RED SOX! (Part deux)

As promised, I’m writing more about the Red Sox, sedate and sober. Hold on for a sec — I have to do this one last time.

Wooooooooohooooooooooo!

There. I’m done for now.

Everyone has seen me wearing my Red Sox hat. Yes, the red “B” stands for Boston, my favorite baseball team since I started following the Majors when I was a kid. It was around the time of the strike, and I remember the Red Sox had an awesome first baseman by the name of Mo Vaughn. I was hunting around for a team to call my own, a team I could bleed and die for. All my friends were Cubs or Cardinals fans; I didn’t care much for the Cardinals, and the Cubs pissed me off. Their day games always preempted a beloved after school game show on WGN (which I don’t remember the name of). I’d turn on the TV and see rows of shirtless bleacher bums and hear the slurred commentary of Harry Carry. (I have a love-hate relationship with the Cubs, and I’ll stop explaining it here.) A two-page spread of Mo Vaughn in Sports Illustrated — in the batter’s box, with the Fenway faithful crammed in their seats in the background — caught my attention, and it’s been glued to the Red Sox ever since.

I’ve had a relatively easy ride as a BoSox fan, and didn’t suffer through much of the Babe’s famous curse. I wasn’t watching when Bill Buckner let Mookie Wilson’s groundball roll beneath his glove. Bucky Dent’s three-run homer to end the Red Sox season in a one game playoff was four years before I was born. But I did suffer through the heartbreaking lows of being knocked out of the playoffs in ’95 and ‘98 by the Indians, a 4-1 schlacking by the Yankees in the ’99 ALCS, and the devastating homerun by Aaron Boone to clinch the ’03 ALCS, lifting the Yankees to the World Series once again. Not to mention the promising starts that gave way to mid-season meltdowns (which has been about every year I can remember, though they have come with different results).

Being a Red Sox fan is like parking your car on railroad tracks. The coast may be clear for now, but sooner or later a freight train will come barreling down the tracks and T-bone you into a long and hard emotional recovery that lasts all winter. Despite the threat of heartache lurking around the corner, there’s a lot of pride in it. I love being the underdog, the person who hopes, dreams, and believes. The Red Sox personify the little guy, who works hard at what he does and holds his head high despite the shortfalls in his achievements. Those hardships only make triumph and victory that much sweeter.

It’s fun to walk around wearing my Red Sox hat. People take notice, and give me the look that says, “I bet it feels great to be him.” The original deep blue has faded to a light gray, and the bottom edges are stained with the tan of dry sweat. It's an old and well worn hat, and it shows my loyalty — and maybe the fact I need to wash it. But if I wash it, will I wash always all the success and curse the team once more?

I think I’d rather buy a new hat.