Until this year’s American League Championship Series, I thought I knew what it meant to be a Red Sox fan. I have lived in New England all my life. I got my first Sox cap in third grade. Since coming to Georgetown, my mom has faithfully sent me all the team news from the local paper. However, after Aaron Boone brought game seven of the Series to a miserable close, I realized that despite my devotion to this ball club, I had never been a true fan.
Only through suffering this painful defeat did I earn the right to join the seasoned, disillusioned multitudes of Red Sox Nation. Before the members of a generation can become authentic Sox fans, the team first must break their hearts.
My relationship with this cursed team started off innocently enough. I grew up in Rhode Island and naturally started to root for the Sox . Despite a stretch of sub-par seasons from 1991 to 1994, I stuck with them. They weren’t exciting, but they were my team, and that was all that mattered. My baseball card collection boasted much Boggs and Clemens, my favorite player. This affection soon died when the then-overweight and mediocre hurler acted callously when I asked for his autograph at a celebrity golf tournament one summer. We still have the picture of the two of us sitting in his golf cart together; he looks like he’s having about as much fun as he did when Torre took him out in the fourth inning.
As I got older, I became more intensely devoted to Boston’s boys of summer. I watched them make the playoffs in 1995. Since I was too young during the 1990 ALCS, this was my first taste of the big time. Even though Cleveland finished them off decisively, I had found my calling.
The next year my parents subscribed to Northeast Sports Network so we could watch all the games. When I woke up in the morning, even if I had caught all of the last night’s action, I was all over the sports section. At school during Spanish, while we were supposed to be preparing vocabulary lists, my amigos and I yakked about our team, analyzing our next opponent, arguing whether or not Clemens was a “washed-up bum,” and making fantasy rosters that would win us a pennant.
While the Sox’s inability to make something happen increasingly anguished me every season, I always believed that next year was going to be the year. I held to this attitude even into the wee innings of Thursday night’s game. We were going to break the Bambino’s curse in the most fitting way possible: beating the Yankees in the “House that Ruth Built.” We had already shelled Clemens, the anathema of Red Sox Nation (That pounding carried an extra-special elation for me.) We were five outs away from home field advantage in the Fall Classic. And even after that demoralizing eigth inning, I still had a feeling that that the Sox would “Cowboy Up” once more, just as they had all season long.
But when Boone’s shot sailed over the fence, the dream was over. After years of believing that I knew what this team was about, I had finally met the Boston Red Sox as they really are.
In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard describes the “knight of faith” as one who renounces his deepest desire, but then goes onto “believe … in virtue, that is, of the absurd, that all things are possible,” that his desire will be realized. Thursday night, I became that knight of faith. Only when they broke my heart and made me realize the utter futility in hoping for them, was I finally able to become a true fan of the Boston Red Sox.
Now I understand what past generations have known all along-the Red Sox will inevitably find a way to self-destruct. However, I will refuse to let this otherwise blatant fact deter my loyalty. I have crossed the Rubicon. The Red Sox are my team and will be my team until the years of stress, grief, and depression finally do me in. Mark my words: Boston will have its day. But in the mean time, I will join my stubborn brethren from Bar Harbor to Narragansett Bay, and together we will say, from the collective depths of 85 years of bitterness and despair, “Way to go, Marlins!”
Daniel Geary is a junior in the College. Even after what happend, Tim Wakefield is still his favorite player.
