Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
I watched Game 7 of the 2001 World Serious alone in my apartment with the sound off. When the Yankees lost I heard yelling from somewhere upstairs in my apartment building. Clearly, not everyone in the Bronx rooted for the Yankees. Over the next few days I ran into many Red Sox fans whose season had been made by the Yankee defeat.
The Sox have handled the Yankees over the past five year and Red Sox Nation has turned into their own entitled version of Yankee fans. I'll cop to it--I really wanted the Sox to lose the ALCS in the worst way. It practically made the season for me, saved us from another winter of Boston lording over the game. Now, I sound like a Sox fan. Funny how these things work.
Meanwhile, both Yankee and Sox fans will have the Rays to contend with for some time. But for now, I've got a peaceful, easy feeling. I can exhale, digest, and enjoy World Serious and then, the long winter.
When they won it all in 04 and the curse was "lifted," people said: congrats, but now you've lost the one thing that made your team special. Now you're the Kansas City Royals.
It warmed my heart to hear it said, but it didn't really fit the moment. You're not the Kansas City Royals if you've got a parade scheduled in your city the next day.
But take away the winning? Now we're talking. When Sox fans have neither the poetry of the curse nor the championship trophy -- when their long winter of what-if is no different from a couple of dozen other teams' -- then they're nothing but another team that didn't win.
Also: How sweet is it to contemplate all those people you saw streaming out the Fenway exits in the top of the seventh in game 5? Despite the way the series ended up, they'll hate themselves forever. Good.
It would probably take a hundred years, and several decades of Boston bullying our lunch money for Yankee fans to become as obsessively hateful and bitter as Red Sox fans.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Monday morning the air seemed just a little bit fresher, didn't it?
And the World Series goes on without them. So good, so good, so good.
As a Sox fan, I can tell you that I much prefer being ordinary. This ALCS loss was disappointing, but not crushing. I continue with my daily life, and I'm going to enjoy watching the Series. Ask a Cubs fan if they'd want to switch places with Sox fans.
"How sweet is it to contemplate all those people you saw streaming out the Fenway exits in the top of the seventh in game 5?"
I was at that game and tho many people did leave, it wasn't as bad as it looked on TV: a lot of ppl were going to get their last beers (which seemed quite necessary at the time) before Fenway stopped serving. The park was quite full at the end of the game.
5 "So good, so good, so good."
Screw 'Sweet Caroline'...
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