In a desperate effort to exorcise the demons that have recently invaded the bodies of the fellas who play for the Boston Red Sox, I have decided to blog about baseball, Fenway Pahk, and my beloved Sawx.
Rarely if ever has a baseball season been more eagerly anticipated than this one. After all, the Sawx had boldly signed Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez while shoring up a weak bullpen with the likes of Bobby Jenks and Dan Wheeler. These additions combined with a very solid everyday lineup and starting pitching foretold of a "Sweet Caroline" summer for the Nation. It was this feeling of optimism that prompted me to buy tickets for a Sox-Rays game in Tampa in mid-June. I was looking forward to showing Kate how much fun it is to watch the Sawx on the road with their traveling fans on hand to represent the Nation.
I made similar mistakes in the stock market.
You see, they actually make you play the games and the Sawx are in a...well...it's been a bad patch. I can't reveal my sources, but I was able to get hold of an American League scout's official report on the Sawx after the recent Tampa Bay series. This is how he characterized the team:
LF Crawford: sucks
2B Pedroia: good
1B Gonzalez: ok
3B Youkilis: sucks
DH Ortiz: sucks
RF Drew: sucks
C Saltalamacchia: really sucks
SS Scutaro: sucks
CF Ellsbury: sucks
SP Lackey: completely sucks
Bullpen: sucks
Outside vendors: good
Parking: sucks
Folks, that's a whole lot of sucks!
Of course, are we to assume that the suckage will continue through the summer and fall? No. Baseball has always been a game of numbers and statistics and 100 years of baseball history say that sooner or later Carl Crawford will get a hit and John Lackey will hold a lead. That has been their history and they will return to that history before too long.
Unless they just suck, in which case they will just suck.
The Sawx haven't sucked in a long time. Since 1967, with very few exceptions, they have been at least competitive if not riveting. Anybody who is 45 or younger has really never seen them suck. That's quite remarkable when you think about it. On the other hand, if you're in your 50's or older, you probably have vivid memories of complete seasons of suck. I know I do.
I guess you could say that from the Korean War to the beginning of the War in Vietnam, the Sawx really sucked. When I first got hooked on Sawx baseball, I had the dubious distinction of following the double play combination of Buddin to Gernert to Zauchin. Not an Ozzie Smith in the bunch. Malzone was pretty good at third and the outfield of Himself in left, Piersall in center, and Jensen in right was fine, but it was the starting pitching that was truly disastrous. Outside of Mel Parnell, there wasn't a single pitcher that anyone would pay money (even the 75 cents it cost to sit in the bleachers) to see. Occasionally a young flamethrower like Dave Moorhead would excite folks for a while, but they never really panned out and we were stuck with the likes of Bob Porterfield, Frank Sullivan, Willard Nixon and the immortal Ike Delock.
Going to Fenway in the late 50's and early 60's was a cozy, relaxed affair. No need to buy tickets in advance; you could always get good seats the day of the game. You could even buy a "general admission" grandstand ticket and then scout out a better seat in the boxes. If you weren't obnoxious about it, the ushers would "look the other way." Of course this begs the question: Is it better to watch an awful team close up or from afar? The next Republican National Convention will pose a similar problem.
I make a little joke.
In those days, you would take your seat and spread out. You could put your jacket on the seat beside you and your lunch on the other side. You could have a pleasant baseball conversation with the old-timer behind you without having the PA system blaring every 30 seconds with loud music or sponsor announcements: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the next time a Red Sox player hits into a double play, redeem your ticket for some refreshing Doublemint Gum; due to the large demand, only one stick per customer." That old timer would regale you with stories about young Ted Williams or old Babe Ruth or how much the Red Sox sucked in the 30's. Vendors worked much harder in those days. With fewer people in the ballpark, they had fewer potential sales and fewer people to pass the goodies to the customer. A bad deal all around. In those days a leather-lunged fan could really make himself heard and not be drowned out by the din of the throng around him. With the team going as badly as it did in those days, some of the verbal assaults were not very kind, as I'm sure Pumpsie Green or Earl Wilson could attest.
They had actual scheduled doubleheaders in those days which meant on certain Sundays you could spend about 7 hours in a row watching your team suck. Of course the idea of being there to watch Himself get 8 at-bats was more than enough to offset the other 64 or so futile attempts. No matter how lopsided the score was, people stayed to watch Ted come to bat. That definitely didn't suck, especially for a certain chubby left-handed kid from Dorchester. No, that didn't suck at all.
Come to think of it, most of us in Red Sox nation survived a long period of suckiness before and we will do it again if we have to. We're a resilient lot and, well, a little Sawx suckage now and again is ok.
As long as the Yankees suck too.
Ain't baseball grand?
J
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