Stupid Yankees won the division yesterday, because of a stupid rule.
The Red Sox can still win the wild card, and I think they will. I'm trying to be happy about that, but I so wanted them to win the division. My head knows that getting into the playoffs is all that matters, but my heart wanted more. I don't know when it became so important to me to see my former team - the colors I lived and died for for more than 25 years - to lose. But this year, it became unreasonably important. I confess I took as much pleasure in Yankees losses as I did in Red Sox wins. That can only mean one thing: I really have become a citizen of Red Sox Nation.
The stupidest part of this stupid thing is that, if the Red Sox win today, the two teams have identical records. The Yankees will have won 10 out of the 19 regular season games against each other, as opposed to the Red Sox's 9 wins. By virtue of that 10-9 record, they win the AL East title.
Stupid.
Wild card good. Wild card good. That's me reminding myself. Since the wild card was introduced in 1995 (the way the Yankees finally clawed their way back into post-season play), the wild-card winner has gone on to the win the World Series four times, including three consecutive years (2002-2004). In 2002, both teams in the World Series had been wild cards. Today, a Red Sox win or a Cleveland loss - or better yet, both - guarantees us a playoff spot, and at the very worst, there'll be a one-game playoff tomorrow.
So, onward. (But it's still stupid.)
2 comments:
I read your post about their being your team in the past. .. You were able to articulate my ambivalence about them the last few years. Your going over to the Red Sox must have been a shock to some of your friends. I can only imagine if I were to do the same that some people would stop speaking to me. . . which is ridiculous.
Well, it would have been a shock if I had told them. But I stayed in the closet. :-)
With the obvious exception of my partner, my close friends aren't into baseball. They were surprised but thought it was funny.
The people I talked baseball with were mainly casual acquaintances, people I knew through work and such. With them, I went around pretending to still be a Yankees fan! Isn't that silly? I just didn't want to deal with the reaction. It got crazy sometimes, trying to remember who knew what.
You were able to articulate my ambivalence about them the last few years.
The Yankees, you mean?
I think if I hadn't lived with a Red Sox fan and been so exposed to the Sox all the time, I might have just drifted away entirely. But instead the Red Sox pulled me in.
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