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| Why was this career .231 hitter the object of a ludicrous bidding war between the Red Sox & Yankees? No, it's not because he's Joe Girardi's doppleganger. |
After the first month of the 2006 season, the San Diego Padres found themselves in an unusual, but envious position, as they owned the rights to a player coveted by both the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Typically, when the one of the two most free-spending organizations in baseball want something you have, that’s a good thing for you. When they both want it, that's a good thing for your grandchildren. Pitting the Yankees and Red Sox against each other is nothing new. Just in the few years leading into the 2006 season, they competed to inflate the price tags for Alex Rodriguez and Josh Beckett. Both players were considered among the best at their positions in the game, with the first going to the Yankees, and the second to the Red Sox. The presence of either player would have shifted the balance of power in an division in baseball, but in the AL East, they merely offset each other. But this situation with the Padres in 2006 was especially strange because of the player involved: a backup catcher with a .240 career batting average and 47 home runs in over 400 career games, Doug Mirabelli.
The Red Sox wanted Mirabelli not for his bat, but for his ability to effectively wield an over-sized catching mitt. Mirabelli has spent the previous 5 seasons with the Red Sox as Jason Varitek’s understudy. As backup catchers go, he was serviceable and a necessary cog in a successful baseball-playing machine. However, as baseball rosters evolve, his value to the Red Sox was surpassed by their need for an additional infielder in the off-season after the 2005 season, and he was traded to the Padres for Mark Loretta.
On the other hand, the Yankees had no interest in Mirabelli’s catching mitt, but instead, sought to prevent the Red Sox from using said mitt. They would have been content to pay for Mirabelli only to let him use the solitude of the clubhouse during games to take naps. Instead, they wanted to create a scarcity of Doug Mirabellis. With Tim Wakefield on the mound for the Red Sox, the Yankees would have been just fine with Josh Bard behind the plate. Red Sox fans would have rather swallowed pine tar.
The Red Sox normal catcher, Jason Varitek, didn’t catch the knuckleballing Tim Wakefield. Such arrangements aren’t abnormal, as systematic rest days are necessary for some catchers to keep them from being beaten down to something resembling a burlap bag filled with sand and wearing a chest protector. Until the 2006 season, Mirabelli had handled the Wakefield responsibility, and done it admirably. The task isn’t as simple as calling pitches (with Wakefield there was really only one pitch to call) and waiting for the pitch to come to the glove. With a knuckleball, there is no assumption of control or expectation of direction. The knuckleball is as free spirited as the San Diego Chicken. By design, the pitcher merely gives it momentum in the general direction towards homeplate, and nothing else. No spin, no outside corner or inside corner; nothing. The pitch is left to twist in the wind, literally. The ball hangs and reacts with unusual and expected magnitude to the slightest breeze or draft in the 60’ 6” between the rubber and the plate. Fortunately for the team in the field, the Batter can’t possibly know how the ball will break. Unfortunately for that same team, neither does the catcher. This means the key skill for a knuckleball catcher is taking the glove to the ball, not waiting for the ball to come to the glove. Doug Mirabelli did this very well. His replacement, Josh Bard, didn’t.
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| The knuckleball is about as predictable as a Charlie Sheen night in Vegas |
It would be unfair not just to the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, but also to the ghosts of Babe Ruth and Ted Williams to say the memories influencing the anticipation of this game in 2006 started in 2003. However, it is a good year to pick up the story. In that season's ALCS, the Red Sox and Yankees were unable to decide the matter in six games and nine innings, so they played extras in game seven. In the sudden-death nature of baseball's overtime system, one misplaced pitch; one tiny mistaken throw catching too much of the plate could be the difference between the right and wrong side of history. That's what happened to Tim Wakefield and Aaron Boone in 2003. Boone didn't start game seven, and only entered as a pinch runner in the 8th inning after the Yankees had come back from a 3 run deficit to tie the game at 5. On the first pitch of the bottom of the eleventh inning, one of Wakefield's fabled floating knuckleballs (perhaps due to error on the part of the pitcher or perhaps due to a sudden & light breath of wind) hung over the middle of home plate. Aaron Boone struck, sending the ball flying over the left field fence, the Red Sox home as losers, and the Yankees to the World Series.
The 2004 season and ALCS marked a reversal of fortune and evening of the score. The Yankees held the previously insurmounted three games to none advantage in the ALCS. No team in the century-plus long history of baseball at its highest level had overcome a three game deficit in a best-of-seven series. But the Red Sox did. On the backs of Manny Ramirez, Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz, and the future Yankee Johnny Damon, the Red Sox shocked the American League establishment by defeating the Yankees, then the Cardinals, and history in the process to escape the shadow of their rival and end the Curse of the Bambino.
In the two seasons preceeding 2005, the two teams were tied 1-1 when it mattered most: ending the other's post-season. The 2005 season did little more than act as an incubator for the tensions. The Red Sox were satiated with their first World Series victory in 86 years, and they Yankees were still licking their wounds from 2004. Both teams fell out of the playoffs early, losing in the divisional round before they had the chance to play the rubber match in their ALCS competition. The rivalry needed new blood to be reignited. That happened in the off-season between 2005 and 2006.
A pair of off-season roster changes served as the spark plug for the inevitable progress of the Yankees-Red Sox vitriol. The Red Sox fired first by trading for Josh Beckett & Mike Lowell from the Florida Marlins. The Yankees retaliated by signing one of the signature ‘idiots’ from the 2004 Red Sox World Series Championship team, Johnny Damon. The competitiveness and spending of both teams was out of control, and the rivalry had fresh blood in 2006. The Red Sox felt entitled to another Ring since the curse had been broken, and the Yankees felt entitled because they were the Yankees.
Through the first month of the 2006 season, Mirabelli's replacement, Josh Bard, played in 7 games and caught 53 innings. He also led the Major Leagues with 10 passed balls. Most of his catching was with Wakefield on the mound, and this particular battery was corrosive to the mental stability of Red Sox Nation. With the exception of his first start, Wakefield had pitched well for a middle-of-the-rotation starter. Bard didn’t return the favor, as the knuckleball continued to confuse and elude his glove. Heading into a May 1 scheduled start for Wakefield against the Yankees, Bard had worn out his welcome with his new team.
The 2004 season and ALCS marked a reversal of fortune and evening of the score. The Yankees held the previously insurmounted three games to none advantage in the ALCS. No team in the century-plus long history of baseball at its highest level had overcome a three game deficit in a best-of-seven series. But the Red Sox did. On the backs of Manny Ramirez, Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz, and the future Yankee Johnny Damon, the Red Sox shocked the American League establishment by defeating the Yankees, then the Cardinals, and history in the process to escape the shadow of their rival and end the Curse of the Bambino.
In the two seasons preceeding 2005, the two teams were tied 1-1 when it mattered most: ending the other's post-season. The 2005 season did little more than act as an incubator for the tensions. The Red Sox were satiated with their first World Series victory in 86 years, and they Yankees were still licking their wounds from 2004. Both teams fell out of the playoffs early, losing in the divisional round before they had the chance to play the rubber match in their ALCS competition. The rivalry needed new blood to be reignited. That happened in the off-season between 2005 and 2006.
A pair of off-season roster changes served as the spark plug for the inevitable progress of the Yankees-Red Sox vitriol. The Red Sox fired first by trading for Josh Beckett & Mike Lowell from the Florida Marlins. The Yankees retaliated by signing one of the signature ‘idiots’ from the 2004 Red Sox World Series Championship team, Johnny Damon. The competitiveness and spending of both teams was out of control, and the rivalry had fresh blood in 2006. The Red Sox felt entitled to another Ring since the curse had been broken, and the Yankees felt entitled because they were the Yankees.
Through the first month of the 2006 season, Mirabelli's replacement, Josh Bard, played in 7 games and caught 53 innings. He also led the Major Leagues with 10 passed balls. Most of his catching was with Wakefield on the mound, and this particular battery was corrosive to the mental stability of Red Sox Nation. With the exception of his first start, Wakefield had pitched well for a middle-of-the-rotation starter. Bard didn’t return the favor, as the knuckleball continued to confuse and elude his glove. Heading into a May 1 scheduled start for Wakefield against the Yankees, Bard had worn out his welcome with his new team.
Coming into the first meeting between the Yankees and Red Sox of the 2006 season on Monday, May 1, the competitive fire on both sides was unmatched by prior vintages. ESPN planned a special national telecast on a Monday night, and one would have thought the fate of capitalism and democracy were hanging in the balance, even though the stakes were probably just first place in the AL east.
With Wakefield scheduled to start, the angst about Bard’s (in)ability to effectively catch his knuckleball was near panic levels. In the days before, talk had begun amongst fans and journalist had reverted to the nostalgic days of the sure-handed Doug Mirabelli. Though he was barely a replacement level player, Red Sox Nation remembered him to be the spawn of Yogi Berra & Johnny Bench, with hands the size of a pizza box. Like a regretful ex-lover, they realized they had made a mistake when they let him go; and they had to have him back.
America fought the Vietnam War just to keep the country beyond the influence of communist Russia. The same tactic inspired Brian Cashman, the Yankees General Manager, to enter the pursuit of catching-legend Doug Mirabelli. Just the implication of interest by the Yankees drove up the price demanded by Padres GM Kevin Towers, and in the days leading up to the May 1 meeting between the two rivals, there was a not-insignificant chance that the Yankees would pay dearly to acquire Doug Mirabelli for no reason other than to annoy their hated foes from Boston.
Saturday turned to Sunday, and Sunday turned to Monday morning with no deal and Doug Mirabelli still 3,000 miles away in San Diego. The simple absence of a transaction was a victory for the Yankees, as they just wanted to ensure that it would be Josh Bard, not Mirabelli, catching for Wakefield that night. Red Sox fans begin to resign themselves to another night of watching Bard chase balls to the backstop while their former hero, Johnny Damon, coasted around the bases wearing pinstripes.
Then it happened. News came in the late morning that the Red Sox and Padres had a deal in place. But surely it was too late. The paperwork still had to be finalized, and the little issue of Mirabelli being 1/8th of the circumference of the Earth away had to be eliminated. Before the ink had dried on the final deal was official, Mirabelli was on a private jet departing from San Diego and bound for Logan Airport in Boston. When his plane arrived at 6:48 PM, a police escort was waiting with a Red Sox uniform for Mirabelli to change into during the ride. 12 minutes later, Mirabelli arrived at Fenway Park, and 13 minutes after that, Tim Wakefield threw the first pitch of the game: a knuckleball to Johnny Damon, caught by Doug Mirabelli. The Red Sox won that night 7-3, and Doug Mirabelli caught all of Tim Wakefield’s 99 pitches.
To describe his place in history, one could say Doug Mirabelli was the Henry Blanco of Jose Molinas. He didn't go on to greater feats or a long, meaningful career; 2007 was his last season (another championship year with the Red Sox). However, because he had the good fortune of filling a role for the Red Sox and an uncommon aptitude for catching knuckleballs in a time when the Yankees ego got the best of them, he was treated like Ted Williams resurrected. The Doug Mirabelli miracle was another volume in the comic book that is the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry.
