I wasn’t nervous when I woke up on Saturday morning. I knew the Yankees had to win Game 2 later that night to avoid putting themselves on the brink of elimination the way they had after two games in last year’s ALDS, but I wasn’t worried. It felt weird to not be nervous or worried about a Yankees-Red Sox playoff game, but I hadn’t been the night before for Game 1 and I wasn’t on Saturday for Game 2.

A lot of optimism and confidence for this series came from the idea that I still was unsure how the Red Sox won 108 games. I mean technically I know how they won 108 games, they beat up on and piled up wins against the bad teams (and there were a lot of them this season) while the Yankees struggled to. But when you look at their 25-man roster as a whole it’s puzzling how this team could be the best regular-season Red Sox team in history. I guess that just shows you how bad most of Major League Baseball was this season.

As the game drew closer, I still wasn’t nervous or worried and when I sat down in my seat at Fenway Park, after glancing over toward the Pesky Pole, I was completely confident the Yankees would win Game 2.

The Yankees as a team were batting .300/.365/.544 in 269 career plate appearances against David Price, and the highest-paid pitcher in history had never won a playoff game, not with the Rays, Tigers, Blue Jays or Red Sox. Now he was being asked to beat the Yankees, who he rarely ever beat, in the playoffs, where he never had won, to prevent his team from going to the Bronx tied 1-1 with Rick Porcello and Nathan Eovaldi most likely starting the next two games. Why wouldn’t I be glowing with confidence?

Ten pitches into the game, my confidence was rewarded as Aaron Judge sent a 1-2 pitch high over the Green Monster in left-center field where few have ever hit a ball. The Yankees had an early 1-0 lead and all of the Red Sox fans who had talked themselves into Price finally showing up in the playoffs were quietly sitting down as Fenway Park turned into a church.

Gary Sanchez entered the game 6-for-13 in his career against Price with five home runs and 11 RBIs, and leading off the second, he crushed the third pitch of the inning over the Monster to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead. The exact game I had envisioned was unfolding as the Yankees’ right-handed power was knocking Price around and the career postseason failure was laying another egg in October. As Sanchez’s home run was still in the air and headed for Back Bay, Fenway Park broke out in a “Yankees suck” chant, another embarrassing moment for the fan base.

After a pair of ground outs, Gleyber Torres and Brett Gardner put together back-to-back walks and then Andrew McCutchen lined a single to left field to score the Yankees’ third run. That was it for Price as Alex Cora took the ball from him and gave it to Joe Kelly with Price still responsible for the two runners on. Luckily for Price, Judge’s 109.8 mph line drive off Kelly was hit right at Mookie Betts in right field or his pitching line for the night would have been even worse that it was and it was still really bad: 1.2 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 0 K, 2 HR.

Price had most likely wished he had been scratched from the start with a mysterious injury or illness the way he had earlier in the season when he took himself out of a start at Yankee Stadium because of a video game-related injury. But instead, he had recorded five outs and allowed three hits, two walks, two home runs, three runs and forced his bad bullpen to get 22 outs. I guess $217 million doesn’t buy you what it used to.

Masahiro Tanaka did what he has always done in the postseason as he kept putting up zeros, giving the offense a chance to extend their 3-0 lead. But unlike Game 1, the Yankees weren’t able to push across any runs despite four baserunners in three innings against Kelly, Ryan Brasier and Brandon Workman. Xander Bogaerts hit a solo home run in the fourth to make it a 3-1 game, and at the end of the sixth with the game still 3-1, I started to feel uneasy. The Yankees had been unable to tack on to their early three-run lead, which had become a two-run lead, and I began to wonder if this would be a reversal of the previous night with the Red Sox now looking to slowly get back in the game.

I have defended Sanchez all season. I have supported him through his historically-awful offensive season, his injuries, his passed balls and the perception that he is lazy and doesn’t hustle. I have stood by the franchise catcher because that’s what he is: a franchise catcher. When healthy, he’s the best catcher in the world and we saw that for the last two months of 2016 and all of 2017. One bad injury-plagued season shouldn’t be enough for Yankees fans to turn on him and call for Austin Romine to start or for the Yankees to trade Sanchez for someone like J.T. Realmuto. Game 2 of the ALDS should end all of the anti-Sanchez crap.

Cora must have felt he had gotten enough out of his actual relievers after three scoreless innings, so he called on starter Eduardo Rodriguez with two outs in the sixth and Rodriguez had retired both batters in the inning. Rodriguez was back out for the seventh, but after Judge singled to lead off the inning, Luke Voit drew a walk and the Red Sox’ left-hander, who was pitching in an unfamiliar role was in a serious jam. With two on and no one out, the Yankees had the middle of their order coming up and a chance to break the game open and tie the series. To no surprise, Giancarlo Stanton did what everyone expected him to do by weakly grounding out, and thankfully it was weakly as it was nearly a double play, and that brought up Sanchez with Judge on third and Stanton on first.

Sanchez got ahead 2-0 on Rodriguez and than swung through a pitch outside the zone, clearly trying to break the game open. Now a 2-1 count, Rodriguez challenged Sanchez, and this time he didn’t miss, destroying a 93-mph fastball for a 479-foot, three-run home run. Sanchez had given the Yankees a 6-1 lead, his bat accounting for four of the six runs, and had erased his struggles of the last six-plus months. The Red Sox were now down five runs with nine outs to their name, but that didn’t stop Fenway Park from chanting “Yankees suck” following Sanchez’s second home run of the game had just ripped out the heart of Red Sox fans.

The game was essentially over, and despite the run allowed in the bottom of the seventh, it was. Dellin Betances, Zach Britton and Aroldis Chapman combined to allow one run over four innings, and the Yankees won Game 2 of the series, 6-2.

My personal strategy for the series was going exactly as planned. The Yankees had won a game in Boston and were heading, where these Yankees don’t lose in October, with their best starting pitcher going in Game 3 and with home-field advantage for what is now a three-game series. The 108-win, best regular-season Red Sox team in history? They’re in a lot of trouble.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The book details my life as a Yankees fan, growing up watching Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams through my childhood and early adulthood and the shift to now watching Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird and others become the latest generation of Yankees baseball. It’s a journey through the 2017 postseason with flashbacks to games and moments from the Brian Cashman era.

Click here to purchase the book through Amazon as an ebook. You can read it on any Apple device by downloading the free Kindle app.

I go into every Chris Sale start against the Yankees thinking the Yankees are going to lose. Why wouldn’t I? When Sale is healthy he is the best pitcher in the league and he has dominated the Yankees in his career. In 17 games and 14 starts and 100 2/3 innings, he has 130 strikeouts to go along with a 1.61 ERA and 0.894 WHIP. Me thinking the Yankees aren’t going to hit him isn’t me being a bad fan, it’s me being a realist.

But on Friday night, my thinking was different. With Sale being virtually an unknown for Game 1 of the ALDS after he limped to the regular-season finish line with two trips to the disabled list and a serious drop in his velocity, I thought the Yankees could get to him. And if the Yankees could get to him, and win Game 1, that would be the series. David Price, the biggest postseason pitching failure of all time would be waiting in Game 2, and the Yankees could go return home up 2-0 in the series.

I sat down in my seat right before first pitch and glanced over to the Pesky Pole, and all the memories I feared from the last playoff game I attended in Fenway Park came rushing back. But thankfully, I didn’t have time to focus on and worry about the haunting events of Oct. 18, 2004 as Sale delivered the first pitch of the game to Andrew McCutchen.

The Yankees didn’t score against Sale in the first inning, but they did make him throw 24 pitches, which was the next best thing to scoring. If Sale was going to be on, the Yankees would have to at least drive up his pitch count to have three or four innings against the Red Sox bullpen, which is the worst in the American League playoff field.

The Yankees traded for J.A. Happ because of his success against the Red Sox. Sure, they needed rotation help at the the trade deadline after Jordan Montgomery went down for the season earlier in the year and Sonny Gray completely lost what he had been in Oakland, and sure, Happ had been a proven AL East commodity. But the No. 1 reason for Happ becoming a Yankee was to beat the Red Sox. It was long ago determined the either the Yankees or Red Sox would win the division and the other team would be the first wild-card team, and then if that team won the wild-card game, it would set up a meeting between the two. The Yankees got Happ to beat the Red Sox.

When Happ was needed most in the regular season (during the four-game series in Boston in August), he was unavailable due to a rare illness. But now Happ had a chance to make up for the unfortunate missed start that helped determine the division race if he could beat the Red Sox and outpitch Sale in Fenway Park in the first game of the series.

Four batters into the game, Happ had two on with one out and J.D. Martinez at the plate. Boston’s lineup is weak. After the first four hitters (Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, Steve Pearce and Martinez), it’s Xander Bogaerts, Eduardo Nunez, Ian Kinsler, Sandy Leon and Jackie Bradley Jr. When you factor in their shaky starting pitching and disastrous bullpen, it makes no sense how this team won 108 games, but they did so, by beating up on the Orioles and destroying the National League in interleague play.

Happ fell behind Martinez 2-0 and I thought it made sense to just put him on at that point. Let Bogaerts or Nunez beat you. Don’t let any of the first four hitters beat you. But Aaron Boone let Happ continue with Martinez, and the next pitch, a 2-0 pitch low and inside, was lined over the Green Monster. 3-0, Red Sox.

Thankfully, the Fenway Park crowd is tame. At times it felt like a church with the level of quiet in there for a postseason game. I understand it’s post-2004 and the whole place and the surrounding area has changed for the worst since, but the Red Sox have won one playoff game in the last four years and haven’t won a playoff series in the last five years and they are at home for the first game of the postseason against their hated rival. I thought all of this coupled with the first-inning home run would have resulted in some passing beer showers or something, anything. But instead, nothing.

The Yankees put three on in the first three innings and had nothing to show for it. Still trailing 3-0 in the bottom of the third, Happ completely unraveled. A leadoff double to Betts and a single to Benintendi put runners on second and third with no outs and Boone emerged to take the ball from Happ. It was an awful performance and when Chad Green came in and allowed both inherited runners to score, it made things worse. (It was funny that Boone was willing to go to Green early with a three-run deficit, but wasn’t willing to go to him with the lead early in the first game in the August series that determined the season. I know, I know, I gave Boone a clean slate after the wild-cardi win.)  The Yankees were down 5-0, facing Chris Sale and needing 21 outs from their bullpen creating a complete recipe for disaster. Happ was supposed to be the Red Sox’ kryptonite and instead he was Kevin Brown: 2 IP, 4 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 1 HR. If all of the idiots who wanted him to start the wild-card game instead of Luis Severino had gotten their way, the Yankees’ season might have ended on Wednesday. But if the Yankees were going to get embarrassed in this series the way they had through the first three innings, it would have been better if they had lost on Wednesday.

After the third inning, the game became a night of the Yankees leaving runners on base. In the fourth inning, they left two on. In the sixth, they finally got to Sale, forcing him out the game and plating two runs that got tagged to his line. But with the bases loaded and two outs and Brandon Workman pitching, Gleyber Torres had a rookie-playing-in-the-postseason-against-Boston at-bat and went down swinging to leave three more on.

In the seventh, the Yankees loaded the bases with no one out for Giancarlo Stanton. It was his moment to prove he could come through and get a big hit in a big spot and not just pad his stats in games that already over like he had through the entire regular season and in the wild-card game. But Stanton got worked over by Matt Barnes, striking out for the third time in the game, unable to produce a productive out let alone a hit in the game-changing at-bat. Luke Voit grounded out to get a run in, but Didi Gregorius also grounded out to leave two more on.

Aaron Judge homered to lead off the ninth against Craig Kimbrel, who he always seems to hit, to get the Yankees within a run at 5-4, and it felt like maybe, just maybe the Yankees could tie the game against Kimbrel. But Brett Gardner, in the injured Aaron Hicks’ spot in the order, struck out, Stanton struck out for the fourth time in the game and Voit struck out to end the game. The Yankees had a lost a more than winnable game, which would have effectively ended the Red Sox’ chances in the series, and left 11 on base. It was a frustrating and disappointing loss and I would have rather had the Red Sox pile on to their early 5-0 lead than to have the Yankees come back, but not complete the comeback.

The Yankees made two things clear for the rest of the series:

1. Don’t pitch to the Red Sox’ 1-4 hitters as they went 6-for-14, scored all five of runs with a double, home run and five 5 RBIs, while the Red Sox’ 5-9 hitters went 2-for-16. Don’t let Betts, Benintendi, Pearce (when he plays) and Martinez be the reason you lose the series. Pitch around them.

2. The Yankees will score against the Red Sox’ bullpen. Alex Cora showed he doesn’t trust his relievers (the same way his mentor A.J. Hinch didn’t in Games 6 and 7 of the 2017 ALCS) when he went to Rick Porcello for the eighth inning after Ryan Brasier, Workman, and Barnes allowed two inherited runners to score, and earned run and six baserunners in 1 2/3 innings.

I wasn’t angry, mad or upset that the Yankees had lost the first game of a best-of-5 and would need to go 3-1 over the next four to win the series. I went into this series asking to just win one of the first two games in Boston and then return home with home-field advantage for what would then be a three-game series. That plan was still intact and with postseason-proven Masahiro Tanaka facing the postseason failure Price, it was easy for me to accept that I have nine more years after this season of watching Stanton guess wrong in the batter’s box and weakly flail at sliders away.

As I walked out of Fenway Park, I looked up at the big screen in center field, which reminded me I would be back there in a short 21 hours for Game 2. Then I glanced over to my seats from Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS, and even with the Game 1 loss, I felt this series would go exactly as I had envisioned it when I predicted Yankees in 4.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The book details my life as a Yankees fan, growing up watching Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams through my childhood and early adulthood and the shift to now watching Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird and others become the latest generation of Yankees baseball. It’s a journey through the 2017 postseason with flashbacks to games and moments from the Brian Cashman era.

Click here to purchase the book through Amazon as an ebook. You can read it on any Apple device by downloading the free Kindle app.

I won’t feel well walking into Fenway Park on Friday night. Even though I have been to countless Yankees-Red Sox games since it happened, this is different. It being Monday, Oct. 18, 2004.

Over the last nearly 14 years when I enter Fenway Park, I glance over toward the Pesky Pole, where I sat on that miserable night, and the memories come rushing back. I can still see Bernie Williams’ solo home run clearing the wall in right field and Derek Jeter’s bases-loaded, bases-clearing double rattle around in the corner. I see David Ortiz’s solo home run flying over the Green Monster and Dave Roberts tagging up to score on Jason Varitek’s sacrifice fly to center. I can see the old left-center field scoreboard to the right of the Green Monster at Fenway Park that would display both team’s lineups and it would place an asterisk next to the batter that was up in the game and I can see the asterisk changing places a sI counted how many names the asterisk had to go before reaching “Manny Ramirez” and “David Ortiz” in extra innings. I can see Tony Clark’s should-have-been go-ahead double bouncing over the fence right in front of me and Ruben Sierra being forced to hold up at third. And of course, I can see David Ortiz’s walk-off line drive floating in the air towards center field wondering if Williams will get to it in time.

Sometimes I like to think about what the baseball world would be like if Joe Torre had brought in Mariano Rivera for a two-inning save rather than waiting to use him until after Tom Gordon had already ruined the game. Would I enter Fenway Park and glance over toward the Pesky Pole and have memories of watching the Yankees celebrate the American League pennant on the field rather than the memories I do have? Would the Red Sox still be without a championship? Would “1918” T-shirts still be relevant? Would this October be the 100th anniversary of the Red Sox’ last World Series title?

After Alex Rodriguez’s retirement in 2016 and Ortiz’s in 2017, no one from either team remains from that game and that series. No one on either team has any connection to the worst collapse or greatest comeback, depending on how you look at it, in postseason history. No one but the fans. This is a new era of Yankees-Red Sox on the field. In the two cities and in homes around the Tri-State area and New England though, it’s a continuation of the storied rivalry and just the next chapter in a history that took a 14-year hiatus.

After Wednesday’s easy AL Wild-Card Game win, I’m unusually confident about the ALDS. I know it’s not wise to be, but I am. Since before the season started and all season long, I have felt that when both teams are healthy, the Yankees are better than the Red Sox.

Unfortunately, during the most important series of the season, the Yankees weren’t healthy. They were without Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez for the four-game series in Boston in August and newly-acquired J.A. Happ, who the Yankees traded for mainly because of his AL East resume and his success against the Red Sox, was unavailable to pitch due to a rare illness. The Yankees were swept in four games, and the division race was over.

But now the Yankees are completely healthy with their full lineup, rotation and bullpen available. Judge is back, Sanchez is back (though really just physically present and not back as the best offensive catcher in baseball) and Happ is lined up to start Game 1 and a potential Game 5. The team is coming off their season-saving win on Wednesday, while the Red Sox haven’t played since Sunday and haven’t played a meaningful game in over a month. The Yankees couldn’t be better set up to not only steal a game in Boston this weekend, but to steal a series against a team that is trying to not be the latest regular-season success story to not get the job done.

The Yankees will see Chris Sale in Game 1 and David Price in Game 2, and those two pitchers will see a lineup that boasts eight right-handed hitters with Didi Gregorius being the lone lefty. The Red Sox traded for Sale to win games like Friday’s and they gave Price the biggest free-agent contract for a pitcher in history win games like Saturday’s. The two have combined for zero postseason wins despite their regular-season accomplishments. Last season, Sale lost as the team’s Game 1 starter and took the loss as a reliever in Game 4, responsible for his team’s elimination, while Price, wasn’t even a member of his team’s rotation, pitching out of the bullpen against the Astros. The amount of pressure on the two this weekend in Boston can’t be described. The team’s best pitcher and the team’s highest-paid player have to prevent the Yankees from winning one of the first two games in Boston.

I should be able to sit back, relax and enjoy this series knowing that the Yankees are the true underdog in the series, facing the best Red Sox team in regular-season history with their 107 wins. But because it’s Yankees-Red Sox, there is no sitting back or relaxing and the only enjoyment will be if the Yankees are still playing baseball next Saturday in either Houston or Cleveland.

When I enter Fenway Park on Friday and Saturday, I will glance over to the Pesky Pole and all the visions of 14 Octobers ago will come back. Next season, when I enter Fenway Park and look around I want to envision the moments from this October, from this series and I want the memories to be winning ones. Yankees in 4.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The book details my life as a Yankees fan, growing up watching Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams through my childhood and early adulthood and the shift to now watching Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird and others become the latest generation of Yankees baseball. It’s a journey through the 2017 postseason with flashbacks to games and moments from the Brian Cashman era.

Click here to purchase the book through Amazon as an ebook. You can read it on any Apple device by downloading the free Kindle app.

The last time the Yankees and Red Sox met in the playoffs I was a just-turned 18-year-old college student in Boston. Six weeks after move-in day, it was parents weekend during Game 3 of the ALCS when the Yankees put together a 22-hit performance, including 13 for extra bases in their 19-8 win to take a 3-0 lead in the series. The next morning I laughed to my dad about how the Yankees were going to sweep the Red Sox. His response? “Why would you say that?”

That night the Yankees lost to the Red Sox after Kevin Millar walked, Dave Roberts stole, Bill Mueller singled and David Ortiz went deep in the 12th. But it didn’t faze me. Sure, my dad’s “Why would you say that?” kept coming to my mind, but the Red Sox weren’t going to come back. The Yankees had to go at worst 1-2 over the final three games of the series with two of them being at Yankee Stadium and that seemed like an impossibility. I didn’t even think the series would get back to the Stadium, so I decided to do the most sensible thing I could think of: use essentially all of my first-semester spending money on tickets to Game 5.

Here’s an excerpt from my book, The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers, which goes through Game 1 of last year’s ALDS by looking back at my trip to Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS.

***

ALDS GAME 1

On the morning of Oct. 18, 2004, I woke up in my Beacon Hill dorm in Boston and didn’t really care and certainly wasn’t worried about what had unfolded just a few hours earlier.

The Yankees had come back in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, erasing a 3-2 deficit in the sixth inning. Tanyon Sturtze pitched a perfect sixth and seventh to hand the ball to Mariano Rivera for a two-inning save. The Yankees were six outs away from sweeping the Red Sox and returning to the World Series for the seventh times in nine years.

Rivera worked around a Manny Ramirez leadoff single in the eighth, striking out David Ortiz and getting Jason Varitek and Trot Nixon to ground out. Rivera threw 15 pitches in the inning and had moved the Yankees within three outs of the pennant.

In the ninth, holding on to a 4-3 lead, Rivera walked Kevin Millar to begin the inning, and Dave Roberts pinch ran for Millar. After three straight throws to first, Roberts took off on the first pitch to Mueller, successfully stealing second. Two pitches later, Mueller singled to center and Roberts came around to score to tie the game at 4.

Sure, it sucked. To be three outs away from World Series and to have that happen wasn’t ideal. But I wasn’t threatened by it. The Red Sox had extended a game they still might lose, and if they were to win, they would still be trailing 3-1 in the series. At worst, I thought this was just a minor nuisance in what would be an eventual series win.

In the 11th, still tied at 4, the Yankees missed out on their best chance to take the lead. Miguel Cairo singled off Alan Embree to lead off the inning, and Derek Jeter bunted him over to second for the first out. Alex Rodriguez, who had hit a two-run home run in the third, jumped on Embree’s 0-1 pitch and hit a line drive that Orlando Cabrera had to dive to his right to make an incredible catch on. (After his third-inning home run, if Cabrera doesn’t come up with an amazing catch, Rodriguez’s entire career and legacy are different.) The Red Sox intentionally walked Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui walked to load the bases for Bernie Williams, but Williams would fly out to end the inning.

At 1:22 a.m. — five hours and two minutes after the game started — Ortiz crushed a 2-1 pitch from Paul Quantrill to give the Yankees their first loss of the series.

When I woke up, I had missed some of my classes and certainly wasn’t going to go to any that day. Game 5 was scheduled for a 5:05 start time, not even 16 hours after Game 4 ended and I had to focus on that. Instead of going to class I went on eBay and found two tickets to Game 5 down the first-base line. I decided I was going to go to Game 5. All it would cost me was nearly an entire summer of working for first-semester spending money. To get the tickets, I would need to meet the owner of the tickets down a side street near Fenway Park and exchange cash for the tickets shortly before the game. Certainly not an ideal situation to put yourself in, but this was Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS and a chance to see the Yankees win the pennant and eliminate the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

I left my dorm and walked to the Fleet Bank ATM outside the Park Street T stop and withdrew a summer’s worth of work and pushed every last bill into the left-chest pocket of my fleece. It was 58 degrees in Boston, but I thought a fleece over a Yankees T-shirt would be enough to feel comfortable for the night.

I got on a jam-packed Green Line train at Park Station headed for Kendall Square. Pushed up against the T door with more and more people trying to pack in at each stop, I folded my arms across my chest to hide the fact that there was a bulging wad of 20s as big as a baseball covering my heart.

When I got off the T, I called the number of the ticket owner and he directed me toward a side street not far off Beacon Street. I slowly walked down the street, which was more like an alley, and came upon a parked Ford Explorer. Best-case scenario, the ticket owner was a nice man, who was going to make a small fortune off me wanting to see the Yankees clinch the pennant on the Red Sox’ home field. Worst-case scenario, I was going to have my bank account taken from me, or the tickets I was given wouldn’t scan at the gate.

A large, Red Sox-hat wearing man, who looked like he was on his way to his job as a bouncer, emerged from the driver’s side of the Explorer.

“Neil?”

“Yeah.”

“Here you go.”

I took the baseball-sized roll of 20s out of my pocket and handed it over. I walked away looking down at the tickets, hoping they were real and imaging what my father, who had strongly disagreed with me paying that much to go the game, would say if they turned out not to be. The tickets were real and I walked into Fenway Park just as Hideki Matsui was flying out to center to end the top of the first.

When Jeter’s sixth-inning, bases-clearing, three-run double landed in front of me down the right-field line and rolled into the corner, I could feel the World Series. Like always, the Yankees had gotten to Pedro Martinez, and Jeter’s two-out double, gave them a 4-3 lead.

Beginning in the bottom of the sixth inning, with Mike Mussina on the mound, I started to count the outs remaining in the game, and in turn, the series.

Nixon lined out to center. Eleven.

Varitek grounded out to third. Ten.

Mueller flew out to left. Nine.

My counting came to an abbreviated halt in the seventh when Mussina allowed a leadoff double to Mark Bellhorn and was taken out of the game for Sturtze, who had pitched those two perfect innings in Game 4.

Sturtze got Johnny Damon to pop up to short. Eight.

Cabrera walked and Joe Torre went to Tom Gordon with Ramirez coming up. Gordon induced a 5-4-3 inning-ending, double play. Six.

Gordon returned for the eighth, and two pitches into the inning, he was greeted by an Ortiz home run to shrink the Yankees’ lead to 4-3. Millar walked, as he had done the night before, and Roberts pinch ran for him, as he had done the night before. Nixon singled to center, allowing Roberts to move to third. Gordon had faced three batters in the eighth and didn’t retire one, so Torre called on Rivera, who he should have called on to begin the inning.

Rivera got Varitek to fly out to center, but Roberts scored on the sacrifice, tying the game and handing Rivera a “blown save” to show how ridiculous and dumb that stat is. Mueller grounded out and Bellhorn struck out swinging. Rivera had retired all three batters he faced in the inning, but would be forever credited with “blowing” it. The Red Sox had scored twice, the two-run lead was gone and my counting the remaining outs had stopped.

The Yankees didn’t score in the ninth, but they should have. Ruben Sierra drew a two-out walk and Tony Clark hammered a 1-2 pitch from Keith Foulke to right field. In nearly any other stadium or park in the league, Sierra scores, the Yankees take a 5-4 lead, and once again, move within three outs of the World Series. But at Fenway Park, where the right-field wall comes up to only the waist of most grown men, the ball bounced into the stands, and Sierra was forced to hold up at third on the ground-rule double. Cairo popped up to first in foul territory and that was that.

Up until a few seasons ago, there was a scoreboard to the right of the Green Monster at Fenway Park that would display both team’s lineups and it would place an asterisk next to the batter that was up in the game and an asterisk next to the batter that would be up next inning for the team currently in the field. Beginning in the bottom of the ninth, I became obsessed with that scoreboard, counting how many names the asterisk had to go before reaching “Manny Ramirez” and “David Ortiz”.

Rivera worked around a Damon infield single in the ninth after Damon was caught stealing second, Cabrera grounded out and Ramirez flew out. If Torre was willing to pitch Rivera two innings — and why wouldn’t he be with the pennant on the line — then why didn’t Rivera start the eighth with a plan for him to pitch the eighth and ninth? He would have entered the game with a clean inning and a two-run lead, and by this time, I would be celebrating an AL championship.

The game was headed to extra innings, and with the Red Sox facing elimination for the second straight night, every arm would be available, including Game 6 starter Curt Schilling. So before the 10th inning began, Schilling along with the other members of the pitching staff that hadn’t been used in the game, walked from the Red Sox’ dugout to the bullpen as “Lose Yourself” blared throughout Fenway Park. I don’t know if I will ever see an ovation like that or hear a stadium as loud as that ever again.

Bronson Arroyo pitched a perfect 10th, getting Jeter to fly out, and striking out Rodriguez and Sheffield swinging. Felix Heredia replaced Rivera and struck out Ortiz swinging, which gave me a a sense of relief, knowing it would be at least a few innings of that asterisk making its way through the rest of the Red Sox’ order. A Doug Mientkiewicz one-out double chased Heredia and Game 4 loser Quantrill came in to get the last two outs of the inning.

The Yankees didn’t score in the 11th and neither did the Red Sox. The 12th went the same way. In the 13th, things got interesting for the Yankees.

Tim Wakefield, on for his second inning of work, struck out Sheffield to begin the 13th, but Sheffield reached first on a passed ball. Then Matsui hit a ground ball to Bellhorn that forced Sheffield out and Williams flew out. A passed ball with Posada at the plate sent Matsui to second and led to Posada being intentionally walked. With Sierra at the plate, a  third passed ball in the inning moved Matsui to third and Posada to second. The Yankees had the go-ahead run 90 feet away and a much-needed insurance run in scoring position. This was it. Wakefield would be the losing pitcher in the Yankees’ pennant clinching win for the second straight season.

On the seventh pitch of the at-bat in a full count, Sierra struck out swinging.

The Red Sox went down in order in the bottom of the 13th and the Yankees did the same in the top of the 14th.

In the bottom of the 14th, Bellhorn struck out, Damon walked, Cabrera struck out and Ramirez walked. With two on and two outs, the asterisk had found Ortiz.

Ortiz immediately fell behind 1-2, fouled away the next two pitches, took a ball to even the count at 2, and fouled away three more pitches. On the 10th pitch of the at-bat, he hit a line drive back up the middle, and sometimes when I close my eyes, I can still see it hanging in the air, wondering if Williams is going to get to it in time. He never does get to in time, just like he didn’t that night, and as Damon rounded third and headed for home, my heart sank.

Damon touched home at 11:00 p.m — five hours and 49 minutes after first pitch — in what was the longest postseason game in history at the time. I looked to my right where a fellow Yankees fan wearing a “1918” shirt stared out at the field in disbelief. I walked out of Fenway Park where Red Sox fans kindly let me know the result of the game as my emotional state was given away by my Yankees hat.

I headed back to my dorm, regretting my decision to blow through a semester of spending money on a baseball game, in which the worst possible outcome had occurred. The Yankees didn’t just lose. They had blown a late lead for the second time in 22 hours with some bad managing, poor pitching and an inability to add on to their lead or score in extra innings. Somewhere in Boston, that large bouncer-looking man was enjoying my summer of working or planning a vacation on my dime. Meanwhile, I was in my dorm room trying to fall asleep, while replaying the events of the last two nights over and over.

The Yankees are headed home and they only have to win once before the Red Sox win twice. That was what I told myself as I tossed and turned in bed trying to clear my mind. It was now the early hours of Tuesday morning, I was wide awake, and thanks to a rainout between Games 2 and 3, an off day had been erased from the series, and both teams were on their way to New York with Game 6 later that night.

I watched from a foldable camping chair in my dorm room with the only light in the room being that emitted by the TV as the Yankees never bunted and never made Schilling move or really work on a surgically-repaired ankle in Game 6. I was in the same spot for Game 7 when Ortiz set the tone in the first inning with a two-run home run off of Kevin Brown and Damon essentially ended it with a grand slam in the second off Javier Vazquez.

A few hours after that grand slam, when Sierra grounded out to second to end the game and the series, like that guy wearing the “1918” shirt and staring out onto the field, I stared over my TV and out my 11th-floor window as chaos began in my dorm and the horns and sounds from outside on the street rose like heat into the Boston night.

The Red Sox had become the first team in history to erase a 3-0 series deficit, coming back in Games 5 and 6 at home and winning at Yankee Stadium in Games 6 and 7, all of it happening in four consecutive nights.

FOX kept showing replays of the final out of the game from different camera angles of different players’ reactions. I was still staring out the window with the deafening noise surrounding me when I caught a replay of the Red Sox’ dugout on TV.

All you could see at first was a pair of legs wearing the Red Sox uniform, but as the replay progressed, those legs made their way toward the dugout exit, and all that was left on the screen was the person behind this comeback mouthing “Come on, come” as Bellhorn fielded Sierra’s ground ball and threw to first. Then the left arm belonging to the same person as that mouth, flew into the air in celebration before being hugged by the men around him. That person was Terry Francona.

FOX returned from commercial with Curt Menefee set to interview Torre. Fittingly, the two spoke in front of the Yankees’ logo with “Thirty-Nine American League Championships” written under it. Torre’s last words of the 2004 season were, “We didn’t get it done.”

Joe Buck then threw it down to Kenny Albert, standing with Francona.

“Down 0-3, one inning away from getting swept,” Albert asked, “Did you ever in your wildest dreams, imagine this would be possible?”

“Actually, yeah,” Francona answered.

Terry Francona led the destruction of my 2004 season. Actually, he led the destruction of 2004, the year, as a whole for me. The entire year. What should be remembered as the year I graduated high school and went off to college has been completely erased by that series. Any song or movie or any reference at all to that year, I immediately associate with the ALCS. Thirteen Octobers later, here was Francona, once again, managing against the Yankees in the postseason.

A season after losing a 3-1 lead in the World Series and losing Game 7 of that series at home in extra innings, Francona had managed the Indians to 102 wins, including the historic 22-game winning streak in the second half. I’m a big believer that players and teams have to lose before they can win, and the 2017 Indians were looking like the latest example of this theory, joining teams like the 1995 Braves, 1996 Yankees, 2004 Red Sox and 2016 Cubs.

It had been a year since Francona “revolutionized” the way elite relief pitchers are used in the postseason, opting to bring in former Yankee and left-handed star Andrew Miller for high-leverage situations well before the late innings. Francona had done what I had been wanting Joe Girardi to do for so long, managing for the situation and not the inning. A closer is more valuable to their team facing the heart of the order in the eighth inning or coming in with the bases loaded and one out in the seventh than facing the bottom of the order with a three-run lead in the ninth. But a little bit of Francona must have rubbed off on Girardi in the wild-card game as he called on Chad Green in that ugly first inning to escape further damage before the Yankees’ comeback.

For all of the brilliant decisions Francona had made over the years, he made a puzzling one for the ALDS, choosing to go with Trevor Bauer (17-9, 4.19) over Cy Young-favorite Corey Kluber (18-4, 2.25) in Game 1 of the series. Kluber would go in Game 2, and therefore, be the Indians’ starter for Game 5, if needed. Maybe Francona was taking a page out of Joe Torre’s book, figuring Game 2 to be the most important of a series, which is when Torre would have the winningest pitcher in postseason history start in Andy Pettitte. Or maybe he was trying to be a little too smart. The Yankees couldn’t answer with their ace in Game 1 since Luis Severino was unavailable following Tuesday’s start even though it lasted about as long as Roll Call. So getting the ball in Game 1 was Sonny Gray.

I was ecstatic when the Yankees traded for Sonny Gray. Brian Cashman was able to add a front-end starter, who had pitched to a 3.42 ERA over 705 career innings, and more importantly had pitched to a 2.08 ERA in two career postseason starts. In exchange for the A’s ace, all the Yankees had to part with a 2015 first-round pick, who had pitched just 29 1/3 minor-league innings (James Kaprielian), a top prospect whose status had begun to fade (Jorge Mateo) and an outfielder who had suffered an unfortunate and potentially career-damaging injury (Dustin Fowler). The Yankees had added an All-Star and postseason-proven pitcher for two players that might never make the majors and one player with a long road back to the majors. The trade was a no-brainer with a chance to be an all-time steal.

As a Yankee, Gray wasn’t as good as he had been in 2017 before the trade and he was nowhere near his 2013-2015 self (2.88 ERA in 491 innings), but he was solid, pitching to 3.72 ERA in 11 starts. His offense and defense let him down in most of his starts as he received a loss or no-decision in four starts where he went at least five innings, and allowed two earned runs or less. But after the Yankees won the wild-card game, and Gray was announced as the Game 1 starter of the ALDS, his regular season didn’t matter. This is what the Yankees had gotten him for: the postseason.

Right before first pitch, Tom Verducci handed off the broadcast by saying, “For more on the Indians’ surprising Game 1 starter, here’s Ken Rosenthal.” As Rosenthal talked about Bauer’s 2.42 ERA over his last 14 starts, FOX showed a graphic showing opponent’s batting average against Bauer the first and second time through the order (.244) and the third and fourth time (.321). Bauer wasn’t going to get to face the Yankees a third time, not with Miller waiting to be called upon at the first sign of real trouble. If the Yankees didn’t score early, they weren’t going to score at all.

When Brett Gardner stepped into the box and showed bunt before taking a 92-mph fastball down the middle, I started to get the nervous sick feeling I hadn’t gotten in a long time. Not the nervous sick feeling you get when you’re in attendance for a postseason game, but the one you get when you’re forced to watch it on TV. This was the first Yankees postseason game I would be watching on TV since Game 4 of the 2012 ALCS, which felt like 100 years ago, and I had completely forgotten what it felt like.

Gardner popped out to short, Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez struck out and the nervous sick feeling began to grow. When Gray walked Francisco Lindor to begin the bottom half of the first, the feeling had turned into heartburn. Three groundouts later and Gray had matched Bauer in the first.

The Yankees couldn’t do anything with a Greg Bird walk in the second, and on Gray’s second pitch of the inning, an 0-1 pitch, Jay Bruce crushed a double high off the tall left-field wall. Bruce had been traded to the Indians by the Mets, after the Yankees failed to land him. The Indians agreed to take on the final $3.7 million owed to Bruce for the season, while the Yankees were only willing to pay $1 million of that total. So for the difference of $2.7 million, the Yankees would be using Chase Headley and Jacoby Ellsbury as their designated hitter in the playoffs instead of Bruce, and that decision was already having an impact. I miss the Yankees not being worried about money.

Gray jumped ahead of Carlos Santana 0-2 and then the Indians’ first baseman hit a line drive to center field. Thankfully, the combination of Bruce’s speed, Aaron Hicks’ arm and there being no outs in the inning prevented a run from scoring. But it was still first and third with no outs and Gray had already thrown 25 pitches. Three pitches later, things got worse when Gray hit Lonnie Chisenhall on the right elbow. Bases loaded and no outs, and John Smoltz chimed in with “This is a huge inning” to state the obvious and to make me feel better.

Roberto Perez worked the count full and just as I started to envision Gray walking in the first run on the game, Perez smashed into a 6-4-3 double play. Sure, a run had scored, but the inning had been momentarily saved.

The game remained 1-0 until the bottom of the fourth when Gray walked Edwin Encarnacion to start the inning and then gave up a two-run home run to none other than Bruce. The $2.7 million difference had scored the first run of the game and now had driven in the next two to give the Indians a 3-0 lead. Bruce would strike again in the fifth, this time with a sacrifice fly against Jaime Garcia, to score Jose Ramirez.

The Indians went on to win the game 4-0, as Bauer, Miller and Allen combined to three-hit the Yankees and rack up 14 strikeouts. The $2.7 million difference had a hand in all four runs, going 2-for-3 with two runs, a double, a home run and two RBIs.

The game had been a complete letdown from two nights prior, and a game in which the Yankees never really threatened, and never really came close to making it a game.

No one had given the Yankees much of a chance to win the series before it had started and after Game 1, it was evident why. Francona’s questionable rotation strategy had paid off as his Indians had taken a 1-0 series lead with their second-best or possibly even third-best starter, and now the eventual AL Cy Young winner was going to get the ball for Game 2.

The Yankees were in trouble and I felt it in my apartment, nearly 500 miles away from Progressive Field.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The book details my life as a Yankees fan, growing up watching Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams through my childhood and early adulthood and the shift to now watching Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird and others become the latest generation of Yankees baseball. It’s a journey through the 2017 postseason with flashbacks to games and moments from the Brian Cashman era.

Click here to purchase the book through Amazon as an ebook. You can read it on any Apple device by downloading the free Kindle app.