Curses, it's time for a Series
talk with young Sox fan
By Beth Teitell
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Over the weekend, as
Red Sox fever gripped the town, I was forced to wrestle with one of those big
parenting questions: How do I talk to my preschooler about the Curse of the
Bambino?
It was the kind of difficult conversation I hadn't anticipated having yet - the boy's only 3, or "free," as he says - but last Tuesday my husband, a nice man, really, took him to a Baltimore Orioles game.
It all seemed so innocent at the time. A cute little father-son outing, a few peanuts, a new cap. What could be bad?
Yeah, right. Within an inning or two, the curse was visited on our toddler.
"Our Red Sox are winning, Daddy," he said after Nomar Garciaparra scored, thrusting his arms up for the wave.
The next morning, reflecting on how great the game had been - the Sox won in the 10th inning, moving them one step closer to the wild-card slot - my husband said it was "irresponsible" to have taken our older son to Fenway without having adequately prepared him.
"I should have spliced footage of the Bill Buckner error in game six and of Bucky Dent's homer in '78 into the Baby Bach tape," he said.
But I'm not sure even that would have helped. I fear my son may have the long-suffering-fan gene, because after only a brief exposure the kid's a goner. On Sunday, as we drove by Fenway, I turned around to the back seat and - stupidly - said the Red Sox could get to the World Series.
"No, Mommy," he replied from his car seat. "They already won it."
Uh, oh.
How does a mother tell her child that his team will never win the World Series without dashing his spirit? Especially when the lesson you're supposed to teach is that with hard work and perseverance anything is possible?
As he chattered on about how the Orioles didn't hit the ball - in true fan mode, he no longer remembered Baltimore's five runs - I thought about my options:
1) We could relocate to New York. After all, why should an accident of birth doom him - and soon his younger brother - to a lifetime of misery?
2) I could lie to him and tell him that not only do the Red Sox have many recent World Series titles, but that they're poised to win this year's championship, too.
But as attractive as that plan is in the short run, I fear that unless I raise him in a protective TiVo bubble, eventually he'll see a live game, or hear about one, and then he'll never trust me again.
That's what's so hard about being a parent, I'm learning. You think you've got all the bases covered. You move to a town with good public schools, and you introduce your children to classical music and yoga and a foreign language, and then something like this happens and you realize all your efforts are for naught.
I was at the park on Sunday, and when it emerged that the father I was talking to was a longtime Sox fan, I sought his advice.
"Look at it as a character-building experience," he said.
Yes! I thought, that's what I'll do.
That, and hope against hope that this is the year!
