Sunday, August 17, 2003
Dulce et Decorum Est
What a sweet game the Red Sox played yesterday. If only more games could follow this same pattern: Ace three-hits the opponent; Sluggers slug; Bullpen shuts the door.
Regarding the bullpen, I love this metaphor from Silverman:
With six weeks to go, the final chapter of the soap opera known as "The Fall and Rise of the Red Sox' 2003 Bullpen" has yet to be written.
But 20 weeks into this season, this much we know: When the relief corps' results cried out, "Get me rewrite!" the Red Sox responded with the biggest shredding job since the Enron scandal (Herald).
As Theo Epstein is quoted as saying in the same article, "We're a good team, not a perfect team.… I like it."
I like it, too.
Meanwhile, looks like some Seattle fans need to be shut off the mochachinos as the caffeine is making them jittery:
… Red Sox fans are next to Yankees fans as the most obnoxious in baseball. They're poor losers and loudmouthed braggarts in victory, and the share the same sense of superiority, as if their fandom was worth more, and more deeply felt, than yours could possibly be … Red Sox fans pretend their long-suffering is of epic importance… (Zumsteg, U.S.S. Mariner).
Well, I don't think we are "pretending" that our long-suffering is of "epic importance." It is of epic importance. And using the the literary sense of epic, i.e., "a literary or dramatic composition that resembles an extended narrative poem celebrating heroic feats," well, duh, that's what gets me out of bed in the morning. That is my raison d'etre for every word I write in this weblog. (And I'm not pretending.)
As for the charge Zumsteg levels about our "sense of superiority" over the fandom of other teams, I plead guilty. Let's put it this way, if you randomly grab a person in say, Iowa, and ask them to name the first three things that pop into their head when they hear the word "Seattle" you think the Mariners will be one of them?
Now try the same word association with Boston and I'm willing to bet that the "Red Sox" will come to mind nearly every time you ask the question.
What I'm saying is that being a Red Sox fan is so closely identified with the essence of Boston and New England that it is a fan experience unlike any other (with the exception of New York and Philly, perhaps, two other fan groups who get the same charges consistently leveled against them).
I don't think this sense of superiority or entitlement is intentionally meant as a slur on the fans from other cities/regions, but I can understand how it might be perceived as such, just as most American tourists don't consciously intend to be perceived as rude and obnoxious when traveling overseas.
The joy is being who we are, not in being better than someone else.
With that said, though, the thought of being a fan of any other team in baseball leaves me feeling decidedly empty. As Red Sox fans, we crave the epic. We were born to.
