Survive and Strive

Rockies Game 7 starter Aaron Cook tips his cap after he is removed in the top of the seventh inning. He allowed three runs on six hits. (By Jeff Gross -- Getty Images)

DENVER -- As Boston Manager Terry Francona approached the World Series mound and firmly, but gently, took the baseball from Jon Lester's left hand, he smacked his pitcher on the back so firmly you almost felt it yourself. First baseman David (Big Papi) Ortiz practically hugged the 23-year-old. Rookie second baseman Dustin Pedroia, who's known Lester throughout their trip up through the Boston minor leagues from Portland to Pawtucket, added his slaps.

Finally, the entire Red Sox infield and proud Boston captain Jason Varitek gathered around Lester like a band of big brothers, unashamedly giving him perhaps the most emotional round of congratulations that you will ever see for a pitcher that has, technically, just been knocked out of the game. But, when you pitch 5 2/3 shutout innings to win the clinching game of the World Series just 13 months after you get cancer and spend a winter doing four rounds of chemotherapy, emotions will erupt.

As Lester strode to the dugout here in Game 4, head up and calm, he made a gesture that seemed like annoyance, perhaps because he walked the last batter he faced, rather than the pride bordering on joy that he might justifiably have felt. Behind him, the huge Coors Field scoreboard told the story of one of the most moving and excellent pitchers' duels of any World Series. Boston led Colorado 2-0 with two outs in the sixth inning. Lester had brought his team -- bereft of any other plausible starting pitcher after an injury to Tim Wakefield -- to the brink of its second World Series sweep in four seasons.

And he had done it 13 months after learning last September, in the midst of a fine rookie season, that he had anaplastic large cell lymphoma.

The story of this night will be retold for many a year, not only because of Lester's excellence but because of the distinguished work of the losing pitcher, Aaron Cook of the Rockies, another emergency starter, who himself returned to baseball after a life-threatening blood clot in his lung three years ago. And if hyperbole's arm is twisted in the process, so be it. The cause is good. Hard as it is to fathom, in a month when even the sharpest of star pitchers fail, Lester hadn't started a game in more than a month and Cook, who turned in a quality start, allowing three runs in six innings, hadn't started in two months.

Despite not starting a single game in more than a month, despite every imaginable excuse for wildness, rustiness or failure, Lester threw 92 pitches, 59 of them for strikes. Almost every low-90s fastball, snapping slider and slower curve arrived precisely where he intended as he held the Rockies to just three hits while walking three and striking out three.

"We all know the story of what Lester has gone through. I'm ecstatic for him," said World Series MVP Mike Lowell, the 33-year-old pro's-pro third baseman who doubled and homered in Boston's 4-3 win. "I don't think too many people thought he would be here. He beat a great hitting team in a tough park for pitchers."

"I'm so proud of Jon, the way he pitched, how composed he was, how he competed," said Francona, who has never hidden that he thinks Lester will be a star pitcher, but perhaps an even finer person with his understated modesty. "It is very appropriate that he got the win."

This has been the October when many of the game's pitching aces have been shellacked as their teams were eliminated -- including Chien-Ming Wang of the Yankees, Fausto Carmona and C.C. Sabathia of the Indians and Jeff Francis of the Rockies. Yet Lester, barely at the start of his career, and Cook, a 36-35 journeyman, found the strength to prevail.

Within minutes of Lester's exit, Cook was heading to the Colorado dugout. His departure was just as dignified and appreciated by his teammates. However, Cook left after a solo home run into the left field bleachers by Lowell that gave Boston a 3-0 lead. If anything, Rockies Manager Clint Hurdle may have given in to sentiment by allowing Cook to start the seventh after being idle for so long. Nonetheless, Cook not only pitched well but beat out a bunt hit against Lester and robbed the Red Sox of a hit with a fielding gem.

"I don't think it's a coincidence. This game drips with irony at different times for different reasons," said Hurdle of the pitching matchup. "It's happened because it's happened . . . The significance of it is special for every cancer victim that's out there. There's a battle that can be fought and that could be won.

"So, it's good. It's real good."