...if I can keep this up. I've been a Red Sox fan my entire life, or at least as long as I can remember. Last year's debacle was heartbreaking enough, a game seven that was just excessively brutal to endure. This year seemed like "our year" (although to a Sox fan, every year seems like "our year"). However, as of yesterday evening, prior to 7:30, it seemed fate (or the curse, or divine providence, or the vast right-wing conspiracy) had other ideas. Prior to last night, we seemed on the verge of abject humiliation, the unthinkable was ready to happen, we were nine innings away from being swept by the Yankees in the ALCS.
But it was not to be, the baseball gods felt it prudent (or just plain amusing) to subject Red Sox fans to at least another day of hypertension, anxiety, and self doubt.
Not that I'd have preferred if the Sox lost last night. On the contrary, I'm thrilled; a come-from-behind, 12th inning walk-off home run win is a beautiful thing, it propelled me into my day with an optimistic outlook and a smile on my face. But I'm not sure that I can deal with it again. There is just something about the Red Sox facing elimination at the hands of the Yankees. Yes, we avoided a year of broom taunts at the hands of NY fans with the extra-innings win last night, but now we possess that most dangerous of feelings--especially when in the hearts of Red Sox fans--a glimmer of hope.
So I'll root for my team tonight, projecting my will for victory to a team nearly 500 miles away. For an evening, pinning all of my hopes to a fairly meaningless contest between two groups of multi-millionaires, I'll feel as if my fate is tied to that of a baseball team. And I'll allow the result of the game to dictate my mood for the rest of today, tomorrow, and probably the entire week.
That's what the glimmer of hope does to a fan. It is what propels them out of the bar or their living room and onto the street for a walk after a devastating loss. It is also responsible for that utterly blank look that appears on the faces of many sports fans after such a loss; that's what a person looks like when the glimmer is extinguished. I've always been interested in the powerful emotion we tie to relatively meaningless contests among strangers. A couple of hours after the game, maybe the next day, the blank expression (or triumphant smile) recedes as the real, material world again appears--the bills, relationships, personal woes, mortality-- replacing the fantasy of sport. Because that’s what it is, really, a sort of fantasy. The idea that which team hits the ball harder, or kicks it farther, or runs faster, has any measurable effect on our lives is absurd, it’s fantastical. I’m not a proponent of the idea of sports as a metaphor for life, not even baseball. At best it offers an alternative, a brief respite, allowing fans to link their fates and fortunes to something simpler. A group of idols--a team--with a clearly defined adversary, decisions that can be scrutinized, and an binary outcome--win or lose—offers a perspective that is unambiguous and straightforward, something completely lacking in the material world.
In short, go Sox, beat the Yankees.
I'll be the first to admit that this entry may well be pretentious crap.
Posted by: chris at October 18, 2004 4:48 PM