Knuckling over Bock and forth to Fenway BY SAM PFEIFLE

Is the Red Sox bandwagon full yet? Maybe the fact that it’s uncomfortably packed explains the general malaise that surrounds the team. People are so concerned about suffering from proximity to the newly converted they don’t have time to worry about the fact that our first baseman is a punch-and-judy hitter, that Manny is hitting .250, that Bill Mueller looks like he may never again get the ball out of the infield, that we haven’t heard a peep about when Curt Schilling might get out of the boot (remind you of last year’s Nomar much?), that Keith Foulke looks like he should be closing for USM.

The Orioles aren’t fading, the Yanks are coming on like a freight train, and we’re dropping two out of three to the Mariners. That should be cause for some concern. A World Series championship and the overall watering down of the fanbase, however, have made concern a thing of the recent past. Half of Fenway was wearing Sox caps either green or pink last Wednesday — that may tell you all you need to know.

I was discussing such things, sitting right behind the plate on a beautiful sunny day, with a Sox fan who’s got plenty of street cred: Grant Wilson, owner of the State Theater, the Pie Hole, the Stonecoast Brewing Company, and a variety of other entrepreneurial ventures. Wilson was at game seven of the ’75 series, has season tickets, and knows his baseball. I couldn’t imagine a much better companion for a day game that looked to be a walk in the park until Keith Foulke imploded and Jason Veritek had to bail him out with a walk-off two-run dinger that just eked around the Pesky Pole.

Of course, by that time, Wilson was on his way back to Portland. He figured Foulke could hold a three-run lead. I figured I don’t get to many games and there were plenty of busses home.

We weren’t down there just to see the game though. We were in Fenway so Wilson could show off what must be a lifelong-dream kind of accomplishment. One of his beers, the Knuckleball Bock, is now served in the brand-new sports bar Game On (nice name!), which is actually housed in the basement of Fenway Park. So Knuckleball Bock is now served in Fenway Park — kind of.

It was good enough for me as we threw back a couple bottles each waiting for the game to start. Game On is enormous, ringed with giant flat screens, and even before a day game it’s absolutely buzzing. Stonecoast sales honcho Greg Martens was along, too, and he was going with the oldest sales technique in the book: Hook one drinker at a time. Sitting at the corner of the bar he interested one drinker after another in giving the beer a try. No one was disappointed.

Why would they be? The Knuckleball has flavor aplenty, like most bocks, and a beautiful amber hue, but finishes crisp and clean, and is drinkable enough to be dangerous. I’m two deep in 20 minutes, anxious for my first game of the season.

Wilson’s not the first brewer to attempt to cash in on baseball fans like me. Pete’s Wicked brews a Rally Cap Ale that’s a generic nod to enthusiasts. Brooklyn Brewery offers a Brooklyn Pennant Pale Ale, in honor of the long-gone Dodgers. I even found a beer cocktail called the Green Monster: .5 pint lager, .5 pint cider, and one shot each of vodka, cointreau, midori, peach schnapps, and Southern Comfort.

Clearly, beer and baseball go hand in hand (though the guts on major leaguers have gotten smaller over the years). And just as with his fanship in general, Wilson can say he was there when. He first started brewing the Knuckleball Bock as an attempt at an Octoberfest, but then it came out not quite as dark as they’d hoped, and the flavor just lent itself to a Bock kind of description. Add Wilson’s favorite Sox pitcher at the time, a little assonance, and a beer was born, if only thirty barrels of it in its first year.

Soon, people were drinking it as Wakefield gave up the homer to end game seven on the AL championship series in 2003. Luckily, Wilson didn’t take that as an omen. He brewed more each of the next two years, finally this year putting it in a bottle, coincidentally when the Rex Sox fervor it at its most fevered pitch. It surely can’t hurt sales, right?

A baseball fan in general, Wilson told me he recently caught a game at Wrigley with his kids. He was unimpressed. It was a bit rowdier, a bit dingier, than friendly Fenway. His kids, too, didn’t quite get it. Where were the Red Sox? Those kids will likely grow up true believers, and without being sadistic I hope they experience some of the anguish that comes with watching bad Sox teams. That’s where true fan loyalty is built, in watching for rays of sunshine — a Dewey Evans throw to home plate — on dark days.

Then maybe they’ll appreciate what brought their father to name a beer after a pitch hardly anyone throws anymore, a pitch that once may have lived in Yankee Stadium/Aaron Boone infamy, but now is part and parcel of the long-awaited Red Sox championship.

Or maybe they’ll just need a few beers someday to wash away a 14-6 loss to the Mariners.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at sam@phx.com