Here is a letter that Kathy, my wife, wrote to the Boston Globe this morning. I think it does a pretty good job in explaining why these sports things matter to many people. I hope you enjoy.
Ode to a Red-Sox Loving Dad
As I sit here bleary-eyed from the drama of this most wonderful postseason, I do so with a somewhat heavy heart as the man who lived and died with the Red Sox was not around to see his beloved team win it all. This was a man, who as a 12 year old saw his first game in Fenway during the war years. The first Sox batter hit a triple to start the bottom of the first inning, and according to my father, was still standing there years later, as the Sox were unable to get him home. Dad always said that he should have walked away right then and there to save himself a lifetime of disappointment and misery.
But he didn’t. He followed the team through the dark ages of the 50’s to mid-60’s and shared the hope of the Impossible Dream (my first memory as a 4 year old girl). He married a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in 1958, someone who could understand his passion and frustration and was transformed into an avid Sox fan. In the 70’s as the Red Sox built what looked to be a winning dynasty, but one never destined to win it all, he and my brother started a long-term battle of the hopeful idealist (my brother) against the distraught realist (Dad). In 1986, my Mom made the mistake of saying when the Sox were one strike away from winning the Series, “Ed, it looks like you’re going to see them win it all.”
Now cut to April 2001 as Dad lay in his hospice bed watching the last program he would ever see on television: Red Sox vs. Yankees, Pedro vs. Roger. Somehow a fitting end to a wonderful seventy years of avidly following the Sox. In the coming weeks, my entire family will be visiting Dad to lay a championship flag on his grave to hopefully bring some peace to his tormented Red Sox soul.
Thank you, Red Sox, for giving me the opportunity to pay tribute to you and to my Dad. Thank you, Curt, for you would have been my Dad’s favorite this year—a testament to overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges. Thank you, Manny, for your ability to let things roll off your back—something a lot of us Red Sox fans can use a lesson in. Thank you Johnny, Big Papi, Kevin, Bill, Trot, Mark and Keith. Thank you Pedro,
D-Lowe, Jason, and all of the other free agents who may not be with this team next year. And thank you to the Red Sox owners and Theo for not giving up on this bunch of idiots!
