By Jiminy

Sam should get to Boston sometime late this afternoon. He left from our hometown in South Carolina yesterday after work and is driving 20 hours straight to get here. All last summer we fanatically rooted for the Bosox even though we were a thousand miles from Fenway Park, but tomorrow we're going to be in the Fenway bleachers cheering our Red Sox in the World Series.

Being a Boston Red Sox fan a thousand miles from the Hub is not all that easy. It consists of trying to glean the game story out of a box score, since the typical game blurb was only a sentence or two long. It also means staying up to get the ball scores if the Sox were out West. Otherwise you'd be kept in suspense until two days later when the story would finally make the morning editions.

Our season as far-away fans did have its high points though.

* Every few weeks we were rewarded with a Red Sox game on television. The bad part about watching NBC, however, was enduring the mouths of Curt Gowdy and Joe Garagiola. Ever since Gowdy began to believe that the Bosox were not going to fold in September, he has reminded the American public on the average of two or three times a broadcast how he spent fifteen years announcing Red Sox games. You couldn't escape from Garagiola on the other hand even during the commercials with everyone yelling "Attaboy, Joe" on the Dodge ads.

I remember how Gowdy had a fit over rookie phenom Fred Lynn on the Monday nightbroadcast from Detroit on June 16. That was the night he broke his hitting streak, but it turned out to merely be a rest as he belted three homers and missed another by a foot and racked up ten RBIs the next night. Boston fans already knew how good Lynn was, but Gowdy dutifully informed the rest of the world too.

* Approximately thirty seconds after Carl Yastrzemski hit his home run in the All-Star game in July, my phone rang. Of course it was Sam. "How do you like that Yaz?" he asked. "I could have told you it would take a Red Sox to get the American League going."

* A misguided Yankee fan worked in the office where Sam and I worked. He reminded us almost daily of how the Sox swooned last year and told us they would again this year, thus allowing the Yanks to cop the division title. He was wrong.

* Sam and I played on the same team in a bank softball league. Sam played second and I played center field. We were soon nicknamed Denny and Fred. When we won the championship, Sam predicted, "Just like the Sox."

* I came back to Cambridge a week early, partly so I could see the Baltimore-Boston series in Fenway. I had to send Sam a full report not only of the game, but also of little things like whether the Boston caps were still on sale in the concession area.

Sam asked me to try and get World Series tickets back at the end of the summer. It would be worth it to come all the way to Boston just for the weekend, he said, if he could see his Red Sox in the Series. Luck prevailed and we got tickets.

So tomorrow morning we are going to go to Fenway early. Sam wants to get there in time to see everything: batting actice, infield practice, he even wants to see he Sox stand around before the game starts. In short, he wants to experience an entire season in the space of a single day.

"I can't decide whether or not to really red-neck it up and bring a sheet that says 'North Augusta, S.C. loves the Red Sox'," Sam said. "If I have time, I might make it."

But whether he does or not, the game will still be just as much of an experience, the players will still seem larger than life, and this will still be an afternoon dreams are made of.

* * *

I've always been for the American League team over the National League club in the World Series but in a fit of temporary insanity, last year, I, for some unknown reason, picked the Dodgers to dump the Oakland A's. I never heard the end of that blunder from my AL friends. This year I can't help but go with Boston in seven. My heart tells me that the Reds are probably the better team, but the Red Sox have performed spectacularly in the playoffs and have come through with clutch wins all during the season. And when it comes down to the wire next week, Fenway itself is going to be a factor. Alvin Dark said that Fenway is the only park in the league where the home team really has an advantage. Sparky Anderson will soon learn what he means. Look to see a classic series between the two best hitting clubs in baseball today.

The other scribes predict:

Andy Quigley--Red Sox in seven. I want to see four games in Fenway.

Tom Aronson--Cincinnati in six. The Reds, and not the Red Sox, are the team of destiny this year. The Sox win the first, the Reds the next two, the Sox win the fourth, and the Reds take the rest.

Bill Stedman--Boston in five because Barry at the Park Street Station Kwik Snak (who predicted they'd beat Oakland in three) guarantees it for me.

Nick Lemann--Reds in six. My heart is with the Sox but I think the National League competition will be too tough, alas. It is, however, fortunately possible to remain proud and indominable in defeat, and I think that's the stance the Sox should adopt.

Mike Savit--Boston in six to honor the memories of Roman Mejias, Felix Mantilla, Cal Koonce, Chuck Hartenstein, Bill Landis, Dick Stuart and Pumpsie Green

Phillip Weiss--Cincinnati in five. The Reds wear their double knits in much sleeker form than the Red Sox. But, then, so did the A's. Still, Cincinnati will burn the basepaths and tatoo the walls.

Rich Doherty--Sox in Six. I've been raised on Big Yaz bread and Fenway Franks and I couldn't swallow my Sox losing the Series.