Indian Summer

Why is this racial stereotype smiling?

It's all my fault.



Several weeks ago I started a blog entry and now I wish I hadn't.

Why you ask? What could be so terrible about a blog entry, and furthermore, why would it take weeks to finish?

The answers to those questions are simple:

I forgot the #1 rule of a Red Sox fan. And it takes me weeks to finish because I'm busy with diapers, feedings, cleaning, napping, more diapers, more napping, and other manly things.

Anyway, when the Red Sox made the playoffs I started reminiscing about my childhood as a Sox fan. During the fall months baseball was typically over. The Red Sox were out of it, having found some new and more painful way to finish second to the Yankees, and I was depressed...in the dumps until a Halloween-candy induced high shook me from my malaise in late October.

Now I'm raising a Sox fan (At least she better be a Sox fan. Of course I'll love her even if she's not. I just won't speak to her from May until November) and things are different. My beloved team is in the playoffs almost every year and at the start of these playoffs looked primed to win another World Series. I was so confident I even started a blog about the Sox new found success...

How would this new Red Sox Nation affect the formative years of my dear daughter?

Some might suggest that a new, happier, less-paranoid fan base was emerging; these fans looked forward to the fall months, didn't hold their breath every time the Sox did make the playoffs, and could wear a Sox cap in NY without being subjected to "1918" chants...but that was exactly why I was concerned.

The misery induced by the Red Sox helped shape my early adolescence. I learned to deal with heart-break, failure, and bitter disappointment (all key abilities when I became interested in girls). I learned more from Bill Buckner, Mariano Rivera, and Mo Vaughn then I did from many high school teachers.

The Sox helped turn me into a hopeless romantic and in turn a writer...I often wonder if I would have become a poet if I was a Yankee fan. (Do Yankee fans even write poetry? Do they know how to write?)

Before and during the Red Sox epic World Series run of 2004, I would have been trying to find the various series of superstitious positions, foods, and daily rituals to help the Sox win, knowing it was foolish the whole time, but believing it all the same. During the playoffs I would bite my nails, lash out at random people, and wake up in the middle of the night wondering if it was possible to put a contract out on Grady little...

This year? I plopped myself on the couch haphazardly and expected good results...when they easily swept the Angles, I took a hard look at myself and wondered aloud if I wanted to raise a daughter in such a climate. Did I want a little girl who came to expect her team in the playoffs every year? A girl who would demand nothing short of a World Series? A girl whose father rooted for a front-runner? In other words...did I really want to raise a Yankee fan circa 1990?
(A picture of your typical Yankee fan)

A difficult question for a man trying to shape the moral fiber of his daughter. Perhaps I should start routing for the Cubs, in order to ensure plenty of October heartbreak and teaching moments for my little girl...

Now, weeks later, I'm reminded why that was a foolish concern. The Sox are down 3-1 to an annoying Indians team and I'm muttering at the TV. I'm grumpy, angry, and ready to punch the first Indian fan I see (though a Yankee fan would do)...This is the October I remember.

The Red Sox will never be the Yankees because as soon as something starts to go wrong Sox fans are still ready to throw up their hands, sigh, shoot back a couple a Sam Adams, and begrudgingly wait till next year. (Although despite what Manny Ramirez says, it IS the end of the world...at least for a couple weeks)

We have plenty of October villains left to discover (I'm looking at you J.D. Drew and Coco Crisp). While I remember and love 2004, I also remember with a sort of gut-wrenching enjoyment all the tough years, the ones that taught me patience and a hopeless romanticism. I'm sure my daughter will have plenty of sad Septembers in her future and we'll curse the Yankees in bitter glee. Then, when the magic does happen again, it will be all the sweeter shared.


p.s.- And If you think I wrote this blog as a counter-jinx in order to help the Sox turn it around tonight...well...