Sunday, August 31, 2003
Another Nail in My Heart
I'll confess I'm bottomed out this morning, terribly disappointed in the result of yesterday's game. I know we Red Sox fans are accused of being fickle, emotionally immature, one day on top of the world and the next all doom and gloom, so it'd be easy to say my mood this morning is just another manifestation of that, no?
No.
For me yesterday's game was ominous from every angle. It didn't feel like a "It may have been just one of those days," as pitching coach Dave Wallace referred to the game, because there have been a few too many of those days.
… in the two games against Hudson and Pettitte, Martinez lasted a combined nine innings, allowing 14 hits and seven earned runs. He lost both times. In each instance, he wasn't even able to answer the bell for the sixth inning (Massarotti, Herald).
What makes this different from the typical post tough loss depression and angst, is the feeling I've been trying to deny since last year during the whole "wonderland" incident: Pedro Martinez isn't the same anymore and evidence suggests he won't ever be the pitcher he was in '99.
I still feel very strongly that this Red Sox team will make the playoffs, and once there "anything can happen," as they say. But when we can't count on Pedro to be the man, then playing deep into October seems like it will all have to come down to lots of luck. As a lifelong Red Sox fan, I'm not really heartened by that scenario.
But here is something to lash onto when the ship is reeling. In today's Washington Post Magazine, staff writer and Red Sox fan Bob Thompson has a feature about baseball that is a must read. Among his many sagacious observations about the game, Thompson writes of the quintessence of our collective fan experience:
… the value of a baseball team comes from more than just the personal pleasure it provides. Growing up in New England taught me that its true value lies in the bonding it promotes among otherwise disparate fans, and in the connective tissue it builds, game after game, season after season, within the region it symbolizes and represents.
And Thompson's observation here is spot on:
In a period when a tidal wave of homogenization has surged across America, washing out regional differences, New Englanders have resisted the process more than most. They want badly to be, if not unique, at least distinguishable from the mass of their malled and supermarketed fellow citizens. Red Sox fandom has become a marker for the kind of distinctive identity they seek. For newcomers to the region, in particular, it is a bridge to the people they've come to join, a way to assert their membership in something special.
Something special, indeed, and that's what I cling to on a morning like this.
OK. Time to go fantasize about the outcome of this afternoon's game, enjoy your Labor Day weekend Red Sox fans.
