October 20, 2003
MOURNING BECOMES NEW ENGLAND:
Damn Yankees: A tragedy in Eleven Innings (Paul Greenberg, 10/20/03, Jewish World Review)
Imagine what Sophocles could have done if he'd had some real material to work with - like the Red Sox instead of a faded Theban legend about a blind king.Then he might have written like A. Bartlett Giamatti, president of Yale, commissioner of major league baseball, Red Sox fan and therefore a man well acquainted with tragedy. Professor Giamatti needed no chorus to set the scene; he got right to the point that dreary Sunday after the big game:
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today . . . a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped and summer was gone."
As every baseball fan knows, there is life and there is the off-season. There is hope and there is baseball in Boston. And always, as in the Gwen Verdon musical and real heartbreaking life, there are the Damn Yankees, waiting to bring the curtain down and cackle gleefully, the demons.
Once again the tragedy has been faithfully performed, the rites of fall duly observed, and the bright season closed and put away, the soul cleansed of foolish hope. It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. Again everything is as it must be, as it should be, as it always is. And the curtain falls, like a fan's hopes.
You don't have to be Presbyterian to appreciate predestination; you only have to follow the Red Sox. It's not sad, really, it's kind of uplifting, the sheer certainty of the outcome every year. "Hardship to those resigned," pronounces Oedipus in exile, "is no dismay." He must have been a Red Sox fan.
At least Oedipus has the decency to poke his own eyes out for his sins. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 20, 2003 9:34 AM
Eddie Puse, RE(d So)X fan, par excellent...
Posted by: Barry Meislin at October 20, 2003 10:06 AMTo change the course of world events often requires the arrival of a "great man" on the stage. The Red Sox and Cubs both battle the weight of their own histories that require the arrival of their own "great man" who can bear the weight of their past failures and break through the mental weight years of failure bring.
The New York Rangers ended their 54 year streak a decade ago when Mark Messier was able to drag the team to the Stanley Cup, even though they appeared ot have blown their change in Game 7 of the semifinals against New Jersey with seven seconds left in regulation. Both the Cubs and Red Sox probably await the arrival of their saviors, though the Cubs pitching staff is young enough so that it may mature into a unit that can withstand the collective negativity being part of the franchise entails.
Posted by: John at October 20, 2003 11:38 AMFor the Cubs, maybe Prior can be the "great man" the way Tom Seaver, another USC righthander, was for the Mets 35 years ago...
Posted by: Foos at October 20, 2003 1:18 PMI listened to the archived Red Sox radio broadcast of the infamous game seven at www.mlb.com. Wouldn't you know, the announcer signed off by reciting Giamatti's self-pitying whine. Red Sox fans love to pick at this scab, year after year after year.
The announcers sounded more depressed than Gray Davis, especially when they groaned about Grady Little leaving Pedro in too long. Dusty Baker has mostly escaped similar criticism about Prior and Wood, though he deserves brickbats at least as much as Little. Baker made the mistake twice, in NLCS games six and seven.
Look for quicker hooks from now on. Then people will scream when the relievers blow leads.
Posted by: Casey Abell at October 20, 2003 2:34 PMIf a "savior" ever arrives in Boston, he will no doubt be traded to the Yankees.
Posted by: Robert D at October 20, 2003 8:26 PMJohn:
Perhaps that's why the Marlins are so successful, as they have no team history, and apparently don't know any baseball history, as the masochistic article of last week pointed out.
With no mental baggage, everything's possible.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 21, 2003 12:21 AM