Take Me Out
I was all set to write a nice entry about baseball. I was at the game tonight--very exciting. The seats were phenomenal, right near the visitors' dugout. I was with my family, I had a foot-long hot dog, and I was happy. I was going to write about how I never get over walking into Fenway Park, climbing up that incline and seeing that great expanse of field, the crowded seats, that magnificent left-field wall. I was going to write about dancing in between innings when they play "Sweet Caroline," the thrill of watching the twist of power in a hitter's arms and back and then the great soaring arc of that small orb that everyone pins their hopes on. I was going to write about how proud I am of Red Sox history: how the last player in all of major league baseball to hit over .400 in a season was our very own Ted Williams, how the last player to win the Triple Crown was our man Yaz.
And then the game just kept going on and on and on. It started at five-ten and I hoped to be home at a decent hour, to finally write a new entry, to take a long hot shower and drink a mug of steaming tea, and go to bed at an hour that would guarantee me more sleep than I've been getting lately. Instead, I've been home for almost half an hour and I'm still not completely warm. I'm exhausted, certain in the knowledge that I'm going to be late for work again tomorrow because I can't ever seem to sleep enough. I left at the bottom of the thirteenth inning, after swearing I'd leave after the eleventh and then the twelfth and bursting into tears several times. My dad just called to tell me they won in the bottom of the fourteenth and I'm not sure I can expend the effort to get excited or really even give a damn. They have to win the next two anyway if they're going to progress further and meanwhile the Patriots have won an historic twenty games in a row and everyone just brushes it off.
I don't know how I'm going to feel in the morning but right now I think I'm over all of it. I'm over Aaron Boone and his homer last year, I'm over Rocket Roger and his betrayal, I'm over Bill Buckner and the '86 World Series, I'm over Bucky F-ing Dent, I'm over '67 and '75 and I am very very over Babe Ruth. There is no curse on the Boston Red Sox; things just are the way they are. Whether they won or lost tonight, whether they win or lose the next two games, even whether or not they win the Series, I still have a full day of work tomorrow. I still have a room to clean and laundry to wash and a to-do list almost as tall as I am. I am so so tired, tired in general and tired of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. I will never like the Yankees and I will always hope they lose. But I can't condone the stupid T-shirts that we sell, that get stupider as time goes by: Yankees Suck, Jeter Swallows, Jeter Swallows A-Rod, A-Rod is an A-hole, Posada is a Little Bitch. This is not the game I want to share with my children someday.
I don't care about the unspoken rules of crowding the plate; I can never be happy that an entire stadium full of people burst out cheering when Hideki Matsui has to bend over backwards to get out of the way of a pitch. Does no one remember Tony Conigliaro? I don't care that you didn't like the call that umpire made: continuing to yell at and threaten him twenty minutes after the call is childish. I don't care that this is your time to "be loose" and "have fun:" you are sitting in front of me and you are disgustingly drunk. You yell obscene, useless things at the opposing players, you give the finger, you stand on your chair. Quite frankly, I don't know how you are standing up on your own anymore. As the night gets later and the game stretches longer, my patience grows thinner and I contemplate homicide. What if I poured your beer on you? What if I pushed you into the Yankees' dugout? What if I gave you a right hook instead of the sloppy high-five you are looking for?
I should be on an emotional high right now. It was a tight game, the Sox led and then fell behind and then came back up and then took over at the last possible minute. They are keeping themselves alive against monstrous odds. These are my boys; I have loved them forever, I have alternately wanted to be them and to marry them. I should not be able to sleep right now--I should be bouncing off the walls. Instead, I want to tear things apart, I want to weep with abandon, I want to sleep forever, I want to curl up with a book and not speak to anyone ever again.
This will go away, right? Baseball will be my favorite sport again, the Red Sox will rule my summer, and I'll be proud to call myself a Bostonian. But first I need to sleep off my rage--in my head I'm alredy waiting for next year and the year after that and the year after that and the year after that...
And then the game just kept going on and on and on. It started at five-ten and I hoped to be home at a decent hour, to finally write a new entry, to take a long hot shower and drink a mug of steaming tea, and go to bed at an hour that would guarantee me more sleep than I've been getting lately. Instead, I've been home for almost half an hour and I'm still not completely warm. I'm exhausted, certain in the knowledge that I'm going to be late for work again tomorrow because I can't ever seem to sleep enough. I left at the bottom of the thirteenth inning, after swearing I'd leave after the eleventh and then the twelfth and bursting into tears several times. My dad just called to tell me they won in the bottom of the fourteenth and I'm not sure I can expend the effort to get excited or really even give a damn. They have to win the next two anyway if they're going to progress further and meanwhile the Patriots have won an historic twenty games in a row and everyone just brushes it off.
I don't know how I'm going to feel in the morning but right now I think I'm over all of it. I'm over Aaron Boone and his homer last year, I'm over Rocket Roger and his betrayal, I'm over Bill Buckner and the '86 World Series, I'm over Bucky F-ing Dent, I'm over '67 and '75 and I am very very over Babe Ruth. There is no curse on the Boston Red Sox; things just are the way they are. Whether they won or lost tonight, whether they win or lose the next two games, even whether or not they win the Series, I still have a full day of work tomorrow. I still have a room to clean and laundry to wash and a to-do list almost as tall as I am. I am so so tired, tired in general and tired of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. I will never like the Yankees and I will always hope they lose. But I can't condone the stupid T-shirts that we sell, that get stupider as time goes by: Yankees Suck, Jeter Swallows, Jeter Swallows A-Rod, A-Rod is an A-hole, Posada is a Little Bitch. This is not the game I want to share with my children someday.
I don't care about the unspoken rules of crowding the plate; I can never be happy that an entire stadium full of people burst out cheering when Hideki Matsui has to bend over backwards to get out of the way of a pitch. Does no one remember Tony Conigliaro? I don't care that you didn't like the call that umpire made: continuing to yell at and threaten him twenty minutes after the call is childish. I don't care that this is your time to "be loose" and "have fun:" you are sitting in front of me and you are disgustingly drunk. You yell obscene, useless things at the opposing players, you give the finger, you stand on your chair. Quite frankly, I don't know how you are standing up on your own anymore. As the night gets later and the game stretches longer, my patience grows thinner and I contemplate homicide. What if I poured your beer on you? What if I pushed you into the Yankees' dugout? What if I gave you a right hook instead of the sloppy high-five you are looking for?
I should be on an emotional high right now. It was a tight game, the Sox led and then fell behind and then came back up and then took over at the last possible minute. They are keeping themselves alive against monstrous odds. These are my boys; I have loved them forever, I have alternately wanted to be them and to marry them. I should not be able to sleep right now--I should be bouncing off the walls. Instead, I want to tear things apart, I want to weep with abandon, I want to sleep forever, I want to curl up with a book and not speak to anyone ever again.
This will go away, right? Baseball will be my favorite sport again, the Red Sox will rule my summer, and I'll be proud to call myself a Bostonian. But first I need to sleep off my rage--in my head I'm alredy waiting for next year and the year after that and the year after that and the year after that...