Jimmy Tingle - The Impossible Dream

 

When my son Seamus was five years old, I was so anxious to get him into baseball that I offered to coach the T ball team. And the thing about T ball is when one kid hits the ball, both teams chase it around the field, [audience laughter] which is hilarious, unless you're the coach. [audience laughter] Sort of organized chaos. And after the second game, my son quit the team. [audience chuckles] My wife said, he had problems with the coach. [audience laughter] I said, "Quit? You can't quit baseball. Baseball is in our blood. It's in the Tingle family blood." 

 

Ever since we were kids watching the Boston Red Sox and the 1967 pennant race, when they won the pennant in 1967 with the Impossible Dream team. When we all had our favorite, Rico Petrocelli, the Italian shortstop for the Red Sox, my mother's favorite. She called him "My paisan" [audience chuckles] after her Italian roots. My father had two cabs in Cambridge. And on several occasions, he actually drove Boston Red Sox players to Fenway Park. 

 

Now, to the outside world, they might have just been utility infielders, but to us, they were like gods. [audience chuckles] We never won the World Series in 1967. I think a lot of it had to do with the theme of that 1967 team. The theme was "The Impossible Dream." [audience chuckles] It's very difficult to win a World Series, [audience laughter] when the word impossible [audience laughter] is part of your theme. [audience laughter] But it just made us more psyched up to win and more into baseball. 

 

Opening day, 1972, my brother Bobby and a bunch of kids from the teen center got tickets to go to Fenway Park on opening day. And they sat right under the backstop. And a foul ball got stuck up in the backstop. My brother Bobby watched that foul ball for three innings. When the umpire wasn't looking, my brother Bobby ran out on the field, started climbing up the backstop to get the foul ball. [audience chuckles] My mother and father were home watching the game on television. [audience laughter] 

 

And the announcer came over the air and said, "There's a delay in the game. There's a young blond-headed boy climbing up the backstop to get a foul ball." And Mama Tingle turned to Pop Tingle and said, "That sounds like something Bobby would do." [audience laughter] And the umpire tried to grab him, and he shushed him away, and he scurried up-- screamed like a squirrel. He got the ball, and he sat on that crossbar, and held the ball up. [audience chuckles] And 34,000 Boston Red Sox fans gave my brother Bobby a standing ovation. [audience laughter] [audience applause] 

 

Opening day, 1972. The next day, he was on the front page of the Boston Globe. [audience laughter] Other newspapers came to our house. We were celebrities. [audience laughter] We were baseball celebrities. They were taking our picture in front of the house with bats, and gloves, and balls. [audience laughter] But even though I told my son Seamus that story many times, he still wasn't into baseball. [audience laughter]

 

One day, he comes home from school and he says, "Dad, the Red Sox are playing the Yankees today in the pennant race. Can we watch it on television?” Can we watch it on television? That was the most beautiful question I ever heard. [audience chuckles] “Of course, we can watch it on television.” We sat there on the couch, my wife made popcorn, we got all ready to watch the Yankees and the Red Sox duke it out in the 2004 pennant race. 

 

We were so pumped up, and the whole city was pumped up. They lost the first game. I said, "That's okay, son. We'll get them the second game." And the Red Sox lost the second game. "That's okay, we'll get them the third game." And they lost the third game. [audience chuckles] Now, the theme for the 2004 Boston Red Sox was "You got to believe." [audience laughter] But it's very difficult to believe [audience laughter] when your team is losing three games to nothing to the world champion New York Yankees.

 

When your team is winning, very few people criticize the team or second guess the coach. But when your team starts losing, some people feel compelled to put in their two cents. [audience chuckles] I fell into that category. [audience laughter] I find myself turning into one of my uncles trying to give my son a teaching moment. "You see, Seamus, the reason the Yankees always win-- Look at these people. Clean cut, in shape, well-disciplined players. Look at the Red Sox. [audience laughter] Long hair, beards. Johnny Damon, hair down to his shoulders, a big beard. He looks like the lead singer for ZZ Top. [audience laughter] Hey, Johnny, ZZ Top never won a World Series." 

 

And then, the Red Sox won game four, and then they won game five, and then they won game six. And in game seven, the Boston Red Sox secured their place in baseball history by becoming the first team to come back from a three-game deficit to win four straight games, win the American League pennant, and beat the New York Yankees in Yankee Stadium. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

There's only one word to describe that series with the Yankees. Biblical. [audience laughter] And then, came the World Series. And the whole town can feel it, and everybody can feel it. We haven't won in 86 years. We're getting ready to watch the game. My son Seamus says, "Dad, you think we can win the World Series this year?" And on the surface, I'm saying, "Of course, we can win the World Series. We're the Boston Red Sox." But internally, I'm saying, “It's highly doubtful.” [audience laughter] And then, we won the first game. He's going, "Dad, we got a good chance now. We won one game, they got to win four. We only have to win three, we got a pretty good chance." "Don't get ahead of yourselves, Seamus." 

 

Then we won the second game. "Dad, we got a better chance now, huh?" "One game at a time, son." [audience chuckles] Then we won the third game. "Dad, it looks pretty good now, huh?" "Don't get your hopes up. [audience laughter] On paper, it seems logical, yes." [audience laughter] And then, game four, the Red Sox are winning by a few runs in the fifth inning. My son goes to bed, it's a school night. They're still winning by a few runs in the seventh inning. My wife goes to bed, it's a school night. [audience chuckles] eighth inning, nineth inning, one out, two outs. Ground ball to the pitcher over to first, three outs. The Boston Red Sox just won the World Series for the first time in 86 years.

 

I'm in my living room. [audience chuckles] I'm completely alone. [audience laughter] I've got my pajamas on, [audience laughter] my bathrobe, my slippers, and my herbal tea. [audience laughter] And I realize I'm middle-aged. [audience laughter] But the most beautiful thing for me about the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series, is that my son and I fell in love with baseball. And we bonded like we never bonded before. For that Christmas, he got bats and balls and DVDs and batting helmets and shirts and a new glove. We were immersed in baseball. The entire winter, we played catch every single night after supper in the park across the street from our house. Every single night, even in the snowbanks.

 

The great thing about the snowbanks, you could dive into the snowbanks to catch the ball, and I'd throw him long fly balls and do the announcer's voice: "There's a long fly ball to deep center field. Johnny Damon's back. He's way back. He's way, way back. He dives, and makes a tremendous catch!" And that April, we actually got tickets to go to Fenway Park for the very first time in his life. It was so cool, and he was so pumped up to go to the Red Sox game. He goes, "Dad, I'm going to bring my new glove to the game. Maybe catch a ball, maybe catch a foul ball." I don't have the heart to tell him, 34,000 people, you have virtually no chance of getting a ball. [audience chuckles] But we bring the glove.

 

When you're a little kid and you walk up that ramp for the first time at Fenway Park and you see the green left field wall, the left field, the Green Monster, so beautiful, so Boston, so majestic, so baseball, so beautiful. [audience chuckles] And the lights are so bright, and the field is so bright, bright, bright, bright, bright, bright green. So appealing. We had beautiful box seats about 100, maybe 200 rows back [audience laughter] on the first base side. We got there early. I'm sitting there, and I'm looking up at that backstop, getting a little nostalgic, thinking about all the people I used to come to games with as a kid who aren't around anymore, my father, a couple of my uncles, a few of my friends. I'm retelling the story to Seamus about my brother Bobby when he climbed a backstop in 1972.

 

And in about the third inning, the kids behind us actually caught a foul ball. [audience aw] So, on my son's seven-year-old mind, it's conceivable that he can get a foul ball. So, he's sitting there with a glove and he's twitching on every pitch. [audience laughter] "Dad, when are they going to hit it back up here, huh?" He's twitching on every pitch. Then we get food. He's got a hot dog and a Coke. He gives me the glove. I'm sitting there, I'm twitching on every pitch. [audience laughter] And what happened was it was freezing out, and the Red Sox were winning by about six or seven runs in the sixth inning. And people start leaving in droves, and all these much better seats start opening up closer to the field. 

 

So, he's going, "Dad, there's two seats over there." So, we get down there, he goes, "There's two seats over there." We move down there, he goes, "There's two seats over there." We move four or five times in three innings. And by the ninth inning, my friends, we are directly behind the Boston Red Sox dugout. Here is the roof of the dugout. Here are our seats. You could not get any closer. You're practically on the field. And Johnny Damon had been taken out of the game, because they were winning by so many runs. And Johnny Damon is kneeling on the top step of the dugout. He's kneeling there, he's got the red hooded sweatshirt on, the long hair and the beard coming down. I said, "Seamus, it's Johnny Damon." "Johnny, [audience laughter] what's up, brother?" 

 

He turns around, gives us the victory sign. "Seamus, you see that? Johnny Damon just waved to us. “Hey, Johnny. Johnny, you got a ball?" [audience laughter] He goes into the dugout, comes out, and rolls a ball across the roof of the dugout into my son's glove. [audience awe] Baseball is much bigger than baseball. It's about family, it's about friends, it's about community, it's about the next generation, it's about the rite of passage. My son now has his own baseball story to tell his kids someday, you got to believe. Thank you.