Line Drive to Right Field…(credit: Boston Globe)

And here we are again, you and I. Against all odds, we lived to fight another day. Which comes today.

I won’t lie and tell you I believed down seven with seven outs to play. But I will tell you that I didn’t leave, that I didn’t quit, and that I didn’t give up. Like Gammons’ fan who slapped his hand bleeding, I pounded, screamed and prayed. To what, to whom doesn’t really matter now – the fact is that we’re still alive, and we’ve got a game to play.

The “statistical numbers,” frankly, don’t give us much chance of winning another; one reason there are no numbers here. But if tonight’s odds are long, what do you imagine they were at the precise moment that game turned and we pulled off the greatest single game postseason upset since 1929? Or in that split second before Roberts pushed off for second? You see? The numbers are just that…numbers. Informative, educational, but emphatically not determinative. As Exhibit A, I present you with Wednesday night. What have you got?

Yes, I still think Beckett is hurt. And yes, Shields is an excellent pitcher. Blah blah blah blah.

But we’re here, and we’ve got a little fight in us yet. That was what threatened to break my heart on Wednesday; losing was one thing, being embarrassed – at home – quite another. But suddenly, improbably, we woke up, picked ourselves up off the canvas, and hit us to Saturday.

Speaking for many of us, me anyway, Simmons reached back and found the old fastball, with:

More importantly, the champs decided they were going down swinging. Win or lose this weekend, that’s all we wanted. Show some pride. Show some heart. Show us last season meant something. And they did.

And they did, indeed.

I cannot promise that they’ll win tonight, and how fun would it really be if I could? I can promise that, after Game 5, they made me proud. Proud to be a fan, proud to care, proud to schedule my life around them, and proud to call this my team. All over again.

They also made me believe. Talk to you in the morning.