Did It Ever Really Happen?

A sharp wind scatters the paper along Landsdowne Street behind Fenway Park. Once the street was a sea of fans, breaking against the left field wall, impatient to pour in and sweep the Sox to World Series victory. Now the Series is over, the waves subsided, the street dark and deserted.

In the gutters, the sea has left its residue-dirty napkins, newspapers, cigarette wrappers, paper cups. "Boston Red Sox, World Series Champs," proclaimed a battered sign in red crayon, before someone crossed out "Champs" and wrote in "Chumps" in blue ball-point, "Win or Lose, the '67 Sox Will Never Be Forgotten," headlines a trampled newspaper.

What's this? The towering Fenway arc-lights burn brightly. Can there be more to come? Of course, that's it--it's all a mistake. Yaz is in there taking post-game batting practice. He'll nap before tomorrow's game, belt a couple of homers, and the Sox will be champions of the world.

Around the corner on Van Ness Street, several hundred fans shiver in the shadows of right field. Are they waiting for tickets to tomorrow's game? Yes, yes, there's been a mistake. Tomorrow Lonborg will pull it out and we'll win it all.

No, it's all over.

As if to emphasize that truth, Carl Yastrzemski suddenly steps out into the players' parking lot dressed in jacket and tie. As the crowd roars, he shakes hands with Cardinal star Lou Brock, manages a weak smile, then climbs into his car. The huge screened gates swing into the crowd and Yaz slips off into the darkness. The lights above go out again.

Still it's hard to believe that it's really over. From the season opener last April on, the Sox were always down but never out. Hadn't we named them the "Cinderella Kids?" Week after week someone always came along to save them-Elston Howard from the Yankees, Ken Harrelson from the A's, Yaz with a homer, Jerry Adair with a clutch hit. Why should we have expected it to be any different today?

Howard steps out into the parking lot now, waves to the cheering crowd, walks to the screen to sign autographs. "Thanks for a pennant, Ellie," a girl shouts. A drunk asks, "We'll do it next year, won't we, Ellie?"

"I might not be back next year," Howard says, and turns for his car. The girl starts crying, and for a moment there is no other sound.

Hadn't they finished last season half a game out of the cellar? Hadn't the bookies pegged them as hundred to-one shots to take it this year? Hadn't the sportswriters counted them out as too young, too inexperienced, too bad, again and again? Remember the final four-game home stand, when we dropped two straight games to the seventh-place Indians? We fell to third then, with only two games left, and Series tickets sold in Chicago.

Crew-cutted manager Dick Williams comes out now, signing scores of autographs but unable to smile. "We'll do it next year, won't we, Dick?" the drunk repeats. "I hope we'll be stronger next year," Williams says quietly. " I hope so, I hope so."

"Thanks, Dick, thank you for a wonderful year," the girl shouts, beaming again. "It's late." Williams says, "we've got to be going." The crowd sends him off with. "We love you, we love you, we love you."

Remember the last game, against Minnesola-the whole permant race down to a single game. Remember Lonborg mowing down those Twins sluggers for his 22nd win? Remember huddling around transistors tuned to Detroit and rooting for an Angel victory? Remember Kenmore Square after the pennant was finally ours?

"It's Lonborg," a shout goes up, and the handful of fans still left race to the far end of the parking lot screaming, "Jimmy, Jimmy, he's in his car already."

Lonborg sits in the front seat, not looking, not speaking--the fallen hero still stunned. "You're great, Lonborg," the drunk screams, and the crowd presses forward for a glimpse of the familiar unshaven face. The gates open once again, and the gold Cadillac convertible squeals away into the night.

Hadn't they been down to the Cards, three games to one, and playing in St. Louis? The Cards didn't even pack for the return trip, remember? Hadn't Lonborg stopped them twice before on only one run and four hits? If anyone could win it for us today, it was Jimmy, Jimmy. But no, the fairy tale would have no happy ending.

On the corner of Jersey and Brook-line, a lone hawker stands shivering. "Get your girl a souvenir garter," he barks, waving a cardboard with a lone garter. "Get your genuine World Series garter, last one left." There are no takers.

Behind him half a dozen men pack several cartons of garters, buttons and pennants into a Hertz Rent-a- Truck. "Go-Go Red Sox," one box reads, "Dick Williams for President." says another. Down the way, the NBC color television crew winds its cables and packs its lights and cameras into three large vans.

Across the street is the Pennant Grille. When the Sox clinched the pennant two Sundays ago, the Grille broke loose in a wild brawl that brought half a dozen mounted police men galloping to the scene. Now the Grille is almost empty--the television off, the jukebox playing a tinny polka. Huge autographed photos of former Red Sox stars line the walls Ted Williams, Pumpsie Green, Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio-but the men at the bar are discussing boxing. "You know goddamn well we're going to be up there again next year," a drunk in a back booth shouts, but he is ignored.

The Red Sox information sign, stripped in the pennant celebration two weekends ago, still proclaims hopefully, "World Series Game Time 1 p.m." On the Brookline Bridge over the Mass Pike, two high school girls with Red Sox pennants and beanies pass by. "The Sox will rise again," one girl says hoarsely, "the Sox will rise again.

Smokey Joe's at Ken more Square. Remember that Sunday, drinking beer from pitchers and cradling transistors tuned to the Detroit game. "YAZ, YAZ ,YAZ," we shouted as the fiddle player swung his instrument at an imaginary pitch, and clapped as the band struck up with "Hold That Tiger."

Kenmore Square was rocked by riot that night, with traffic backed two miles up Brookline Avenue. Remember how swarms of college boys commandeered cars to parties on Beacon Hill? Remember the motorists doing somersaults on their hoods?

Traffic is light now. A fat lady with a fat shopping bag jammed full of Red Sox pennants stands on the corner waiting for a bus. "I'm taking them back home for my nephews," she starts to explain, but no one asks.

"Excuse me, sir," drools a red-faced drunk with stringy-haired girl in tow. "We're conducting an on-the-street interview here--would you like to say a few words?" he asks, holding out a half-empty Schlitz microphone. We're alive, we're alive." Boston is dead.

A huge spitting-stinking cripple eases his way down the stairs to the Kenmore Square subway, propped up by a cane and a Louisville Slugger. "It's Dal Maxvill's bat--the one he got the hit with." he says. "I got it from the Cardinal clubhouse."

"Hey, Lyle's going to be good next year--Brett too. George Scott will be great if he stops fishing. It won't be so close with Conciliar back. See you next year, you're going to win again."

A block from Fen way at the Souvenir Shoppe, a young boy buys a red pennant saying "Boston Patriots.