There comes a time in every man's life when he's faced with an old enemy, one who's  always had his number.  The defeat is a foregone conclusion, and good healthy humility gives way to outright embarrassment.  In these times, a man has to respond.  Some lay down, or refuse to even engage the enemy.  Others get up and fight the fight, at the very least to keep from having to wonder what could have happened. One of my favorite moments in sports came in the fall of 2004, when the perennial runner-up Boston Red Sox faced the mighty dynasty that was the New York Yankees for the American League championship.  The Red Sox had been so long without a World Series championship, losing many times seemingly by divine intervention, that many believed that the team was cursed.  The Yankees at that time had played in six of the last nine world series' and had won four of them.  They enjoyed what was known as the Yankee mystique, an uncanny ability to pull out come-from-behind victory after come-from-behind victory, no matter how deep the deficit.

In this particular best of seven series, the Yankees had beaten the great Curt Schilling, who was suffering with an ankle injury,  in game one.  In game two, Boston's other ace, hall-of-famer Pedro Martinez, was unable to stop the Yankee machine.  And, in game three the Yankees crushed the Red Sox by a score of 19-8.  No team in baseball history had ever come back from a 3-0 deficit and won a best of seven series.

The next afternoon during warm-ups, Boston first baseman Kevin Millar was interviewed by the Boston Globe's Dan Schaunessy, who had not been kind to the Sox in his column the night before, calling them "a pack of frauds."  Millar remarked, "Don't let us win tonight."  His thinking was that if they could only win game four, avoiding elimination, the comeback would be doable, since the next two games would be pitched by Martinez and Schilling.  And, once game seven was forced, anything could happen.

Sure enough, in the early hours of the morning of October 17th, Boston forced a game five.  And, true to Millar's prediction, Martinez won that next game.

Game six has gone down in history as one of the most dramatic pitching performances in the story of baseball.  Curt Schilling started the game on an ankle that had been operated on that morning.  Schilling would pitch seven innings allowing only one run on four hits, in what has become known as "the bloody sock game", in reference to his ankle that had bled visibly and continuously throughout the game.

The Sox went on to make history by coming back from a 3-0 deficit to slay the Yankee beast, and go on to win their first world series title in 86 years.

It's one of those stories that never fails to give me chills when I think about it.  Our hearts are quickened by stories like these, of men who just won't quit.  But, stories like these are wasted on us if we won't do the same.