Green: Anatomy of Red Sox melancholy
The e-mail from my mother read more like a telegram. This seemed fitting; in the movies, bad news always comes by telegram. “Sox are tanking. All hope lost. World ends soon.”
She was kidding — at least, I think she was kidding. Judging by certain hysterical headlines in certain newspapers lately, she might have been dismally serious. Here’s a statistic some baseball-crazed mathematician needs to invent: How many games can the Sox lose before the fan base starts to panic? And does it hinge on how big a lead the team has in the standings, or is it not at all related to that particular variable? Does the absolute value of fan despair fluctuate depending on which month it is when the swoon occurs? Or do we feel just as bad in June as we do in September? On the flip side, how many games must the Red Sox win before the fans perk up again? Will beating up on the likes of the Devil Rays suffice, or would it take a successful showdown with New York?
I think it’s safe to say that a handful of close wins won’t do it. In my experience, a few close wins are only good enough to stop the downward spiral of hopelessness, not reverse it. Unless, of course, you’re talking walk-off, Papi-powered wins, in which case they form the strongest possible antidote to losing-streak anxiety. But such wins are in very short supply these days (get that man some more Vitamin Water). In their absence, we can only hope for the next best thing: offensive fireworks. And I’m not talking about rude sparklers on the Fourth of July. Remember when the Sox hit four back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs? It seems now like that happened in a different season, to a different team.
Sox-induced gloom also induces a lot of grasping at straws. Despondent fans thirst for a savior, a game-winning Messiah. Will it be Jacoby Ellsbury, Rookie of Steel (or rather, Steal), fastest man to don a Sox uniform since Dave Roberts? Or will it be Curt Schilling, who will return from the DL and throw until not just his socks but his whole uniform is bloody? Or will it be [Fill in the Blank] acquired from [Random Team] at the trade deadline, who will undoubtedly cost too much, arrive to too much hype, and end up sort of sucking?
Let the rest of the country debate who got snubbed for the All-Star Game and prattle on about Mrs. A-Rod’s tank top. Let them discuss who belongs in the Hall of Fame and which managers are leaving their posts this week. Here in Boston, we have more important things on our minds. The Sox have lost a few games. The sky is falling, and we are doomed. I’m sort of kidding. I think.
Sarah Green is a freelance writer who can be reached at sgreen@gmail.com.
