Prepare To Be Annoyed -10-20-03

Prepare To Be Annoyed Every day I watch the news and just sit there shaking my head in disbelief, frustration, and disgust. There's one question I ask myself daily:

WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE???????

Reversing The Curse - The Follow-Up

It has taken me a few days to even be able to think about this thoroughly, never mind write about it, but here I am, 3 days after the Game O’ Doom, still severely depressed and with a very broken heart. The Yankees did it once again…somehow managed an undeserved comeback and stole our spot at the World Series.

The night before this tragedy hit Beantown, I sat in my living room kicking back a few Smirnoff Ice’s (as usual) watching the Cubs game. If the Cubs won, I just knew the Sox would too…the Sox/Cubs World Series was my (and most baseball fans’) dream. And in true Red Sox fashion, I witnessed the Cubs get their World Series spot ripped out from under them, not just in game 7, but in games 5 and 6 as well! Only a cursed team could blow their lead in the 8th inning after fan interference and allow the opposing team to score 8 runs…IN THE 8th! It seems like a movie…it’s almost too far fetched to be reality. But not for Sox fans. In fact, Sox fans are the only fans in the world who can truly empathize with what the Cubs were feeling.

Oh how true that is, especially the next night in the Sox/Yanks Game 7…not only could we empathize, but we were living it out. I was so sick with anxiety and worry all day before game 7, especially after seeing the poor Cubs lose their spot. I was so afraid that all the sadness and doom the Cubs fans were feeling that day was just about to strike me, but somehow I kept the faith. I kept positive and told myself that this was it…finally my lifetime dream would finally come true. That night, like any self respecting Sox fan in Massachusetts, I headed out to Boston to watch the game at a bar with the rest of Red Sox Nation. When we won the game and locusts started flooding the skies, I wanted to be in the center of the mayhem and experience the emotional outburst of an entire state. I was pumped, I had faith, I was ready to watch the city of Boston fall into the Atlantic Ocean.

Around the bottom of the 7th inning, we still had a sweet lead. Fans were starting to get confident and Pedro was still pitching strong. I looked at my guy Bill and said, “We aren’t out of the water yet. There is no way I’m going to stop worrying yet. If the Cubs could give up 8 runs in the 8th inning and lose it all, so can we.” The next thing I know, the game is tied. I felt my heart drop into the pit of my stomach. This was all too familiar. At this point my mind began to blur. I was running on pure adrenaline, but some of the jumbled thoughts going through my mind that I can half recollect were something like the following: “No, this can’t be happening. Not again. Am I dreaming? There is no way this is happening. We can’t lose this…we can’t. We’re going to the World Series….we have to. This team deserves it. The fans deserve it. The Yankees SUCK! Damn, I hate New York. I hate the Yankees and their Evil Empire. I hate their fans. Shut up! Just shut up, you cretin Yankee fans. You suck! Stop cheering, you’re not going to win this game, you can’t! You just can’t!”

The can…they did. They suck, they truly suck.

So we go into extra innings. Now I’m really freaking out. To give you a true estimate of how badly I was indeed freaking out, lets put it this way…I had to STOP drinking because I couldn’t even handle it. Now we all know I enjoy my Smirnoff as much as any Kennedy could, and I consumed vulgar amounts of it during this entire post season, but my nerves were so over the edge that I actually couldn’t even order another drink! Now THAT’S bad! (Teddy K. would not be proud.) So we go into the 11th inning…I’m wondering how long this game is actually going to go on. This was torture! My nerves were on the brink of overloading, I was sobering up, the Sox weren’t hitting…I couldn’t take it! But all I could picture was Wakefield getting us through the bottom of the 11th and going into the 12th , someone hitting a nice homerun to win the game. My telepathic messages must’ve gotten crossed with some psychic Yankees fan’s visions, because the first pitch Wakefield threw in the 11th….all I heard was “pop.” I stood up on my chair to see the big screen tv over all the other fans screaming, “NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!” as I watched the ball sail right into the stands and score the Yankees winning run.

Just like that, it was over. I have never heard a bar so silent. A collective gasp, then silence….some whimpers and sobs here and there, including mine. After seeing the game winning homerun, I sat back down in my chair, put my face in my hands, and shed the tears I knew all Cubs fans shed the night before. I sure did…just like I did as a little girl in my bedroom in 1986. I literally couldn’t speak for at least half an hour. As Bill and I were trying to hunt down our waitress to pay our tab, I had a major anxiety attack, complete with the sweating hot flash, heart palpitations, and the feeling that I was about to pass out. The anger hadn’t hit me yet…I was sad, and quite frankly shocked.

We left the bar and began walking a few blocks to the car. I swear we were in the twilight zone aka bizarro world. The streets of Boston’s Financial District were eerily quiet. Fans were everywhere in their own little groups, all sporting their Sox gear, freshly shaven heads, and cowboy hats, yet no one was making a sound. We were all walking in the head-hanging-in-shame manner that we are all too familiar with and have had much practice doing…not just because of the Sox, but because of the Bruins, Celtics and Pats, too. We have to go through this same walk of shame 4 times a year!!!! But this was the ULTIMATE walk of shame. Not only did we get rooked out of our World Series spot, but we lost it to the suckass Yankees, of all teams, in game 7 in extra innings. But that’s still not the worst part…the worst part of it was that it happened Bucky “Bleepin’” Dent style! If you haven’t believed in a curse up until this point, I imagine you surely must now. Even my best friend Val emailed me after the game and said, “You know, I was mixed about the curse, even after that Bambino show, but now I am 100% convinced there is a curse! That was just insane luck. Too insane.” Insane, indeed. Insanity only known by those who follow the Sox and/or the Cubs.

So here I sit, watching Sports Xtra on my local channel 7 news. The wounds are beginning to heal, but only enough to allow me to be able to tolerate a news report about the whole thing. Of course every ignorant fan in the area gets interviewed and asked their opinion on manager Grady Little and his decision to leave Pedro in for the 8th inning. This morning, Bill and I even heard some moron fan say, and I quote, “Even I could’ve done a better job managing than Grady Little” Oh is that so? I hardly think so…what is it you do for work, sir? Loser. . I thought Bill was going to jump through the tv and kick this guy’s ass, the way he blew up and started screaming at it. (That’s my dogg!) I just love how everyone thinks it is SO easy to make decisions like this. I don’t blame Grady Little at all, believe it or not. I don’t blame Pedro either, nor do I blame Wakefield. Jesus Christ himself could’ve been put in to pitch and we STILL would’ve lost that game. Babe Ruth says so. Grady Little had taken what was a halfass team and in 2 years brought them to game 7 of the ALCS. That’s a pretty damn good job, if you ask me. Not only that, but Grady Little is highly respected by his team… it isn’t too often a team is truly like one big family who love each other through thick and thin, including the manager. These team members hug each other each time one hits a homerun. Not a little pat on the ass…an actual hug. That’s brotherhood at it’s finest. That aspect alone makes Grady Little a great manager. Grady isn’t psychic. He was making what he thought was the best choice for the team. Let’s say he had decided to take Pedro out and put in Timlin or Wakefield or Williamson…who is to say the same thing wouldn’t have happened? If it did happen, the whole world would be criticizing him for taking Pedro out too early. I distinctly remember when Grady went up to the mound to talk to Pedro and decided to leave him in. When he turned to walk away from the mound and the crowd at the bar knew Pedro was staying in, the cheers erupted and the place went nuts. Everyone was thrilled Pedro was staying in. These are some of the same hypocrites that are saying Grady sucks and should’ve taken him out. I think Grady has done wonders with this team and think it is a shame the way people are now hoping he gets fired.

I’m already starting to hear the dreaded, “There’s always next year.” This depresses me much more than usual this year because with every end of a season, players leave and new ones join. I absolutely love this year’s hitting lineup and I am going to be VERY disappointed to see any of our players (pitching staff not included) go. The chemistry on the 2003 Red Sox is like no other, and I can’t imagine it being replicated, and that includes Grady Little as manager. The morale with the fans is something incredibly unique as well. Perhaps that’s another reason this season’s ending is such a painful disappointment…the 2003 Sox are the most fan-likeable team I have ever seen. Now keeping the bullpen…that’s a different story. I’d keep Pedro, Lowe, Wakefield, Timlin, and Williamson and trash the rest of the bullpen. It’s obvious we need at least one more very strong, young starter and several strong relief pitchers.

Since we’re tossing blame, here, why doesn’t anyone stop and think that maybe if Nomar hadn’t been in a horrible hitting slump until Game 6, maybe this series wouldn’t have even had to go all the way to Game 7? Maybe if Mueller hit over .174 in the postseason…I mean seriously, we could toss blame around all day long, but the fact of the matter is that our ’03 Red Sox kicked some serious ass. We didn’t go out easy…we made the Yanks fight until the very end. We made them go 7 games in extra innings, and by pure luck (and perhaps a certain dead man), they happened to get the game winning homerun instead of us. I just think it’s wrong for anyone to blame any single guy, be it Grady, Pedro, Wakefield, or anyone else. They went that far winning as a team, and they also lost as a team. I think that’s probably exactly how this team sees it themselves.

As I write this article, there are 157 days left until spring training. I wasn’t even close to being ready for this season to come to an end this soon, especially in this manner, but oh well. I guess now I’m free to invest some pointless emotion in my Bruins, Celts, and injured Pats for the next 157 days, that is if I can salvage any emotion after this devastation. This year hurt…it hurt bad. It’s going to take some time to get over this one. I’m still not over ’86, and I love this team much more than the ’86 team. I think I speak for many a Sox fan while writing this article.

One last point I would like to make about those of us who make up Red Sox Nation…we are a unique bunch, to say the least. It is all too easy to cop out and be a fan of the team almost guaranteed to win every season. It takes incredible character and a serious set of balls to be a Red Sox fan, year after year, and continue to have loyalty and love for an organization that just can’t make it. Aren’t you Yankees fans bored yet? How much fun and excitement can it possibly be when year after year you win. There’s no mystery, no suspense, no hoping and praying. How boring! I’d rather lose every year for 100 years and then finally win, because the glory of success after so much heartbreak is more glory than any Yankees fan will ever experience. When you want something so badly but can’t have it, you crave it, you desire it, you’d do anything for it. When you finally get it, the experience is unspeakably amazing. But when you want something and get it all the time, you take it for granted and lose the experience for what it could be. So you go ahead, New York…take your stupid championship once again, because once Boston finally gets it’s redemption (and we will, someday, we will), we will enjoy it and embrace it for everything it was meant to be. Boston will fall into the Harbor, locusts will swarm the skies, the oceans will turn red, the Babe will be rolling in his grave, and Red Sox Nation will finally be able to chant in total truth, “YANKEES SUCK!”

Email Missa with any comments at: MissaJC324@verizon.net