don\u2019t look at them with that sense of inevitability. When I was a kid, they would show up to Fenway in those imperial gray uniforms, and they were all about business. And you just feared them.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0I think there\u2019s a level of almost embarrassment in the Yankees right now where this is a team that spends all the money, and there\u2019s this sense, as you said, no one fears them anymore, even with all the assets in the world.<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0They are a Megalopolis. They\u2019re the fall of the empire. They are the shell of themselves. Where the embarrassment comes in is the belief that you can still be what you were when and you can\u2019t. The rules don\u2019t allow you to be that. On the other hand, the Dodgers seem to have figured it out.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0Beating the Yankees was not the final step in breaking the curse. It was like the 1980 USA hockey team beating the Soviet Union. They still had to play Finland. After this incredibly grueling and emotionally taxing series, the Sox still had to play the Cardinals in the World Series, but the Red Sox were like the locomotive on the tracks after beating the Yankees.<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0Two things really struck me about that. Number one, I had forgotten how good that team was. The Cardinals won 104 games that year. You got a Hall of Fame manager in La Russa. You got Larry Walker on that team, Hall of Fame. You got Scott Rolen on that team, Hall of Fame. You had real guys on that team. Edgar Renteria was a really good player. Albert Pujols was on that team. That was Pujols\u2019 first World Series, and the Cardinals won the World Series two years later. And yet, nobody was afraid of them. The second thing was John Henry\u2019s anecdote, saying we will \u201ccrush these guys.\u201d That is the most un-Red Sox-like thing I\u2019ve ever heard in my life. To go into a world series and not only expect to win but expect to dominate? Every Red Sox World Series since 1918 had gone seven games. And they lost all of them \u201846, \u201875, \u201867, \u201886.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0\u201886 was particularly brutal.<\/strong><\/p>\nHoward Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0\u201846 was brutal. In \u201867, you weren\u2019t beating Bob Gibson; in \u201875, you weren\u2019t beating the Big Red Machine. Against both of those teams, the Red Sox were underdogs. When they lost in \u201867, nobody was like oh my God, we choked. They were like oh my God, we\u2019re back. They had been in last place for seven years. People were ecstatic. There was nothing but joy after losing that World Series. In \u201875, you had game six; you had a lead in game seven. But even when they lost, everybody was like, Dwight Evans is 22, Jim Rice is 22, Fred Lynn is 22, Carlton Fisk is 25. We\u2019ll be back. And they never got back. There was no feeling like this was our last chance. It was like this was the beginning of something, but it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0Once the Sox ended the 86-year drought, as a Bostonian, how would you measure the relief versus joy meter in \u201804?<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0I was there, and the first thing that hit me was who those people were running out in left field? It was Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon. Why isn\u2019t anyone stopping them? I had no idea they were filming a movie (Fever Pitch<\/i>). Why are there two people on the field, and no one\u2019s doing a goddamn thing? I was standing next to (sportswriter) Bob Ryan. I just looked at him, and he looked at me, and\u2026they won? It was a relief and a sort of disbelief\u2014even though it was inevitable that they were going to win that series because they were so good. I remember going downstairs, and I hate celebrations. I don\u2019t like having to cover celebrations for two reasons. Number one is because nobody says anything because they\u2019re incoherent, they\u2019re so happy, and the stuff that they say is either unusable or nonsensical \u201cIt was us against the world,\u201d \u201cnobody thought we could\u201d bullshit. But, the second reason is because it\u2019s their moment. It belongs to them. Let them have their moment.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve been sitting in that clubhouse since February. Let them have their moment. I don\u2019t need to put pen and paper in their face. That\u2019s the first half of it. The second half is it was 1000 percent joy versus relief. There was joy in the relief. It was all tied into the same thing, and the feeling that they had won was incredible. Up and down Boston. It\u2019s not understated. And it tells you how much this matters. It goes back to the great Roger Angel line when he wrote about the Mets: the business of caring. That\u2019s what this is all about. And I steal that line periodically. \u201cThe business of caring,\u201d why does this matter so much? It matters so much because baseball, unlike any other sport, is the wallpaper of our lives, the radio, and the length of the summer. The fact that it was the only live sport in town at that time when we were kids growing up. There was only one thing happening in the summer and it was baseball, and that brings you to your family. It reminds you of your dad painting the deck with the game on. It reminds you of your grandmother sitting in the den in her shawl with the game on. It reminds you of all the broadcasters whose voices you remember, and that becomes less about them and more about you. It\u2019s the story of your life in a way that basketball, hockey, and football aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0There\u2019s no time limit when you go to a baseball game or turn the game on the TV. You choose to watch a baseball game, and you have to settle in. There\u2019s something about that which doesn\u2019t apply to other sports.<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0And you\u2019re going to get comfortable. What did Vin Scully use to say? Pull up a chair, and come have a conversation with me for the next two and a half hours, three hours. And once again, the difference is because of family. And that\u2019s going to change. It\u2019s changing now, but the other sports weren\u2019t even being played for a certain generation. There was no NBA in 1925. The NFL was only five years old. The National Hockey League had six teams. What baseball does is connect you to your family. People of that generation don\u2019t say \u201cmy first basketball game\u201d\u2026they say \u201cmy first baseball game, my first baseball glove.\u201d It\u2019s all wrapped up in the culture. It\u2019s not necessarily wrapped up in the new culture, but it\u2019s certainly wrapped up in a generational culture.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0There\u2019s a real difference between those who report on a team and fans. \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0When we talk about crossing the line and being a fan and the whole thing, many writers, whether they admit it or not, want to feel like they are part of the celebration and we\u2019re not. Win or lose, we cover them. That doesn\u2019t mean that when they win, we win. When they win, they win. And when they lose, they lose. I didn\u2019t lose.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0Many fans use \u201cwe\u201d when discussing their team.<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0The fans do because the fans are invested. There\u2019s a sense of ownership that the fans have, which is appropriate because the fan has been there and will be there longer than the player.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0Especially now in the era of free agency, very few players spend their whole careers with one team.<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0How many players last longer than the fans? None. It can get ugly because of that sense of ownership: you are performing for me. But the other part of that is joy. This is my escape. You do take ownership of that. The relationship is reciprocal. When we talk about the business of caring, I remember being in the Fenway Clubhouse one year. It was \u201803, and Nomar was pissed off about something. It was like 3:30; the clubhouse had just opened. I walked up to him, and I was like, hey man, and he is just mumbling. He is like just because I go to a restaurant doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m a fucking chef. Just because I\u2019ve been to the doctor doesn\u2019t make me a surgeon. I\u2019m like, I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about. Then he told me what he was talking about. He said what right do you have to judge me? You can\u2019t do what I do. I\u2019m like, oh, okay, who wrote something you don\u2019t like? I know it wasn\u2019t me. I didn\u2019t write about you yesterday. And he\u2019s like, you can\u2019t do what I do. What right do you even have to be in here?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a good point. And I told him none, except for one thing: the fans. That\u2019s why I am here. I\u2019m here for\u00a0them<\/i>. I said, Nomar, I\u2019d be making the money if somebody were willing to pay me 12 and a half million dollars to juggle in the Boston Common. People care about this, and they are willing to compensate you for that care. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. I said do you honestly think that the only thing I want to write about is you motherfuckers in your underwear? I have other interests, man. And he got it. And he\u2019s like yeah, fuck it, still bullshit. Yeah, it\u2019s still bullshit, but that is the game.\u00a0There are certain guys; I put Nomar and Josh Beckett in that category of players I covered, who wouldn\u2019t mind playing in a completely empty stadium as long as they got the money. There\u2019s nothing inherently valuable about hitting a ball with a stick unless someone\u2019s willing to pay to watch it. A lot of players lose sight of that\u2014the owing of a performance. People care. That\u2019s why they\u2019re there. They are willing to pay $75 to park. They are willing to pay $16 for watered-down beer, and they will pay a hundred dollars to watch you play.\u00a0You<\/i>\u00a0are here for them.<\/p>\n
The Contending:<\/b>\u00a0Is baseball the greatest game?<\/b><\/p>\n
Howard Bryant:<\/b>\u00a0Yeah. By far, it\u2019s the greatest game. As Greg Maddux told me, it will remain the greatest game no matter how much they try to mess it up. He said: the game always saves us from the people who run it. And it\u2019s the greatest game for all the reasons we\u2019re talking about. Baseball and tennis are my favorite sports because you gotta close with them. You can\u2019t win a tennis match if you don\u2019t win the last point. You can\u2019t win a baseball game unless you score the final run or record the final out. If you don\u2019t do one of those things, you will lose, or you\u2019ll play forever. There\u2019s no end to the game unless you end it. And I love that about both of those sports. I also love that both sports are slow enough that your brain gets in the way\u2014your brain feels pressure, your brain is aware of the moment\u2014but they\u2019re fast enough to be a sport. When you add generations to it, family to it, and American history to it, no other sport can touch it. None of them come close to this sport. The next generations, time will change it into something else, but for my generation, nothing comes close to baseball.<\/p>\n
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