Last night, we watched part of Ken Burns' series on baseball. I was reminded of the years of Red Sox disasters.
I realize being a Sox fan is more than doing it to continue breathing through a nose not broken in three places. I grew up with my parents stories about Ebbitts Field in Brooklyn. (My Mom could WALK to Ebbitts Field). I told my father recently he really dated my mother for easy access to Dodger games.
The Long Island raised Harvard historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said the same thing. Fenway Park reminds her of Ebbitts Field, so I was always interested.
Becoming part of the Red Sox nation is an entirely different story. George Will is right. New England has so many literary types, much ink is spilled when writing about the Sox.
When the film talked about the 1986 World Series against the Mets, Bob Costas talked about being in the Red Sox clubhouse being ready for the celebration; until the roof caved in and the Mets won. Doris Kearns Goodwin said she did not want to watch Game Seven. Her young sons said, "Don't cry, Mom, there is next year." She didn't think it was time to share the history of the Red Sox. It is a bit like the book of Exodus. A tale of hardship. Redemption comes much later.
There is also the Puritan "Life is hard." Said with the hard flat "A" of my father-in-law. Can you imagine the World Series party in Government Center and an annoyed voice in back, "You've had your party, now get back to work."
There is also the Celtic element. It's a Celtic thing, you wouldn't understand. The Celtic love for lost causes (Boudica, Vercingetorix, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Ireland, especially today's "Troubles" in the North). The French cartoons character Asterix the Gaul would be sitting in the Fenway bleachers with his buddy Obelix crying, "Ye Gods, another loss to the Yankees!" Can't you just see the Yankees as Caesar's Legions? Derek Jeter, centurion. When the Sox boot another one to the Evil Empire from the Bronx, the cries are heard from Hartford to Halifax.
Baseball is a wonderful game with all sorts of drama. Kirk Gibson in the 1988 World Series, injured and coming off the bench to hit the game winning home run, that psychologically wrecked the Oakland Athletics. The terrible 1989 season, Pete Rose, Bart Giamatti, and the World Series earthquake.
Baseball has that sort of history. It was a nice night to visit that.