The Sports Beat

The end of a season is usually a tough pill to swallow.  After countless hours “wasted” watching grown men at child’s play, you can’t stomach the thought that the season, and the team you’ve watched over like your seed, is gone.  Curt Flood assured us of this fact.  Your team will not be the same the next year.  Faces, personalities, and abilities all fall with autumn leaves.

I am a devout follower of the religion known as baseball.  Although I’ve always felt strongly about the game that gave us Jackie Robinson and Ted Williams, I was once a Red Sox fan first.  Suffering, as ridiculous as it is to call not winning a World Series as such, was my makeup.  I could take it, because I had to.  With the end of every season, none more harsh than that of 2003, I steadied myself with the knowledge that in the spring the newly formed Red Sox “Nation” would be back stronger than ever, improved and ready to clash with the Empire, or any other foe standing in the way (although there really was no one else keeping us in purgatory).  

And then, 2004 happened. 

After Idiots came back, I became a man, at least in the baseball sense.  I’m now a fan of the game first, with the Sox a close 1A.

In this light, we head to Game 5 at Fenway Park against the team I had kept an eye on for years.  To channel Jim Morrison, Tampa Bay had the guns but we had the numbers.  Or at least until Daisuke Matsuzaka took the mound Thursday evening down the street from Kenmore Square.

Homer after homer sailed over the Green Monster, deflating a crowd that had been pumped past its suggested PSI. 

Down 5-0, with the departure of the least-enthralling good pitcher I’ve ever watched, I decided it was time to take a break and tune in to The Office.  After a fantastic half hour of Steve Carrell’s awkwardness, we tuned back in to the slaughter of the Sox, one that was looking bloodier than Curt Schilling’s celebrity stocking, more out of duty than desire.

You stay loyal above all else.  See it through to the end. 

As my roommate had predicted, Manny Delcarmen had spotted Tampa an additional two runs of insurance–and quality stuff, no AIG accepted in Florida.  It was all over.  The only question was whether or not we could muster a run and avoid a shutout before they shovelled dirt over our eyes.  Or so we thought.

A break here, a smart play there, an eruption from Papi’s eerily silent bat, and another J.D. Drew post-season resurrection later, it had happened.  The game was back on, and so was the season.

Down 7-0 with two outs in the bottom of the 7th, the Boston Red Sox had come back. 

Perplexed, I watched with equal parts disbelief and fear.  I had already moved on, and here she was, my ex-love, wooing me back.  It couldn’t possibly end well, but foolishly I had hitched myself back to my love.  Perhaps it was shadenfreude, but I couldn’t look away.

At 12:16 am on October 17th I remembered why I watch.

We spend our time and money hoping special athletes who may or may not be special people (and trust me, several of your favorite players are far from that) will give us the feeling that overtook us when we were young. That’s what sports is all about–the reclamation of our youthful exuberance. 

In the opening lines of Friday morning I felt the way I did in 2003 when Derek Lowe threw the greatest two-seam fastball I had ever seen to an unsuspecting Terence Long.

After J.D. Drew hit a line drive that sailed over the head of Tampa Bay’s Gabe Gross, silent screams in the depth of night mixed with leaps of immeasurable height had me feeling 17 again.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS