the apocalypse, the moon, the end of the baseball season
Right, so. There's a lot going on tonight.
It's all about faith and something, man, something. Okay. I'm gonna try to do this right.
Mainly, just that I always figured when it happened, it would happen in some earth-shattering, light-blinding, Game 7 sort of way. I figured it would happen at Fenway and the fans would rush the field, stormtroopers be damned and take your riot gear elsewhere, it's been 86 years and they've earned this.
My brother had to go teach his astronomy class tonight sometime around the 5th, he had me sending him text message updates on the game. I said something about Danny Haren being a little bit adorable (haven't the slightest idea what's wrong with me), and something about that play to the plate Albert Pujols made to keep the Sox from adding on after loading the bases with no outs, and the last one I sent him said nothing but, "The Boston Red Sox just won the World Series."
He just sent me one back: "I quote, 'And behold, a pale horse. And him that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him, but first the Sox won the series.' Have you SEEN the MOON?!?!?!?"
I miss my brother.
This, though, I heard there was gonna be a lunar eclipse tonight and I knew it was gonna happen. Because that, that just doesn't happen.
You talk about faith and not believing in God but believing in baseball and maybe that means the same thing, because the Boston Red Sox won the World Series tonight and they did it when the moon was missing from the sky. Fuckin' chills, man.
I went out to smoke post-game cigarettes and I fought my way through the joyous howling crowds in the street, kids in Manny Ramirez and Ted Williams jerseys, kids with the B on their caps and Boston across their hearts, and I walked around the block where it was quieter. I had my headphones on and I walked past a guy talking on the phone, but he grinned at me and pointed up and he said, "The eclipse."
Just in case I didn't know.
It's baseball and it's the way I made four friends in the elevator, an Indians fan, a Braves fan, and two kids in Red Sox hats who were I swear to God crying.
And I wasn't really pulling for either team, and the Series as a whole was a disappointment, in strict terms of the quality of baseball played. I didn't want a sweep for the purely selfish reason of wanting three more baseball games to watch, 'cause it's a long winter.
But when Foulke, my own Keith Foulke who I made a Magic Marker sign for last year, Keith Foulke with his Danzig and his changeup and his totally awesome little-boy obsesssion with race cars, when he snared that comebacker to end it, something happened in my stomach, close to my heart, something.
God, I fucking love this game.
It was anticlimactic, yes. Mainly in the sense that it wasn't gonna be better than the ALCS, because really, how could it have been? And the Red Sox didn't win so much as the Cardinals lost, and you think I'd be used to stuff like a great team going cold at precisely the wrong time, but still, the curse is over, the curse is over, the curse is over, and it should have gone the distance. It should have come down to Game 7 at Fenway on Halloween.
But Game 4 in St. Louis on the night of a lunar eclipse . . . there is some spooky shit happening up there. I love it.
The season's over. Painful. This whole livejournal thing, in a bunch of ways it's been, what, motivatory, if I may make up words. I look back and trace the season from the posts I wrote about it. The stories I wrote as stuff happened to my team. And I'm thinking about Phoenix.
I stood on the street corner and smoked another cigarette and listened to Leonard Cohen and watched the moon edging back into view. The last eclipse I saw was in London. We stood in the courtyard with our heads craned back and our arms around each other's shoulders and waists because it was fucking cold in London that night, and the moon disappeared.
Stuff that happens in the sky fucks me up. Makes me philosophical like bad weather and traveling by rail and baseball. It's one of those things you can't really figure out, like everything that happened during the streak in '02, and the fact that the night my best friend died, Marco Scutaro hit a walk-off and I was there to see it because I held onto the good of the game, and counting time with the seasons, a year gone, a year older, the way I get kind of sad when I look at the date and 27 October 2004 seems so strange to me, some far away time I didn't expect to see.
Ever since the millenium, it's been like this. I still mess up and write 2001 sometimes when I'm not thinking about it.
But the season's over. With no baseball to distract me, I am now single-minded. Pass my classes, stay clean, write and then, later, write some more. Get my absentee ballot in the mail and vote in my first presidential election. Think about California more than I should. Wait for it to snow in Washington, DC. Wait for the moon to come back out from behind the shadow.
Fuckin' off-season. This, right here, right now, this is as far away as I get from baseball. Phoenix is a long way off and I'm always kind of stunned when I make it through another winter. Yeah, the game means too much to me, I know, I know.
But tonight the Red Sox won the World Series and the moon was gone and it's a good thing to believe in, I think, it's better than the alternative.
Stay safe, be good. If you're in Boston, stay away from the cops but stay close to the crowd. Don't set anything on fire. Cry if you gotta, show your face while you do it. We can understand.
Four months till pitchers and catchers report.