Life in Red Sox Nation: An essay

[CalvnHobs6]

This is an essay I wrote several months ago in high school. The assignment was to write something that to me, should it have been read out loud, would serve as a meditation. I thought it did, my teacher disagreed and gave me a B. It's all good. Anyway, I just found it on my computer and thought I'd share it. I really enjoyed writing it, and enjoyed even more reading it just a few minutes ago. The other dude I was at the game with in the essay is yeszir...although the retelling of events is not 100% accurate. Enjoy reading it, and if a mod disagrees with where i put this, they can feel free to move it to a different forum.

 

 

Life in Red Sox Nation

Alex Tannenbaum

I was sitting then, having just slipped into the narrow blue seat, watching the heavy-set man two spots over struggling to squeeze into his with a tray of concessions in one hand and an overpriced beer in the other. “Friendly Fenway” was not as friendly to the heavy. At 40 dollars a ticket, it was not friendly to the average Joe without money to burn either. My leg was still shaking from the cramped, humid, dank train ride over. On a busy day with nowhere to sit, the “T” never seemed to go faster than 20 miles per hour.

I glanced down at my ticket: Grandstand, seat 17, $44.00. I looked over at my friend who was wearing his favorite Carl Yastrzemski shirt, and down at myself, with my “Authentic Sox” shirt and my once-navy Red Sox hat in my lap. We had never gone to a game by ourselves, a very exciting experience at age 12. This was obvious to any stranger by the way our faces were lit up, although the Fenway lights over the Green Monster may have contributed to the light shining on our faces as well.

I noticed the large man finally resting in his seat, eating his pink hot dog, the world famous Fenway Frank, with mustard and sauerkraut dripping down the sides of his mouth onto his scorecard. He wiped it up, washed it all down with his fresh water-brewed beer, let out a large belch and slouched back into his seat. At the same time I leaned forward to get a better look at the players on the field. I felt my knees push against the seat in front of me. My friend nudged towards me and tried to say something, probably regarding a security guard retaining a drunk fan ten rows or so ahead of us, but I couldn’t hear him. Thirty-five thousand people tend to make a lot of noise.

I tried shifting my weight to be more comfortable in the plastic seats – or whatever they were made of – before I realized that some fans needed to get by to their seats. I stood up, and the almost-certainly-just-turned-twenty-one college student bumped into me, spilling beer on my shoe on the way past. I didn’t mind, the liquid freed my shoe from the green gum it was stuck to on the ground. I saw the teams take the field, and I sat back down. I heard a young voice over the loud speaker yell, “Play ball!” It was deafening. But by then, as soon as those words came up loud and almost clear, the dirty, smelly, cramped discomfort of the greatest ballpark in the world suddenly diminished, for this was my paradise, my utopia. This was baseball season. This was Red Sox nation. How sweet it would be to see the home team win.

 

I was sitting again, four years later, and I reflected on how the previous season had affected my life. Suddenly less schoolwork was completed and handed in, and if it did get done, it happened in a hurry. It was a rare occasion when I missed a Red Sox game in the 2003 season, the season of the Cowboys, the unforgettable rush that the team went through mid summer, breaking leads, edging out opponents, just dominating offensively while setting unprecedented records, as well as simply outplaying nearly every team in every category. This was the year; we would not have to wait until next year. The Red Sox made it to the playoffs for the first time in four years with one of the best offensive lineups since the 1927 Yankees murderous tandem of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel, Tony Lazzeri; one of the best teams of all time. History kept flashing through the minds of Red Sox fans. It had been 85 years since a championship had been brought home to its rightful owners.

This was the year; this was the end. It would be the end of that stupid curse, and maybe even that blubbering idiot Dan Shaughnessy. The Red Sox were in the playoffs, and that’s all anyone could talk about at school. The worries of colleges had not yet hit us new juniors. All we knew is we had a stressful year ahead, a stress that might be eased by the Red Sox doing the unthinkable – winning.

The worries of curses could not stop us Sox fans.

Game 5, Oakland Coliseum. Haven’t stood up, can’t stand up. I’m in my house watching the game. Down one run. Up 3. Up 2. Up 1. Johnny Damon charges in from the outfield, gets knocked out cold by the second baseman. Get some water, go to the bathroom. A stressful game, closer than it should have been, and the Red Sox put in the pitcher who was violently shoved out of the bullpen a year before for his lack of ability to close games. Derek Bleepin’ Lowe. Bases loaded. I slouch back in my seat, as I’ve done so many other times in my Red Sox watching career. I expect the absolute worst. And then all of a sudden, everything stops. It doesn’t slow down, it stops cold. A chill from the window outside in the late fall air passes through me and into the glow of the television. The pitch. The ball slowly starts to travel inside on the batter before suddenly dropping down over the middle of the plate. Jason Varitek was up and running towards his pitcher before the batter even knew what happened. Strike three called. Destiny. The Red Sox are going to the championship series to face their bitter rivals. I’m standing up now. I’m ready to Cowboy up. This is the year. THIS IS THE YEAR.

 

Game 7, Yankee Stadium. A 4-1 lead on the scoreboard. A 5-2 lead on the scoreboard. A comfortable lead on the scoreboard.

“Alex, why don’t you try to go to bed; you can watch them in the World Series,” my father said to me.

What are you, crazy, I thought. “I’d really like to stay up and watch this game,” I responded. Our ace was done for the night, and our dominating bullpen was to come in and close this one out. Timlin in the 8th, Williamson in the 9th. It was perfect, it was unstoppable. They had given up one run between them in the post season-

“What are you doing? Why is he leaving the mound? Why is Pedro still in the game? What is going on? Does the manager not see our ace tiring? Why does everyone know but him?” I look to my father. The same thing went through both of our heads. TAKE HIM OUT OF THE GODDAMN GAME.

Three runs score, 5-5; tie game. The walls around me crash and burn. The Red Sox are crashing and burning. But this is no surprise to us. It’s not a surprise to see Mariano Rivera dominate. It’s not a surprise to see the worst player on the New York Yankees blast a homerun out to left field to end the game and clinch the series. And it’s not a surprise that the best pitcher we had in the series is the one who gives up the hit.

This wasn’t a game anymore. Going to Fenway from then on would be strictly business. A win. There wasn’t supposed to be another year of waiting. We had put as good a team on the field as we had in decades. Tears welled up in my eyes, but they wouldn’t do any good. No sleep that night. Dead silent in school the following day. Everything we had waited for the whole year went to s***; our dreams of a championship were shattered. How could people work so hard just to fail? HOW COULD WE WAIT ANOTHER YEAR?

 

Game 4; Busch Stadium. The Red Sox were on a seven game winning streak. Nothing else mattered, they were one win away from what Red Sox fans had been waiting for for 86 years. They were one win away from finishing off and fulfilling the greatest comeback in sports history. My friend and I were having the debate that needed to be had - would it be better for the Red Sox to lose the next three games and then come back to Fenway to win it? Our consensus was that it didn't matter. The fact was we knew the Red Sox were going to win that game. We were starting the same pitcher that we started in both of the previous playoff series against the Yankees and the Angels: Derek Lowe. He would prove to be unstoppable, throwing seven shutout innings.

In the most significant and important game I watched in my Red Sox career, it didn't seem like we could actually focus on the game. It was the air in the room, watching the game on the huge projection screen, but more staring through the screen than watching the actual game. Neither of us knew what was going to happen when the Sox won. Not if, when. All we knew was that the baseball gods must have spoken. THIS was destiny.

The pitch. A bouncing ball to Keith Fouke, he has it. Flips it to Mientkiewicz at first base, Red Sox fans have been waiting 86 years to hear this: "The Red Sox are World Champions!"

We couldn't even hear the call. I know it now only from replays. But we were on our knees in front of the screen, screaming like never before. We wouldn't have stood up even if we could have. The moment was perfect. I looked at my friend in the room on his knees and remembered back to our first game at Fenway alone together. Never then could we have thought the future would turn out the way it had. Five years earlier, thoughts of becoming world champions the way we did never crossed our mind. Sure, the Red Sox made it to the playoffs and made a great comeback against the Guardians that year, but they weren't the right team to finally win it. The sport, this game, this team that we root for and follow religiously, they are the hub of Boston. They are what everybody around here has in common. They are my life. And I can't wait to return to Fenway Park to enjoy another baseball game next year.

"Baseball isn't life and death, but the Red Sox are."

[Optimist]

Very well done.

 

As a fan (albeit it of another team), I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

[Pinstripe_Pride]

That was pretty good Calvn.