Iconic America | The Red Sox' "Cursed" 1986 and 2003 Seasons | Episode 1

- That's the first time I was really starting to feel the weight of what you had taken on.

Back then as a Red Sox fan - Calvin Schiraldi trying to finish off the Mets and the 1986 baseball season - I was in the sixth grade at the Timothy School in the South end, lower Roxbury.

And we lived and died in every game.

Every pitch.

'86 was to me what '67 was to the elders or '75 was to the generation after them.

The '86 season, we're all in - And that's it.

The dead center with Henderson gonna run it down and the Mets are down to their last out.

- We're one out away from something happening that everybody in the city has waited to see since 1918.

- And Roger Clemens hoping for that last out.

- Parents are waking up infants, so they will see this.

They will witness this history.

You're gonna see the Red Sox win the World Series.

Didn't do it in Grandma or Grandpa's lifetime.

You're gonna see it.

- Line in the left field base hit for Carter and the Mets are still alive.

- So it was just me and my brother in the small den in our condo in Brookline.

Once it got to two outs, we said like, how are we gonna celebrate?

So we decided that two of us, we stood up on the top of the couch up against the wall, watching the TV, we said but the ball's going into the glove for the final out.

Like let's, let's jump off together in celebration and we won't be connected to this earth.

We'll remember it forever.

- And that's gonna be hit into center field base hit here comes Carter to score and the time run is at third in Kevin Mitchell.

- So I went down to the clubhouse and rolling in the champagne and the ice, and I'm watching all this and this is like this amazing thing, but I'm like, gosh, they they were in the final inning, like what is taking so long?

- And it's gonna go to the back stock.

Here comes Mitchell to score the tying run.

And Ray Knight is at second base.

Three and two to Mookie Wilson, little roller up along first behind the- Here comes Knight and the Mets win it!

- From my apartment in the South End I had a window open and when that happened I could hear people yelling and moaning and crying.

- We were up on the couch and we just collapsed.

Just writhing around in emotional pain, life changing, scarring, emotional pain.

- Certainly at that point you're realizing, man they're just never gonna win.

They're never gonna win.

- Not only did they not win, they had these colossal screw-ups at end where they come close, they take you to the edge and then they blow it.

These things just keep happening over and over.

- Your heart was broken every year and and we all kind of went around the campfire and talked about our broken hearts and then we sucked it up and we came back for another year.

- I finally understood what it meant and what it felt like for like my teachers and all the elders in the neighborhood who talked about the '67 team and the '75 team.

The Red Sox will break your heart.

You know, like it happened to me at a young age.

- Two starts, two wins for Wells.

As Ortiz gets into wonder, right?

This one is at the wall and gone.

David Ortiz greets David Wells with a first pitch home run to write.

It's five two.

- I was there again in 2003.

They're gonna win.

They're gonna beat the Yankees they're going to the World Series.

I called my father at, you know in the seventh or eighth inning and he said, oh dear you haven't learned anything.

And he said, you're gonna owe me a dollar.

And I'm like, not this time, dad.

- No.

We're tied at five as we go.

The bottom of the 11th is Aaron Boone to lead off his first at bat of the game.

- There's a fly ball, keep to left, it's on its way.

There it goes.

And the Yankees are going to the World Series.

Aaron Boone has hit a home run.

The Yankees go to the World Series for the 39th time in their remarkable history.

- And of course it all goes to hell.

And I gotta pay my dad a dollar.

So I sent him four quarters in an envelope.

I was just like, this is just ridiculous.

Just ridiculous.

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