The Red Sox. Why do I follow this team? I’m not really an enthusiast of pro sports. I don’t like the industry around it, the commercialization of sport, and the spoiled brattiness of most professional athletes. The idea that someone gets $100 million for throwing an inflatable ball through a basket–even if they do it especially well–is an absurdity that transcends what can even be described. The experience of it is both something to marvel at, and something that should cause a profound sense of shame in our culture that chooses, of all things, to celebrate these people and in this way. Given the problems of the world, the billions of people born into hopeless systems of depravity and often torture, and knowing it’s largely because of a system of resource distribution and protection that we invented and still participate in, it is sickening to think about the ball-and-hoop thrower getting paid in a single day what would alleviate the suffering of thousands of people, often for years at a time. The reason it exists that way is because of greed and the henchmen of big business. Sport is business, here, and for that two hours of vicarious victory that Americans are willing to drop $50-$300 for, the authoritarian controllers of sport create the greed machine.
So it’s fucked. And on top of that, it’s often unnatural to even enjoy these professional games. Put a random person in front of an NFL game and see how “entertaining” it is for them. At what point do people become so interested in such a truly dumb sport that they’ll create rituals and festivals around it? It’s something you have to learn to like, and that’s a decision you make. Making the decision to pay attention to a sport like the NFL requires a fitness in the society that comes to worship it. People must largely feel empty enough that latching on to socially and institutionally created and identity-based constructs becomes a better alternative than, say…
What. Doing something?
Besides, it’s a tradition! It’s beer and loudness and chicks who try to fit in, no one really sure exactly why they care if the little ball goes through the weird poles, but who wants to be left out? After all, people are cheering!!
But it has to be this way. I don’t blame the fans, even if they don’t know why they’re fans. They’re doing what they’re supposed to do. It’s good for the bars when people fill in. It’s good for the merchandizers to build young fanatics. It’s good for exploitative labor forces to have something to calm and pacify and distract their workers and lessen the chances of a mass realization at how they’ve been duped into working so hard to give someone else obscene amounts of wealth that really should be in their own hands.
/Rant. (sorry monkeys.)
I grew up with the Red Sox. My dad and I would do work– painting the house, digging big boulders, planting trees, raking leafs, planting seeds, stacking fire wood, and so on, and usually, if it were summer, his little paint splattered radio would have a Red Sox game on, and those were good days.
Boggs hits a long fly ball! Deep deep to center field! Way back, and…!!
I can hear the voice very clearly. The voice of Joe Castiglione, coming in through the static of AM radio, all the way from the mystical land of the Big City, Boston, a place I had never been to but had seen on a black and white TV.
For most of my life the Red Sox were perennial losers. They would have a good team that somehow could never secure a World Series championship. They called it the “Curse of the Bambino“, a reference to how in 1919 Ruth was sold from the Red Sox to the moribund Yankees through a shady deal involving financing a play (or something). After the sale, the Yankees became one of the best teams in baseball and pretty much stayed that way until the present, and through my growing up years the Red Sox didn’t win a world series again. There was always hope that the curse would end. Listening with my dad, I’d secretly cross my fingers and say little prayers for every batter, every pitch, so that the Red Sox might win the game.
In 2004, of course, they won the World Series for the first time in 86 years, after a dramatic comeback against their arch-rivals, the Yankees. They were down 3 games to none in the championship series and came back to win 3-4– a feat of faith that had never happened in baseball history. They won the world series again in 2007, and that happened when I was in NYC. I couldn’t externalize my happiness too much in this town, though.
New Yorkers are suffered bunch. Their team basically buys the best players every year, essentially creating an All Star team every single season. They’re supposed to win every year. They have more championships than any other team, and it’s part of the reason the rest of the country calls the Yankees the “Evil Empire.” No joke: there are some teams in the Major Leagues whose entire salary for the entire team is less than some individual Yankees players make per year. So when the team loses, the country rejoices, and the New Yorkers are extra bitter. “But we bought all the best players! Why aren’t we winning?!?!”
The Red Sox were on their way again in 2011, leading the whole league until the last month of the 5 month season when they just collapsed– the greatest collapse in sports history– losing over 20 games that month, and missing the playoffs. They fired the manager because the whole team was in shambles. Filled with spoiled celebrity players who signed for the money. The following year, last year, under a new manager, they came in dead last in the league, winning just 68 miserable games. Towards the end of the season they made an incredible decision to get rid of $250 million worth of big shot, bratty fucktard celebrity players. More the half the team was traded away, and they fired the manager again (a New York manager for the Mets in recent years, incidentally).
This year was supposed to be what they call a “rebuilding” year, where they spend very little on the team, bring in young, inexperienced players from the farm system (the AA and AAA leagues connected to the team from which Major Leaguers come from). No celebrity trades, no big bucks involved, rebuilding the team from the ground up. They hired their old pitching coach who was managing Toronto last year as the new manager.
From early in spring training, there was something special about the team, and players commented on it from the very beginning. They all got along extremely well. They played relaxed, confident ball, and to everyone’s surprise, they started winning games right out of the gate, despite the absence of those big, expensive baffoons they offloaded after the collapse.
Other things happened. The team stopped shaving, they stopped buttoning their shirts all the way up. They started getting raggedy and built an incredible reputation for toughness, almost becoming legendary in a single year– players playing with broken bones, players letting the ball hit them for the sake of getting the free base. They’re not getting paid to do this, so why did they do it?
The players say it’s because they became a family, and they started playing for each other, and for the people of Boston who endured so much during the year. There was the collapse, the losing season, the Boston bombings– it was a city down and out, with a new team of ragged ass ballplayers who love the sport.
What better time to do your best for the sake of doing your very best, for the thing you believe in.
Incredibly, they’ve lead the league almost the entire season, bewildering the country. Last night they clinched the Eastern Division Championship, leading the Yankees, which outspent almost every team in the sport 2x over, by over 12 games. They had 7 final games against the Yankees this month alone, and won 6 of them.
Here’s a good explanation of what happened this year.
They have seven games left in the regular season, but they’re already division champions and it’s great. They weren’t supposed to be a winning team, but they’re probably the best in baseball right now. Even with significant injuries to key players, they found a way to keep winning. They have more comeback victories than any team in baseball. They have scored more runs than any other team. If they win the World Series this year, it’ll be the largest single year turn around– from worst to best– in baseball history.
So, I’ve been following along. I think my dad would be happy with this team.
Last night I was home. Despite having paid for video streaming of the games, I listened on the radio (which streamed through the computer, thankfully). The announcer, Joe Costiglione, is the same guy who announced the games I grew up listening to. Hearing him greet the players in the clubhouse after the game and hearing them describe what it’s like to be a part of this team was a nice moment for me. I just sat and listened until the broadcast ended, trying to visualize the atmosphere.
——————————————
Tonight I got guest-listed to the Rage of Armaggedon Fest over at the Paper Box in Brooklyn. My friend plays lead axe for Malevolent Creation and after the show I’m traveling with the band to an after party. Can’t wait, and glad I decided to get rested up last night so I can make a go of it tonight. I won’t be drinking much because I’m in a training cycle right now, but two Jacks will be OK.
I have an extremely full workload right now and will need to come in tomorrow (and I’m in the secret office right now) so I’m sort of hoping it doesn’t go until 6am like it did last weekend.
Hope you’re having a great weekend, and I’ll let you know how things went as soon as I’m back up and around.
Duck
