You Know What? I Changed My Mind: This Is What You Look Forward To.
In the fall of my junior year at college I was exposed to two things that truly launched my obsession with the Red Sox: cable television and MLB GameDay. Though I had experienced the former occasionally, my family didn't subscribe to cable until I had left for school. When I reached campus I was able to watch the Sox daily. MLB GameDay was just something of which I was entirely ignorant. This fall reminds me of that fall.
This is what you look forward to as a baseball fan, isn't it? This is the month, these are the weeks when numbers mean everything, when a hanging breaking ball can turn the tide of a pennant race, when a routine play can hiccup only slightly and do the same. This is the time of year when caps are worn constantly, when family members stand still and routines upheld for hours at a time, so long as they're lucky. This is when true fans emerge from the summer daze and stand bright eyed in the autumn crisp, laying a weight so heavy upon the backs of mundane plays that they become providential, depending on the deep-seeded belief held by each individual.
That junior fall I became best friends with the library, not out of any great academic necessity but out of concern for my baseball team: when I was at the library, the Red Sox won. I'd bet that most of you readers don't know that the resurgence after being down 0-2 to Oakland was due to me, do you? I thought not.
In 2003 I locked myself in the library during every game after the first two losses. I was driven there by disgust, by a desperate need to spare myself pain and embarassment after a long season of stuggles. I tried as long as I could to avoid thinking about the games, but when all you have is the varied masterpieces of the French Renaissance to hold your attention a baseball game is far more inviting. In any case, I made a deal with myself in that I couldn't check the score until I had read a specific number of pages. At that point I would allow myself to at least to find the score online.
When I walked up to the computer the first time, I noted something funny: the Sox were doing ok. Quick check done, I returned diligently to my studies. Twenty minutes later I would do the same thing, only to notice the same result. The Sox were playing well. I decided at that point to see if my newfound routine would hold up to the test of a third go-round.
It did, and I continued to go back to the computers each night until the night of Game 7 in New York. On that night I watched the game with friends, and on that night we not only lost, we lost for good.
So why am I writing this, especially now that the Red Sox have clinched a playoff spot with their seat-of-their-pants win aat Tampa Bay this evening? Simply, because this fall I've kept my ear to the ground, I've found my routines, and I find myself thinking just how nice it is to even have a pennant race to look forward to. It's nice driving home from work or out to run an errand and just wanting to listen to the radio pundits because they would talk about all the newly-minted magic numbers. Because once again, this fall is like that fall.
Keep your ear to the ground.
This is what you look forward to as a baseball fan, isn't it? This is the month, these are the weeks when numbers mean everything, when a hanging breaking ball can turn the tide of a pennant race, when a routine play can hiccup only slightly and do the same. This is the time of year when caps are worn constantly, when family members stand still and routines upheld for hours at a time, so long as they're lucky. This is when true fans emerge from the summer daze and stand bright eyed in the autumn crisp, laying a weight so heavy upon the backs of mundane plays that they become providential, depending on the deep-seeded belief held by each individual.
That junior fall I became best friends with the library, not out of any great academic necessity but out of concern for my baseball team: when I was at the library, the Red Sox won. I'd bet that most of you readers don't know that the resurgence after being down 0-2 to Oakland was due to me, do you? I thought not.
In 2003 I locked myself in the library during every game after the first two losses. I was driven there by disgust, by a desperate need to spare myself pain and embarassment after a long season of stuggles. I tried as long as I could to avoid thinking about the games, but when all you have is the varied masterpieces of the French Renaissance to hold your attention a baseball game is far more inviting. In any case, I made a deal with myself in that I couldn't check the score until I had read a specific number of pages. At that point I would allow myself to at least to find the score online.
When I walked up to the computer the first time, I noted something funny: the Sox were doing ok. Quick check done, I returned diligently to my studies. Twenty minutes later I would do the same thing, only to notice the same result. The Sox were playing well. I decided at that point to see if my newfound routine would hold up to the test of a third go-round.
It did, and I continued to go back to the computers each night until the night of Game 7 in New York. On that night I watched the game with friends, and on that night we not only lost, we lost for good.
So why am I writing this, especially now that the Red Sox have clinched a playoff spot with their seat-of-their-pants win aat Tampa Bay this evening? Simply, because this fall I've kept my ear to the ground, I've found my routines, and I find myself thinking just how nice it is to even have a pennant race to look forward to. It's nice driving home from work or out to run an errand and just wanting to listen to the radio pundits because they would talk about all the newly-minted magic numbers. Because once again, this fall is like that fall.
Keep your ear to the ground.
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Ryan Brodeur at 11:33 PM
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