Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox on their sweeping victory over the Colorado Rockies to win their second World Series title in four years. It’s always nice when the home team wins. Things were different this year from 2004. That year Susan and I watched the game at a pub in Somerville and even though the Red Sox swept the Cardinals, that final game still felt very tense. The weight of history was on everyone’s backs, even a couple of interlopers from Connecticut and Michigan. This year since we’re on on the baby clock we listened to the game at home on the radio. The final game had an air of inevitability to it, but I’m sure was still a joy to the many young players on the Red Sox and long time fans who had many years of disappointments got to double their pleasure.
It is disappointing that the World Series was not more exciting from a pure baseball standpoint. One has to give a lot of credit to the Rockies for their exciting stretch drive, come-from-behind win over the Padres in the Wild Card playoff, and unprecedented 7-0 streak through the National League divisional champion series. As a National League partisan, I bristle at any suggestion that the NL Champions are of a lesser caliber, even when they were swept. I think it’s just that the Red Sox were just that good, the best team in baseball this season, and the deserving World Series Champions.
I also have to give credit to the great Rockies’ fans who cheered and chanted right to the end of game #4. That kind of spirit is actually what drew me to Mets fandom, since once-upon-a-time Mets fans would chant “Lets Go Mets” (unprompted by the PA) even when the team was down in the late innings. Judging by this September, I guess if the Mets had made it to the World Series this season and found themselves in the same circumstances as the Rockies, Shea Stadium would be full of booing and expletives shouted at the Mets. It’s nice that the spirit of “Ya Gotta Believe” lives on somewhere. Here’s another Mets’ fan view from Faith and Fear in Flushing.
It’s a credit to the Red Sox management and players that they’ve been able to win two championships so close together. They are a well-engineered team that play together well (and yes, also have a lot of money). I think this proves false the snarky comments that the 2006 Red Sox late season collapse was due to the team not keeping many of the veterans of 2004 (also a ray of optimism for fans of a certain team that collapsed in 2007 that 2008 may be brighter). It also is the death-knell to any talk of a curse and “wait ’til 2090” (although maybe the Red Sox can only win championships in the first two decades of a given century). As I wrote at the beginning of the season, the Red Sox from 1967-2003 were not a bad team but a very good team that somehow finished 2nd place to some johnny-come-latelies and suffered unlikely losses when they did make it to the postseason, while during the same period some less consistent franchises won 2-3 championships. I think the laws of probability have caught up with the Red Sox.
More Red Sox coverage:
- Curt Schilling gives credit to God
- People who bought furniture at Jordan’s Furniture last spring are getting their money back
- The victory parade will be Tuesday at noon
- Jonathon Papelbon will do his victory jig during the parade according to Mayor Menino: “He promised the people he would do the dance,” Mayor Thomas M. Menino said today at a press conference at City Hall, “and he will do the dance.” It’s nice that he did not do on the Rockies home field.
And now there’s no more baseball. It’s always hard to adjust to not having baseball games as part of the daily rhythmn of life. Rogers Hornsby put it best:
“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”
Panorama of the Mountains 