Say it with me: We won't let the Sox hurt us anymore
By Beth Teitell
Thursday, October 9, 2003
Help! Someone do an intervention, quick.
I've been sucked into Red Sox Nation, and I want to get out. Last weekend, as we began to fight our way out of the 0-2 hole, it was as if I'd stepped into quicksand. By the end of Monday night's game, after Manny Ramirez's three-run homer and Derek Lowe's final strike-out pitch, I caught myself harboring a very dangerous thought: ``This could be the year.''
Someone, please, stop me before I care again.
Like a weekend warrior who injures herself biking 50 miles without training, as a fair-weather fan I'm afraid I'm going to get hurt. My Sox defense mechanisms aren't up to the task. I can't handle the bottom-of-the-ninth nail-biters, the late nights, the inevitable heartbreak.
I know the Sox want me to believe, but I don't want to. I can't.
I've seen what happens to people who do. One day, they're normal, functioning members of society, able to make general conversation about Arnold or the South Beach Diet, the next thing you know, it's fall, and they start wandering around Kenmore Square, muttering about some 85-year-old curse and buying obscene bumper stickers about a team that doesn't even give us the dignity of returning the vitriol.
On Monday night, as the victory over the Oakland A's settled in, people around me started fantasizing about scoring tickets for the American League Championship Series, but I excused myself from the party and went into an empty room.
``Face facts,'' I told my reflection, grabbing the mirror's frame for emphasis. ``We - I mean they - can't beat New York. The pitching's just not there.''
I was quietly chanting ``Cowboy Down, Cowboy Down'' when I heard a knock at the door.
It was a friend. ``Are you OK?'' she asked, trying to give me a high five.
I said I was fine, thank you very much, and I planned to stay that way, unlike certain other people I happened to know. But she was already too far gone, and my remark went over her head.
Scared that her virus would infect me, I was blunt: ``You're in a dysfunctional relationship,'' I said. ``They do this to you every year. Every year you tell yourself things are going to be different, but they never are. Are they? And you always say you can stop caring at any time, but you can't. Look at yourself for goodness sake, you're wearing red cowboy boots.''
``Why are you being so mean?'' she asked, almost in tears.
``Because,'' I said, pulling off her cap, ``Friends
don't let friends become Red Sox fans.''
