The Boston Globe - For Boston: From Worst to First, the Improbable Dream Season of the 2013 Red Sox

We didn t just win it.

We won it

at home .

Contents

The Sox got superb starting pitching from Jon Lester and John Lackey, and enough timely hits from an offense carried by MVP David Ortiz to seal their first Series title at home in 95 years.

David Ortizs Game 2 grand slam made a series of it, Mike Napoli struck the key blows in Detroit, and led by ALCS MVP Koji Uehara (one win, three saves), the bullpen brought it home.

A pesky division foe for years, Tampa Bay proved a customary tough out. But the Red Sox scratched out a 3-1 road clincher in Game 4 to avoid a winner-take-all finale vs. Rays ace David Price.

New manager John Farrell helped the 2013 Sox establish a fresh identity, and bolstered by a 12-4 start, the team improved on its 2012 record by 28 victories, many via the walkoff route.

From Pesky supposedly holding the ball in 1946, to Gibson dominating Red Sox batters in 1967, to Bostons seemingly scripted sweep in 2004, these proud franchises have a history.

Fans on Yawkey Way celebrate Bostons first world title since 2007.

Introduction by Larry Lucchino

Through many seasons, successful or not, there has been a durable bond between the people of Boston and New England and their baseball team. This season, the simple act of coming together on a spring night in Fenway Park took on a different meaning.

After the April 15 Marathon bombings shattered lives and shook our city deeply, Bostonians and New Englanders responded with love, quiet compassion, and tremendous resolve. Starting on April 20, with the first home stand after the bombing, the Red Sox determined to recognize the tragedy, pay tribute to victims and first responders all season long, while still providing common ground and the diversion of a summer game.

Playing games during a time of crisis may seem to some in questionable taste. But to move forward seemed a solemn obligation. New Englanders proved resilient, showing that while adversity may temporarily set us back, we would not allow any hardship, any calamity, any misfortune to keep us down for long. The team was no different: This is our (bleeping) city.

All through the summer, our ballpark was like a neighbors porch where all were welcome to come and sit and share in the fortunes of a team. They came for distraction and comfort. They came for the solace of simply gathering together. More and more, the team took on the character of the city, borrowing from its ample store of resilience and determination.

The World Series Trophy made the rounds, from team owners Larry Lucchino, Tom Werner, and John Henry (right) to the players who brought it home to Fenway Park.

The Red Sox played with grit and resolve. Time and again, this team came from behind to win in all sorts of unexpected and miraculous ways. Our club began to rise from the great disappointment of September 2011 and the last-place finish of 2012. Tapping into the innate optimism and inner strength of people familiar with hard times, the city and New England moved forward through the smoke of April into the clear October light.

At our introductory press conference in December 2001, John Henry, Tom Werner, and our ownership group made five commitments to New England and all of Red Sox Nation. The first of these obligations was to field a team worthy of the fans support. This took on an entirely new meaning for us in 2013.

To be certain, baseball matters. Not always so much the winning and losing. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized this when, after Pearl Harbor, he urged then-commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis to continue playing the games while the country was at war. Boston is a city of many races, ethnicities, traditions, and faiths; no single one embraces us all. Then there is baseball; the Red Sox bring this city and region together as one large congregation of fans. In times of trial and difficulty, baseball provides us a reason to gather and draw strength from our community. And so it was this season, this World Championship season, 2013.

Larry Lucchino is president and CEO of the Boston Red Sox.

World Series

In a matchup of 97-game winners, the Red Sox consistently produced the big pitch and the big hit.

SERIES VS ST. LOUIS

The Red Sox storm the field after winning their eighth world title.

by Dan Shaughnessy Globe Staff

It was a Back Bay Bacchanal, a party unlike anything since 1918. Six months after Shelter in Place, the city of Boston invites the world to celebrate a victory of team over self. Boston Strong, at least a variation of the theme, hit a crescendo on Oct. 30 on the Fenway lawn, the town common of 2013. The 2013 Red Sox, the motley crew that left Fort Myers begging, Please dont hate us, completed the ultimate redemption song, thrashing the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-1, in the sixth and final game of the World Series. The Brotherhood of the Beard are World Champions for the third time this century, worthy progeny of the 20th century Sox, who won five of the first 15 Series back in the days when Babe Ruth was a fuzzy-faced lefthanded orphan from Baltimore. Nobody saw this coming. Nobody.

For Jonny Gomes, whose home run won Game 4, it was time to don the helmet and wave the banner.

After the worst season in 47 years the Bobby Valentine clown show of 2012 Sox general manager Ben Cherington and new field manager John Farrell made the Red Sox relevant and good again. The 2013 Sox dusted the field in the American League East, then blew past the Tampa Bays Rays, the Detroit Tigers, and the estimable Cardinals in an 11-5 postseason onslaught. The Sox were dominant. In the 2013 playoffs they bested aces Matt Moore, David Price, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Anibal Sanchez, Adam Wainwright, and Michael Wacha. And so Boston has its eighth championship parade since 2002, and outgoing mayor Thomas Menino will be on a duck boat, which is scheduled to roll down Boylston Street, past the places where the bombs exploded on Marathon Monday, April 15. It is the ultimate civic comeback story. These are the 2013 Red Sox. They finished in the basement of the American League East in 2012, winning a mere 69 games in a trainwreck season that came on the heels of the epic collapse of the Terry Francona/Theo Epstein Sox who folded dramatically in September 2011.