The Tragedy of the Red Sox win
This morning I woke up with a futile mission on my hands. To avoid any news of the World Series scores for the entire day until myself and a couple of friends met with beer and dip that evening to watch a recording.
It's not a novel idea. Millions must do it. Unable to watch live and knowing the highlight shows just won't satisfy their needs. And so, I and countless others set out to accomplish this task, to watch the game in its entirety, recorded on a mate's dodgy VHS.
Within an hour I knew the score and of the Red Sox win, thanks to a colleague who blurted out, in a painfully casual way "the Red Sox did well, didn't they?"
Who amongst us has the strength of will not to punish such people with belts and batons?
But enough of that. Finally a World Series win in Boston, an end to the curse hullabaloo and a collective sigh of relief big enough to shift the ice caps.
But for me, this feeling only lasted a little less than an hour. The tide of normality swept back ashore, and took with it any joy I had.
Is this the same team I chose to follow those years ago? The same irritatingly above average, high priced clubbers the game dispatched from Beantown everyday? It didn't feel like it. Sure, I had my moment to celebrate; a shiny new world of World Series glory and of new legends, but now it's turned into something else.
I found myself looking back to last year, the Grady Little days when it seemed running at full pelt never seemed enough to keep up with the Yankees, but we managed to keep up because the empire kept tripping over themselves. Those were the days of overachievement, hope and a subtle understanding that they just weren't quite good enough.
Now, all that has changed. I don't want to read about it any more. I know what will be said, and until this World Series win is part of recent Red Sox history I will not quite feel comfortable to lean on it. Like DIY furniture with instructions in Korean, building a World Series victory is difficult, and the instructions are usually in Yankee.
So, onto next season, that's what I say. Like the day after a birthday there is inevitable anti-climax. Theo Epstein wants some kind of Red Sox era, like in the good old days when they won everything every year. I'm not sure it was all rosy back in 1918, but I'll settle for some modest domination for a while.
And so what if we return to average ways? There are always the Yankees to beat.
Steve Bartley is yet to decide whether to file for free agency this winter. If you're a Major League General Manager looking to boost your team's OBP, write to bartley_stephen@hotmail.com