I woke up yesterday morning in a cold sweat. The Red Sox looked poised to win the World Series. For a Yankee fan like me, this was a cruel twist of fate indeed, not only to not have the Yankees there but to have the reviled enemy being poised to take the title.
I actually was palpably miserable, but probably not because the Red Sox were going to win. It was more that the occasion left me feeling so isolated. While my neighbors were all cheering I had to ask myself why should I be a Yankee fan? I haven't lived in the New York area in a dozen years. My family doesn't like them, and few friends do either. I have some friends who are A's and Red Sox fans and I trashtalk with them all the time, but that's really the only thing that keeps me engaged. And last week my rhetorical skills seem to have gotten out of hand I may have alienated one of them with my trashtalking, so here I am further out in the wilderness.
But the problem isn't just that I'm a Yankee fan incongruously. The problem is that when I reflect on it, as I couldn't help but do during this year's postseason, it conjures up all this doubt about my life and rather foggy future. Last year at this time it wasn't so much a problem, partly because the Yankees went to the World Series, but also because I thought I could hold out a little longer, being a Yankee fan in Boston, because soon I could get a job in New York, move back to the area, and get to be a Yankee fan in context once again. But such a future is hardly clear right now. No future is clear right now. I don't know what I'll be doing, much less where. And so far it's looking less likely that it will be New York, since most of my energies have been spent looking at opportunities in the Bay Area. Part of me is enthused by that prospect, and part of me is terrified because I don't think I want to settle there forever...
Anyway, the postseason brought up all these negative feelings and I was not a happy person earlier this week.
But, at least baseball-wise, I decided to make the best of it. With the Red Sox needing to win just one more game it seemed likely that they'd be able to do so. Either I could cower under the bed, or I could enjoy the history that was getting made and be excited that I got to be in the middle of it. BU, in its attempts to keep its students out of trouble, decided to show the game on the large scoreboard screen at Nickerson Field. This was an intriguing offer based on what the school included in the invitation:
We believe Nickerson Field may be the best place for Red Sox fans to break the alleged curse that has accounted for one of the most discussed championship droughts in professional baseball. You may know that, according to legend, Babe Ruth signed the so-called "fateful contract" that sent him from the Red Sox to the New York Yankees in an office adjoining Nickerson Field - formerly the Boston Braves Field.
So this is what I did. In the 6th inning my friend and I went over and watched the end of the game, when history changed and the Red Sox ended their epic World Series championship drought. With the city on a euphoric high, people poured down the streets headed towards Kenmore Square. We decided to follow, although there wasn't much to see once we got there except very happy Bostonians. I was happy for my neighbors, and rationalized the Red Sox success as being due to the eclipse. They always said the planets would need to align for the Sox to win, so I guess they were entitled to when the planets finally did.
Comments (1)
Well, I'd like to rationalize it as saying that they won it (and the first three) because it's the first World Series game that they played on my birthday.
I'll forgive you for not doing anything to commemorate it, since there seems to be so many more important things going on in your life.
-Koichi, somehow both a friend of Cathy's and a Red Sox fan
Posted by Koichi | October 30, 2004 12:14 AM
Posted on October 30, 2004 00:14