Welcome my dearest friends, I'm sorry to see you here, yet in a way it's comforting too. Those of us who have been Red Sox fans since before 2004, those of us who remember the Buckner boot in "86, and before that the "impossible dream team of '67, and the Pudge Fisk home run of '75, or that pip squeak Bucky Dent's home run that kept the Sox out of the 78 World Series. Welcome to that stunned feeling of disbelief, that as Dustin Pedroia said this week the queasy feeling in the "pit of his stomach." Welcome to the beginnings of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' five steps of grieving process...believe me acceptance will come.
Baseball, more then any other sport is a test of endurance. There is nothing more grueling. For three weeks in July skinny kids with huge lungs push themselves up mountains in the Tour de France, torture for sure. But day in, day out mid-April to early October, six days a week, baseball will grind you down. I can't say for sure, but in the pre-airplane days travel by train was almost leisurely, plenty of time for card games, and naps. Nowadays, traveling three time zones in a few hours, often in the middle of the night, sitting in cramped airplane seats, it is exhausting.
Thing is, it's a long grind for the fans too, the ups and downs; staying up 'til two for a sixteen inning game. It's true, especially if you're a Red Sox fan, especially this September. Only twice, well maybe three times before has the team had a worse won/loss record in September. At the beginning of August, with hopeful hearts most Red Sox fans felt that the league championship was almost a sure thing. While the insecure Joe Girardi, manager of the Yankees, lamented how winning the pennant was so important to his team. That had to have home field advantage, he stated, his pretty boys just didn't feel very comfortable on the road. Our man at the helm, Tito Francona, with the best away record in baseball, expressed his only concern was to be in position for the right pitching match-ups.
With a knowing shake of a gray head us oldsters again realize how foolish such musings were. How is it that the most powerful hitting team in all of baseball could succumb to the woeful pitching of the Baltimore Orioles, five out of seven times in two weeks. It's just so hard to fathom how, even after this disastrous September, the Red Sox could still be leading the league in hitting. A collapse, so quick, and so complete that it takes all of baseballs breath away. Terrible starting pitching, partly caused by injury, partly ineptitude has wrought this terrible toll. How is it that little regarded journeymen relief pitchers, and minor leaguers could be more effective on the mound that starting pitchers, three of them, who were considered, in recent years past possible Cy Young winners.
So again, I say to you, my young brothers and sisters, welcome. Sit in a darkened room for a day or two. Replay the season in your minds, remember warmly Papi's drives, Ellsbury's pirouettes, Pedrora's filthy uniform. Then come back into the sunshine, lift your head again. We survived Buckner and Bench, Dent and Boone, we will survive the Collapse 0f '11 too. But be aware. It won't make you a better person. Dis-spell yourself of that myth, regardless of what the Catholic Church says, suffering does not make you a better person. Say your prayers, eat green things, be nice to your grandparents, that will make you a better person. No, it won't make you a better person, but it will make you a real Red Sox fan.
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