Baseball is a big deal to the Bay family.
The patriarch, David, was smitten with the Red Sox teams of the late 1960s and 1970s and loved watching the underdog Olde Towne Team led by Dewey, Yaz, Pudge and El Tiante play ball at the baseball cathedral in Boston. Now he watches his son Jason play for the Sox. "Back in my day, I used to watch Saturday baseball and it was always the Yankees and Red Sox on TV, and the Sox were usually the underdogs," said David. "I really became attached to them as underdogs in the late '60s and early '70s. I remember making a toast at Jason's wedding in 2004, and I said that I hope our daughter is in the Olympics (as a softball player) and that the Pirates (Jason's former team) do well. I said to Jason, 'You're going to get two home runs in Game 7 of the World Series ... but the Sox still win the series four games to three.' Everybody knew I was a Sox fan, and that was the year they won the World Series."
Young Jason wasn't quite as enamored of the Sox as his old man but harbored the same love for the game of baseball and instead developed into a huge fan of former Cincinnati Reds outfielder Eric Davis. The younger Bay had a "Magnum 44" Eric Davis poster plastered on his wall growing up and seemingly has patterned his quick-wristed, powerful swing after the athletically gifted Davis.
Bay still holds Davis in enough hardball reverence that he continues to wear Davis' uniform No. 44 on his back to this very day, and he is starting to lead his team to the World Series, just as Davis did with the Cincinnati Reds back in 1990.
After striking out in his first two postseason at-bats, Bay connected for a game-winning homer in Game 1 and then launched a three-run bomb to dead-center in the first inning of Game 2. He is the first Sox player to hit home runs in his first two career postseason games.
"I don't know if I've figured it out, but I was definitely more comfortable out there (in Game 2)," said Bay. "(The home runs) certainly took the edge off, and I think it's more about really embracing this atmosphere and letting it get the best out of you.
"Rather than take a pitch or an at-bat off, you really lock in with this atmosphere, and I think it really helps."
RED SOX 7, ANGELS 5: The Red Sox won their major league-record 11th postseason game in a row over the Angels of Anaheim with a clutch two-run J.D. Drew homer in the top of the ninth inning. The timely homer erased a 5-5 tie heading into the ninth. The Angels had scratched for a run against the Sox bullpen in the bottom of the eighth, but Drew's home run and two scoreless innings from RHP Jonathan Papelbon gave the Red Sox the victory.
