29 years ago I went with my dad from Boston to Anaheim for the 3 ALCS games in California. I was a senior in high school.
The Sox had split the first two games in Boston, and then lost games 3 and 4 in Anaheim, in both games giving up an early lead. Game 4 was particularly heartbreaking as Clemens pitched a gem and the Sox took a 3-0 lead into the 9th, but couldn't hold it and lost in extra innings.
We had traveled with a contingent of other Sox fans, and many of them didn't even go the fifth game, opting for Disneyland or some other SoCal attraction. And of the ones who did go to the game, a good number left when the Sox again blew an early lead and trailed going into the 9th. So there were only a handful of us still there when the events of the 9th unfolded...
Not many remember this, but Henderson had not started any of the playoffs games to that point. Acquired along with Spike Owen in a trade in August, he had mostly been a defensive replacement and pinch hitter. But Tony Armas got hurt, Henderson came into the game in the 5th, and actually had Bobby Grich's go-ahead HR in his glove for a split second in the bottom of the 6th, but couldn't hold on.
So Boston trailed 5-2 into the 9th...Baylor hit his now-forgotten 2 run homer to cut the lead to 1...but Mike Witt got Dwight Evans for the 2nd out. Rich Gedman was up, and Gedman had owned Witt in that game, with 3 solid hits, including a homer and a double. Mauch brought in lefty Gary Lucas who threw one pitch, and hit Gedman with it. That brought in Moore, and Henderson (much like Bernie Carbo in game 6 of the 1975 series) barely stayed alive by fouling off some two-strike pitches before pulling an outside pitch over the wall in left center. That moment was unreal. It remains the single greatest moment I have ever personally experienced at a ballgame. My dad and I and maybe two dozen other Red Sox fans were delirious deep in the right field corner.
The remainder of the game was a blur, but I remember the Angels coming back to tie it in the bottom of the 9th and Steve Crawford of all people somehow getting two outs with the bases loaded to end the inning. The end of the game was replete with players like that...footnotes from MLB in the 80s like Crawford, Stapleton, Romero, Wilfong, Narron all playing key roles until Henderson drove in the go-ahead run with a sac fly and Calvin Schiraldi (one of the goats of game four) got the save. Gedman actually bunted for a hit in the final inning and finished the game 4-4.
I do not believe in momentum in sports. At all. I think it's something silly that people talk about because the mind seeks explanations for the patterns we observe and momentum offers us a plausible cause and effect. But the Angels were done after that. The Sox destroyed them in games 6 and 7 back in Boston, and the AL pennant was never really in doubt. We won't bother to discuss the World Series here, except to remind everyone that Dave Henderson hit the go-ahead homer in the top of the 10th inning of game 6, and if things had turned out a little differently in the bottom half, he would be remembered with Carlton Fisk and David Ortiz in the annals of Boston's greatest clutch performances. Perhaps he deserves to be so remembered anyway.
Fare thee well Dave. You brought a 17-year old kid an irreplaceable moment of joy with his Dad.