who tried to foist the pathetic argument that Red Sox fans would be bitter and disappointed after the championship. My boy Bill Simmons, as usual, gets it right.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/041215There was a laughable misperception that we couldn't handle this, that we'd aimlessly search for a new identity, a little like Red after getting paroled from Shawshank. Nobody thought we could make it on the outside. That's ridiculous. Don't you understand what this win means? No more "1918" chants. No more smug glances from Yankee fans. No more Buckner clips or Babe photos. No more worrying about living an entire life -- that's 80 years, followed by death -- without seeing the Red Sox win a Series. I mean, would you miss a migraine? We never defined ourselves by the failures of our team. It was others who did. And we were exhausted by it.
Trust me, we're doing fine. I can't imagine a group of fans milking one moment longer. At a recent Celtics game, David Ortiz, sitting courtside, headed to the men's room. Finishing his business, he emerged to find 250 people, waiting to cheer for him. When chairman Tom Werner brought the trophy to a Santa Monica bar, some West Coast transplants waited six hours for a picture. People have lost their minds. Do you realize how many babies named Johnny, Curt, Manny and Theo are being born right now? Just last week my friend Hench sent out an e-mail organizing a Sox banquet -- steak dinner and some pops followed by corny toasts about the team. Oh, and I'm not going to that?
We're stuck in a state of arrested bliss. Here's an e-mail from reader Brian Holmes: "I was walking down the cereal aisle and saw a Wheaties box with David Ortiz on it. Honest to god, I blubbered like Tony Soprano when he saw the ducks in his swimming pool. I had to keep walking around until I dried up. I didn't want the checkout girl to see me. Has anyone else e-mailed you with stories like this? Should I see a shrink?"
No, Brian, you don't need a shrink. The same thing happened to me. As I watched the World Series DVD for the first time, my face started to quiver like Maverick's after Goose died. I couldn't take it. This is the franchise that never caught a break. For every Fisk homer plunking the foul pole, a Perez moon shot waited to trump it. For every Hendu, there was a Mookie lurking around the corner. Tony C's beanball, Pesky's double-clutch, the sale of The Babe ... these were the stories I grew up with. During that traumatic Game 3 against the Yanks, I wondered if it would be fair to raise my kids as Sox fans. Why would I do that to them? One day later I cheered Derek Lowe as he loped to the bullpen, holding onto a sliver of hope like everyone else. My father was next to me, closer to 60 than 50. You couldn't blame him if he heard the clock ticking. That's the thing about the Sox -- they always made you take a deep breath and say, "We'll get 'em next year," and then 10 years would zoom by. Nothing has made me so consistently aware of my mortality. Nothing.
Ten days later, the Red Sox won the World Series.
I stare at the words and it all comes back. There's Dave Roberts inching off first, studying Mariano Rivera like a figure skating judge as the crowd leans forward. There's Papi rounding third, flipping off his helmet with a smile that stretches from Section 33 to Section 1. There's Schilling limping to the mound, our resident Roy Hobbs, to try to grind out one more inning on a ravaged ankle. There's Keith Foulke hauling in that final grounder, pausing for a second in disbelief, then lobbing the ball to Minky like a hand grenade. There's my dad screaming on the phone, "It happened in my lifetime! It happened in my lifetime!"
The Red Sox won the World Series. Seven words that changed my life. Yes, I'm handling it fine.
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