here victory is an endangered species
When people asked me if I followed the Red Sox, I'd usually preface my answer with "I used to live in Kenmore Square. And I'm not a baseball fan." Typically, that was enough to explain things -- like why my jaw still clenches and my body still tenses up whenever I hear that the Sox are playing at home, even now, when I no longer live in the shadow of Fenway Park. I used to keep a game schedule at work, the sole purpose of which was to warn me of the days when I needed to get out early to beat fan traffic. For it was either that or spend a few hours in Harvard Square, getting dinner and reading comic books while waiting for the game to end and the fans to leave the resident parking spots.
I used to live in Kenmore Square, and I'm not a baseball fan. That usually meant I was cursing the Sox on a nigh weekly basis, and heaving a great sigh of relief when the season would end.
... and then, one Monday night, I showed up early at An Tua Nua. Most of what I knew of the Sox season thus far came from news osmosis, minor snippets mentioned in passing on NPR after talk of Iraq and the economy. Playoffs . . . coming back from two games behind . . . could Go All The Way . . . reports of Pedro walking on water . . . month-end forecast for Hell freezing over. I knew about The Curse, and the rivalry with the Yankees. Few Boston residents are ignorant of such lore, nor are they unaware of the general woefulness of the average Sox fan, who has spent year after year hoping against hope for a World Series victory, a near century-long string of disappointment. Recently someone wondered why it seemed like everyone they knew was talking about religion and I said, "dude, it's playoff season. Nothing brings out the concepts of faith, suffering and eternal damnation more than seeing the Red Sox make a pennant run."
The bar was packed, and there were three TVs going simultaneously, jammed with Sox fans watching the final game against Oakland, with Boston trailing 0-1. Goth kids and gearheads slipped past, on their way to the back room, where I usually spent my Monday nights. I lingered in the front room, though, ordering a portabello mushroom sandwich for dinner, and my original plan was to find a quiet corner somewhere and break out a book, but I started to watch the game while I was waiting for my food, and I saw Varitek's solo homer that tied it up. I heard the cheer that went up, and felt that tidal shift that periodically infects baseball games, where despair gives way to hope after a single swing of a bat. So I stuck around for the three run homer that put Boston in the lead, and by the time I finished my food, the score was 4-2 to Boston. I headed into the back room, but I'd step out to the front bar from time to time, to check on the score. I still wasn't a baseball fan ... just being curious, you know.
Later in the night, after the game was done, and the Sox were heading for the American League Championship against the Yankees, one round away from the World Series, I was hanging outside with Panzer, who was manning the door. Out on the street, jubilant fans were running towards Fenway Park, whooping with glee, yelling "Go Sox!" and "Bring on the Yankees!" There was a raver girl, short creature dwarfed by big hair and bigger pants, smoking a cigarette nearby, pumping her fists in the air and yelling "Riot! Riot!" Smoke from small fires burned to the east, and rumors of a car being flipped floated in the air. Panzer and I just shook our heads and he said, "It's just a playoff game. They haven't won yet."
"But it's Boston," I replied, "here victory is an endangered species."
*
I'd be lying if I said that I didn't pay attention to the following series. I tuned in occasionally on the way home from work, scanning AM stations until I found the play-by-play, listening in the span of time it took for me to get home, and then perhaps refreshing the reports on boston.com or mlb.com while I was working at my computer. My friends had picked it up too, posting reactions on their journals, debating the sex appeal of Johnny Damon's mullet, stopping for a brief moment on an evening in Chinatown to peek in the window of a bar and catch the current score. Few of us ever were sports fans of any color, but we were getting swept up in the drama and the tension, asking ourselves if they could indeed go all the way.
It was that question that made us pay attention. Few of us had the patience to watch most baseball games, because most of them lacked any sense of urgency. With over a hundred games in the regular season, there was never the sense that one particular match-up could decide anything. But present us with a night where a century of history could be reversed in the space of time it takes for a ball to sail out of a ballpark, and then you've got our interest. So, as the games progressed, and as the Sox fell behind, then came back, then fell behind again, and came back again, and as it all boiled down to one final game in the series with the apparently ever-so-evil Yankees atalanta said, "Hey, want to come over and watch the game?" and my passing interest gave way, and I said "sure."
We sat in the living room with mrzero and silas7 talking about how none of us paid attention to baseball until this last week, laughing over our unlikely and momentary conversion. Our conversation smacked of ignorance that would've gotten us labelled as tourists in any sports bar. ("that's Jeter, right? People dislike him, right? Why?" "Why's Nomar so popular? He doesn't seem to be all that special."), but we still found ourselves cheering as the Sox put up a 4-0 lead, grimacing as the Yankees started putting runners on base, and clenching our teeth as Pedro Martinez's pitching fell apart in the 8th and the game became tied. The bottom of the 9th was agony, and each extra inning was an eternity of wilfull optimism cycling into despair then fear then back to optimism. It was torture, and it was stupefying to think of what it might be like to subject yourself to this condition, day after day and year after year.
When I used to live in San Francisco, in the heyday of the 49ers Football, I'd watch these last minute crises, where the Niners would be down by a few points with two minutes left. Defeat loomed over the field, but more times than not, Montana or Young would shrug the doom off their shoulders, and craft some last-minute miracle that would vindicate the faith that we had in their skill and puissance. For, if there was anything that marked the character of a 49ers fan in the Eighties, it was faith -- and the sure knowledge that in San Francisco, Super Bowl victories were as constant as the fog that rolled in on summer mornings. If there's anything that marks the character of a Sox fan, it is hope -- and the lesson of last night was that faith and hope might seem similar, but in the face of crisis, a gulf of difference can separate the two.
I felt disappointed during every season when the 49ers would lose the playoffs, but no football game has left me as hollow as the 11th inning home run that crushed the Red Sox and let the Yankees on to the World Series. I'm not a baseball fan, and I can still hate the traffic in Kenmore Square on a Monday night home game, but I'll never the curse the Sox again, nor would I ever regret sharing a city with their fans.
I used to live in Kenmore Square, and I'm not a baseball fan. That usually meant I was cursing the Sox on a nigh weekly basis, and heaving a great sigh of relief when the season would end.
... and then, one Monday night, I showed up early at An Tua Nua. Most of what I knew of the Sox season thus far came from news osmosis, minor snippets mentioned in passing on NPR after talk of Iraq and the economy. Playoffs . . . coming back from two games behind . . . could Go All The Way . . . reports of Pedro walking on water . . . month-end forecast for Hell freezing over. I knew about The Curse, and the rivalry with the Yankees. Few Boston residents are ignorant of such lore, nor are they unaware of the general woefulness of the average Sox fan, who has spent year after year hoping against hope for a World Series victory, a near century-long string of disappointment. Recently someone wondered why it seemed like everyone they knew was talking about religion and I said, "dude, it's playoff season. Nothing brings out the concepts of faith, suffering and eternal damnation more than seeing the Red Sox make a pennant run."
The bar was packed, and there were three TVs going simultaneously, jammed with Sox fans watching the final game against Oakland, with Boston trailing 0-1. Goth kids and gearheads slipped past, on their way to the back room, where I usually spent my Monday nights. I lingered in the front room, though, ordering a portabello mushroom sandwich for dinner, and my original plan was to find a quiet corner somewhere and break out a book, but I started to watch the game while I was waiting for my food, and I saw Varitek's solo homer that tied it up. I heard the cheer that went up, and felt that tidal shift that periodically infects baseball games, where despair gives way to hope after a single swing of a bat. So I stuck around for the three run homer that put Boston in the lead, and by the time I finished my food, the score was 4-2 to Boston. I headed into the back room, but I'd step out to the front bar from time to time, to check on the score. I still wasn't a baseball fan ... just being curious, you know.
Later in the night, after the game was done, and the Sox were heading for the American League Championship against the Yankees, one round away from the World Series, I was hanging outside with Panzer, who was manning the door. Out on the street, jubilant fans were running towards Fenway Park, whooping with glee, yelling "Go Sox!" and "Bring on the Yankees!" There was a raver girl, short creature dwarfed by big hair and bigger pants, smoking a cigarette nearby, pumping her fists in the air and yelling "Riot! Riot!" Smoke from small fires burned to the east, and rumors of a car being flipped floated in the air. Panzer and I just shook our heads and he said, "It's just a playoff game. They haven't won yet."
"But it's Boston," I replied, "here victory is an endangered species."
*
I'd be lying if I said that I didn't pay attention to the following series. I tuned in occasionally on the way home from work, scanning AM stations until I found the play-by-play, listening in the span of time it took for me to get home, and then perhaps refreshing the reports on boston.com or mlb.com while I was working at my computer. My friends had picked it up too, posting reactions on their journals, debating the sex appeal of Johnny Damon's mullet, stopping for a brief moment on an evening in Chinatown to peek in the window of a bar and catch the current score. Few of us ever were sports fans of any color, but we were getting swept up in the drama and the tension, asking ourselves if they could indeed go all the way.
It was that question that made us pay attention. Few of us had the patience to watch most baseball games, because most of them lacked any sense of urgency. With over a hundred games in the regular season, there was never the sense that one particular match-up could decide anything. But present us with a night where a century of history could be reversed in the space of time it takes for a ball to sail out of a ballpark, and then you've got our interest. So, as the games progressed, and as the Sox fell behind, then came back, then fell behind again, and came back again, and as it all boiled down to one final game in the series with the apparently ever-so-evil Yankees atalanta said, "Hey, want to come over and watch the game?" and my passing interest gave way, and I said "sure."
We sat in the living room with mrzero and silas7 talking about how none of us paid attention to baseball until this last week, laughing over our unlikely and momentary conversion. Our conversation smacked of ignorance that would've gotten us labelled as tourists in any sports bar. ("that's Jeter, right? People dislike him, right? Why?" "Why's Nomar so popular? He doesn't seem to be all that special."), but we still found ourselves cheering as the Sox put up a 4-0 lead, grimacing as the Yankees started putting runners on base, and clenching our teeth as Pedro Martinez's pitching fell apart in the 8th and the game became tied. The bottom of the 9th was agony, and each extra inning was an eternity of wilfull optimism cycling into despair then fear then back to optimism. It was torture, and it was stupefying to think of what it might be like to subject yourself to this condition, day after day and year after year.
When I used to live in San Francisco, in the heyday of the 49ers Football, I'd watch these last minute crises, where the Niners would be down by a few points with two minutes left. Defeat loomed over the field, but more times than not, Montana or Young would shrug the doom off their shoulders, and craft some last-minute miracle that would vindicate the faith that we had in their skill and puissance. For, if there was anything that marked the character of a 49ers fan in the Eighties, it was faith -- and the sure knowledge that in San Francisco, Super Bowl victories were as constant as the fog that rolled in on summer mornings. If there's anything that marks the character of a Sox fan, it is hope -- and the lesson of last night was that faith and hope might seem similar, but in the face of crisis, a gulf of difference can separate the two.
I felt disappointed during every season when the 49ers would lose the playoffs, but no football game has left me as hollow as the 11th inning home run that crushed the Red Sox and let the Yankees on to the World Series. I'm not a baseball fan, and I can still hate the traffic in Kenmore Square on a Monday night home game, but I'll never the curse the Sox again, nor would I ever regret sharing a city with their fans.