December 6, 2003
WINTER, THE BEST TIME TO BE A SOX FAN:
Winter of our Sox content (Bill Simmons, 12/05/03, ESPN.com)
One day after Thanksgiving, the Red Sox officially acquired Curt Schilling. The trade happened six weeks after the defining Sox collapse for this generation: Game 7, Yankee Stadium, the night of Grady's Boner.(Please note: I'm calling it "Grady's Boner" because it sounds more dramatic than "Game 7," less pretentious than "The Night Grady Blew The Biggest Non-World Series Game In 52 Years," less wordy than "The Night Grady Hung Pedro Out To Dry," and less offensive than "The Night Grady F***ed Up." Besides, it's always enjoyable to hear the word "boner" used for baseball purposes, isn't it? I thought so. Back to the column.)
Unlike winters past, this offseason Red Sox Nation has been busy livin'.At the time, I went through the same grieving process as everyone else. You know how it goes. The first few days are miserable. Your friends can't maintain eye contact without helplessly shaking their head. You go days and days without shaving. You wear the same pair of jeans for a solid week. You can't stop thinking about the game, so you watch it again ... and that only makes it worse. You end up with that glazed, weathered look of Andy Dufresne after the Warden lets him out of the hole. Finally, you glimpse yourself in the mirror and think, "My God, it's only a game, this can't possibly be worth it."
And you feel better after that. I took solace in minor diversions -- the Yanks losing the Series at home, an improbable Patriots winning streak, frequent trips to the Neverland Ranch -- but the Sox hovered over everything. Only in a positive way. Because here's the thing: We were damn close.
Poor Fred Merkle, even the distinction of his infamous boner is threatened. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 6, 2003 10:46 AM
This just supports my thesis that fans of the Red Sox and of Chicago's National League team want them to lose. If they ever win, they'd be no better than those ordinary fans of those ordinary teams like the Marlins or Diamondbacks or Yankees. They'd have to shed the victim pose and that's tantamount to fan suicide.
Look at how they are treating their respective losses-- instead of blaming the pitchers and fielders for their inability to make some simple outs, they blame a fan and the manager. To do the former is to admit that those teams weren't good enough to win, but to blame someone is to pretend otherwise, if only bad luck hadn't intervened.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at December 6, 2003 3:46 PM