It also seems that I care way too much about the Red Sox. So much that it's kind of embarrassing. Just what is it about baseball that I find so fascinating? I mean, no other sport -- no other baseball team, even -- gets me this obsessed. After they beat Cleveland, I even went back and watched Fever Pitch again, just to relive 2004. It's a pretty bad movie unless you're a Sox fan and you recognize how insane the region is about the Sox.
At one point, a character says, "They'll break your heart," and everyone nods sagely, because it used to be true. So why love something that keeps kicking you in the teeth?
I started seriously following the Sox when I was eight years old. My folks had split up, I didn't have a lot of friends my own age, and my dad was living at the commune, so I wonder if I didn't get obsessed with baseball to take my mind off everything. It was something I could count on. Or rather, something I could count on failing me, but not leaving me. They were there next game, next week, next season, even if they always broke your heart. But I wonder if that construct -- the expectation of failure, no matter how hard you want something, no matter how hard you root for something -- imprinted a certain negative view of relationships upon me.
Or it could've just been the relationships around me.
Anyway, no matter. The Sox get me all teary eyed, I swear. Watching the video of the Game 4 celebration, I got choked up hearing ancient Christian dude Mike Timlin tell other ancient Christian knuckleballer dude Tim Wakefield that he loved him. How can you not love a team with an outfielder (Manny) who once slipped into the scoreboard in the Green Monster to use the bathroom -- in the middle of an inning! Or a closer who, when the team clinches the pennant, does a bizarre Riverdance while wearing a Bud Light case box on his head. Or a bullpen that startsd a bizarre ritual that looks and sounds like a water bottle drum circle. Or has two -- two! -- cancer survivors, a Navajo descendent who can beat out a grounder to second, an outfielder named Coco Crisp, the aforementioned knuckleballer, and a general manager who once snuck out of the park wearing a gorilla suit (Wendy says he was a jerk in high school, but my softball pal Gabe says his brother was very nice).
And how can you not love a team with adorably hot reporters like Amalie Benjamin? Christ, she's got her own fanclub already.
She looks a little like Joanna, I guess. I asked my hometown friends Gene and Chris if everyone there has a crush on her (Chris used to have crushes on all the Weather Channel girls), and Gene said, "Yes, but she's made cuter because of her sports knowledge." Like a guy who can appreciate Jane Austen, I suppose. Or notices when it's time to clean the bathroom.
Anyway, now I need to find something else to occupy myself. I guess it's good NaNoWriMo starts in two days.
2 comments:
My real dad was at a Red Sox-Yankees game the night I was born. (It was the game before the famous one where Munson and Fisk had a fight and Fisk got thrown out. The Yankees won the night I was born, the Red Sox won the next night.) We were living in Western Mass at the time so my dad didn't make it back in time.
I like the players on the Sox. It's the fans I don't like. And Paul was always the nicer of the Epstein twins.
it's true, you totally learn from your sports team. i was failing in o-chem but i aced the final simply because i watched an inspirational elway comeback the day before. things are looking up for grumpy guy!
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