Carefree days are over for Sox fans
Pennant race has Yankee angst in full bloom
Maybe
it didn’t really happen. Maybe the Boston Red Sox World Series title of 2004 was an illusion; a fantasy to entertain a starved Sox Nation and locked-out hockey fans.
How else to explain the lack of serenity in New England?
It’s like old times regarding sport’s greatest rivalry. The Sox are trying to fend off their mortal enemy — the Yankees are charging hard in September. As the days of summer dwindle to hours, the Sox held a half- game lead over New York heading into last night.
Baseball’s regular season culminates in a weekend series at Fenway Park, with pinstripes all over the visitors’ dugout. And if those three games, plus the previous 159 games, can’t produce a division winner, the Yankees have won the coin toss and Yankee Stadium would play host to a onegame playoff. It would be 1978 revisited, with the venues reversed.
A couple of weeks ago, Boston held a four-game lead over a New York team that didn’t seem capable of winning a wild-card berth, let alone the AL East. But over the past 12 games going into last night, the Red Sox have slumped to 5- 7 while New York went 9-3.
Boston fans cannot see past New York. Those stripes are like prison bars, all over again. Shouldn’t it be different after last year’s celebration? It should, but it isn’t.
Dinah Miller submitted this item to the Boston Globe a while back, about her husband’s endless baseball worry.
“ I got used to the roller- coaster. Every June, David’s hopes would quietly rise. He’s not a believer in ‘ The Curse,’ and he’d get angry at the romanticized view of loss as destiny. Every spring, he’d start off happy, proclaiming, ‘ This is the year.’ And every year, by August the Red Sox’ performance would slide, taking David’s mood with it. Until, of course, last year when they won. For weeks after, we’d be out and people would come up to us and congratulate David, as if it was his own personal victory.
“My husband was pleased. Pleased. He even used that word. Not ecstatic, euphoric, elated, or rapturous, but pleased. Perhaps, I thought, after all these years of waiting, this would add some protective sheen to life, would make it impenetrable to life’s blows. After all, the Red Sox had won the World Series.
“I thought this year would be different. David should relax. He should not be so invested and obsessed; after all, they have already won and his goal has been met. So this year should be different, and it is — unexpectedly, David is worse. He stands (yes, stands) in front of the television each night toggling back and forth between the Red Sox and the Yankees, yelling at the screen. They remain in first place, and he yells even when they are winning. Poor Manny Ramirez almost didn’t catch a ball, and he was deemed worse than David’s Little Leaguers. We went away last weekend, leaving the satellite dish and NESN behind, but he huddled under the covers checking the playbyplay on his Blackberry.
“I’m still trying to figure it out. Perhaps it’s simply a matter of wanting more. Now that David knows it can be done, well then it must be done. A goal, not a pipe dream. Why, I wonder? So he can be pleased two years in a row? In the meantime, I wake at night to find the television on — extra innings on the West Coast — and I look forward to the end of the season when my husband’s normal personality returns and I get to choose a TV show.”
In her own words, Dinah Miller is a psychiatrist and “a Red Sox fan by marriage.”
A perfect combination.
CanWest News Service