No Horrible Ending This Time Around

BOSTON — It came down to the 162nd and last game of the regular season for the Boston Red Sox in their pursuit of an American League East title--sweet torture that the cynical and pessimistic of New England might have expected.

Among them was a man familiar with the macabre--author Stephen King, a lifelong Red Sox fan and batting cage visitor before Wednesday night’s game with the Chicago White Sox at Fenway Park.

King lives in Bangor, Me.--”Yeah, in Bangor we’re stuck with the Red Sox.”--but spent Wednesday re-acclimating to the negative spirit in Boston.

“I stuck my head out of the hotel today and everyone said, ‘They’re going to choke. They’re going to fold,’ ” King said. “There was some old guy walking down the street talking to himself, muttering, ‘The Boston Red Sox. The Boston Red Sox. What a bunch of . . . beauties.’ ”

Asked about the possibility of a one-game division playoff with the Toronto Blue Jays, King said he was teaching at the University of Maine in 1978 when the New York Yankees beat Boston in the playoff game won by Bucky Dent’s home run.

“I had canceled classes that day, and after Dent’s home run, I put a sign on the door saying they were canceled for another two weeks,” King said. “It cast a pall over the entire season. I gained 25 pounds.

“That was the worst yet. But who’s to say it can’t get worse?”