One Day at Fenway : A Day in the... | Buy

Saturday, August 30, 2003 -- Yankees versus Red Sox, Fenway Park. Not just a special day in a great rivalry but also a unique one in the long tradition of baseball writing. For on that day, Steve Kettmann worked with a team of top reporters to chronicle everything that happened, from the point of view of everyone involved. So here are Red Sox owner John Henry and CEO Larry Lucchino, privately second-guessing Grady Little's managing moves during the game; here is Joe Torre, the Yankees skipper, worrying on the bench about his closer, Mariano Rivera, who can't find home plate; here's Theo Epstein, Red Sox General Manager, playing guitar until his fingers bleed the night before the game; here's Hideki Matsui, Yankees slugger, surprised that no Japanese reporters turn up to greet him at the ballpark; and here's Bill Mueller, Red Sox third baseman, driving to the game, hoping he can get a hit to help Boston win.

But it's not just the famous voices we hear. Let One Day at Fenway introduce you to Theo Gordon, who's told his girlfriend, Jane Baxter, forty-five lies, and watch as Marty Martin does what all good Red Sox fans should do, only to find himself thrown out of the ballpark.

Taken together, these and a myriad of other voices reveal a day in the life of baseball unlike ever before, showing in this unique project the human side to America's pastime.

Chapter One: Snapshot:The Last Out The game had gotten to Joe Torre. He sat in the visitors' dugout at Fenway Park and watched Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek ground out to end the thing, then turned to hawkeyed pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, because Torre always turned to Stottlemyre after a game and shook his hand."Should we sit here for a minute just to make sure the game is over?" Torre asked Stottlemyre.Torre did not mention it to the reporters who asked afterward about Mariano Rivera almost self-destructing in the eighth inning, but the kind of exhaustion Torre felt that day in Boston reminded him of what it had been like four years earlier, going through his fight with prostate cancer."That eighth inning was probably the toughest I've ever had to endure," Torre confided the next morning. "We have the best closer in baseball. To see it starting to fall apart makes for a very uneasy feeling for me. Once I get Rivera in the game, there is no other strategic thing I can do. I have to sit and watch. It's like sitting at home waiting for the doctor to call and tell you you're all right."Red Sox owner John Henry had written the game off in the top of the ninth, and his thoughts went to his counterpart, Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, who earlier that season had cried after the Yankees came out on top in another wild Yanks-Sox game."You think George will cry after this one?" Henry asked.He directed the question to Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino, sitting nearby in Henry's nearly empty luxury box behind home plate. Lucchino, notorious for his "Evil Empire" taunting of Steinbrenner and the Yankees the previous off-season, could only muster a tight smile.Like Joe Torre, Henry and Lucchino were so depleted by the time Varitek grounded out to end the game, they did not know what to do with themselves. Lucchino squeezed an empty plastic water bottle so hard it cracked, and finally stood up slowly, as if he were testing his joints."This is the way the game ends," Henry said. "Not with a bang but a whimper." * * * Yankee general manager Brian Cashman got up from his seat behind home plate and let loose with a sound like air being released from a tire. His stomach felt hollow. He thought to himself that if he did not eat something soon, he might pass out. They would love that in Boston."Oh my God," he said.The night before, he had left Fenway Park after the Red Sox soundly thrashed the Yankees and fielded a phone call from Steinbrenner. The owner wanted to know if his general manager was really at the game."I didn't see you," Steinbrenner said."Well, I was behind home plate," Cashman said.That was not good enough for Steinbrenner. He wanted Cashman to sit right by the Yankee dugout so the players would be reminded every time they ran back in from the field that he was there keeping an eye on them."I want you where I can see you!" Steinbrenner said. "I want you by the dugout! You sit in my seats!"But Cashman had not sat in Steinbrenner's seats. He had sat behind home plate, just as he had for Friday night's opener of the three-game series, and if the Yankees had lost the game, Cashman knew he would have had to listen to more shouts of "I didn't see you!" No wonder he felt relieved.Down the first-base line, a few rows back from the field, Debi Little tried to avoid the obvious thoughts for any wife of a big-league manager, especially a Red Sox manager. Every win was one more day without worry, and every loss meant it was time to wonder where she and her husband would be next year. Her husband was more philosophical about the uncertainty than she was. He knew he would be second-guessed, disparaged, and dismissed. He knew that if his team did anything less than win the World Series, he would be to blame.Grady had learned patience during the five years he spent driving a tractor through hi