I have done this before, so I’ll be brief.

It was in a darkened car, listening to the radio, that I saw Roger Clemens strike out Luis Castillo last night, and that ultimately seems like the right way. I grew up with the sound of baseball in my ear, and called correctly you can see the game. I could see the fastball, the swing, the crowd rising. Scully used to do the thing after a home run, shutting up to let us listen to the roar of the crowd. There was 38 seconds his silence, only cheering, after Sandy Koufax struck out Harvey Kuenn for the final out of his 1965 perfect game.

I watched most of the game on TV, and it was pretty memorable, Clemens screwing up that first inning and then rising above it to pitch the right way, the tough and memorable way, for the next six brilliant innings. Storybook baseball, screw the ending. And then I had to go pick up the girls from school, so I flipped on the radio and listened in the darkness of a cool Albuquerque evening to what we assume will be Roger Clemens’ last inning on the mound.

I became a Yankee fan by listening to them on the radio, so that seems the right spot for this.

In the middle of game 7 of the American League championship series (that memorable extra-innings battle the Yankees won on Aaron Boone’s walkoff home run), when it looked like the Yankees were done, Derek Jeter leaned over to Boone and said, “The ghosts will show up eventually.” That’s not exactly cocky, but is an odd way of looking at things. Before Game 7 of the 2001 Arizona-Yankee World Series, Diamondback starter Curt Schilling guaranteed his fans a win. Jeter, one of enigmatic baseball minds of the 21st century, was more circumspect that year – no ghosts, just a smile: “I guarantee it’ll be a lot of fun.”

So it’s a three-game series now, and it is a lot of fun. Perhaps I’ll listen on the radio.