George Carlin once said, "No one says, 'It's only a game,' unless they're winning." After watching the Red Sox/Yankees American League Championship Series, I don't think any Red Sox or Yankees fan would ever say, "It's only a game," period. I've never been much of a baseball fan. A native New Englander, I grew up rooting for the Red Sox, just because it's what everyone did. Somewhere along the line, I learned about the "curse," but it wasn't until recently that I became fascinated by it.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that, all of a sudden, just as the Sox are headed to the World Series, I'm a die-hard fan. I'm the first to admit I haven't earned the title of true Red Sox Fan. Before the ALCS, I couldn't name five players on the team. But I do know a guy who named his dog Fenway. I know someone who threatened to quit his job to make sure he got to watch Game Seven. And I know that my 67-year-old grandmother sat on the edge of her couch up in Whitman, Mass., chain-smoking cigarettes, her eyes glued to the TV this past week, because she believed.
That's the thing -- they believe. Even as I watched Game Three, when it was the bottom of the ninth and the Yankees were up 19-8, the stands of Fenway were still packed with fans in their rally caps. They wrung their white-knuckled hands. It might've seemed that the cold drizzle made them all so uncomfortable, but it takes something bigger than bad weather to make a stadium full of New Englanders that distressed.
The curse. The plight. The fate of the Red Sox. The fate of New England. That's what I thought I would learn about watching the ALCS this year. But instead, I saw the biggest comeback in postseason baseball history. It's hard not to be clich‚d. That's where so many people falter. They're quick to make a sports team's fate into a commentary on the human condition. It would be especially easy for me, knowing little about the game itself, to create some sort of literary microcosm in this series. I mean, just look at them -- the scrappy Red Sox, with unshaven faces and shaggy hair, and the dapper Yankees in pinstripes and crew-cuts.
It would be too simple to just say that this is the epitome of what separates New York from Boston, the New Yorker from the New Englander. The thing I've learned this week is that baseball is not a metaphor for the hardships and triumphs we face in life. Instead, fans struggle over the sport itself. True fans do not separate the game of baseball from everyday life, let alone use it as a metaphor. Their team, whether it's the Red Sox, the Yankees or even the Devil Rays, is part of their life.
I got an e-mail from a friend from home this week that said, "All of New England is sleep-deprived." I believe it. Even my father, who's more of a football or hockey guy -- and more importantly, who is usually asleep by 10 p.m. -- stayed up until past 1 a.m. to see how Game Five ended. I know there were Yankees fans who did the same thing. And I respect them: for example, my friend who blares New York, New York out his window whenever the Yankees win an important game, and my former roommate, whose family keeps a lucky figurine of retired Yankee Paul O'Neill on the mantel.
You might say that, because I respect Yankees fans, I'll never be a full-fledged Red Sox fan. I don't think that's exactly it. I just don't have whatever is inside the Red Sox supporters. How do I know this? I'll be honest. I fell asleep somewhere between the 10th and 14th innings of Game Five. I cared, but only so much. When the Sox won the last four games of the series, I was happy for my friends and my family, but it didn't really do a lot for me personally. I think I'm afraid to care that much about a team. I've seen the faces of Sox and Yankees fans after a big loss. I've heard New Englanders' resignation to the "plight of the Red Sox" that has become part of their identity.
But this week, the plight is in question. Roger Angell, one of the most well-known baseball writers of the 20th century, wrote about this sort of moment in an essay about Game Six of the 1975 World Series, when Carlton Fisk hit a home run in the 12th inning to win the game for the Red Sox. Of the Red Sox fans, Angell writes, "All of them, for once at least, [were] utterly joyful and believing in that joy -- alight with it." As we all know, the Red Sox went on to lose Game Seven of the series. I hope, this time, the belief in that joy continues.
