Big Papi and the Path to Enlightenment

So the other night Karen was out of the apartment, giving me a temporary upper hand in the battle for control of the television, which could mean only one thing: time to savor, yet again, the Red Sox World Series victory. Although she was indulgent enough to get me the super deluxe Boston Red Sox World Series DVD set, Karen seems to view my Sox addiction as something for me to obsess over on my own, rather than as something she's fully willing to participate in. So, you know, if I want to watch the full, unedited videos of baseball games from two years ago, baseball games where I already know the outcome, the exact scores, and the full highlights, well, that's something she prefers I do alone. When she's not around. I can't claim to explain why she wouldn't want to sit and watch those games with me, but it's probably something to do with how girls are just weird and confusing. Chicks, man. What am I gonna tell you?

Anyways, with Karen out of the apartment I was able to spend some quality alone time with the Sox DVDs, and I skipped from game to game watching the highlights from the ALCS with the Yankees. Dave Roberts' steal, aka The Steal, in the ninth inning of Game 4. Big Papi's game-winning hits in Game 4 and Game 5. Mark Bellhorn's homerun in Game 6, the one that was initially ruled a ground-rule double but later overruled. A-Rod's girly slap to knock the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's glove later in Game 6, a call that was also overruled. (Still a pretty amazing turn of events, from a Sox fan's perspective: it's rare enough to have one call overruled in a game, much less two. And the video on both is clear, with absolutely no room for argument from Yankees fans out there. For those who believed in curses and bad luck and the existence of star-crossed franchises, those were two moments that should have gone against the Sox but somehow, miraculously, they didn't.) And of course Johnny Damon's backbreaking grand slam in game 7.

The funny thing is, even though I knew exactly what was going to happen next, I was still tense watching those games. My heart was racing when Roberts broke for second after Mariano River had thrown over to first again and again and again to try to pick him off. Seeing A-Rod on first and Jeter zipping around to third, I felt the bile rising in my throat because I hated seeing those cocky, preppy, too-pretty corporate Yankees coming back yet again to another inevitable win. And when Big Papi's Game 4 shot landed in the bullpen, I was on my feet, hands in the air. (In fairness to myself, I knew I was acting like a deluded crazy man. Not that the knowledge prevented me from acting a fool alone in my apartment, but still.)

Is it silly to claim that a couple of baseball games changed my life? Maybe, but it's undoubtedly true. I know it changed my life, and someday maybe I'll write my memoir of how October 2004 was a great turning point in my life and the moment when a lovable bunch of baseball players transcended space and time to make all of their fans happy, successful, and well-adjusted. I'll hold off on that account for now, though--there are already, give or take, about 548,722 such accounts, which means mine is a good 450,000+ from being ripe. I think the millionth "Boston Red Sox World Series Memoir" wins a prize, and I want to be that guy.

But suffice it to say this: the Red Sox World Series brings a smile to my face every time I think about it. Even a year and a half later, thinking about the events of that October bring joy and happiness to me in a way that few other things do. And I know I'm not alone; in the aftermath of 2004, the popular stereotype of the Red Sox fan has been "obnoxiously smug people who just can't stop talking about how great their team was", replacing "moaning, whiny, woe-is-me miserabilists who simply can't accept that their team is worse than the Yankees." Neither of these is terribly positive, of course, but there's a much higher degree of satisfaction in the new one. By definition, what with the whole "self-satisfied" aspect.

I still have some Midwestern sense of modesty and propriety, and I find it a bit embarrassing to see the ongoing celebration of the World Series victory. Even this offseason, with all of the talk about Johnny Damon signing with the Yankees, there's probably been more discussion of the 2004 Red Sox than of the 2005 White Sox. That's bad, and for Red Sox fans it reeks of self-involvement.

And yet...and yet. There really was something special about that team, as the other 548,000 memoirs have noted. It was a lovable bunch of guys who looked, talked, and played like they'd be the greatest group of guys to hang out with. They matched up with the Yankees in perfect slob-vs.-snob fashion, and American pop culture venerates the slobs in that matchup. There was the culmination of a compelling storyline that had begun in 2003, or 1986, or 1978, or 1975, or 1968, or 1948, or 1918, or since the dawn of time, depending on who was doing the telling. And of course, the Red Sox won in the most dramatic, improbable, amazing possible way. Let's put it this way: if you made a movie where a team came back from down 3 games to 0...and down by a run in the bottom of the 9th of Game 4, facing the greatest closer in the history of the game...well, there's not a movie-goer in America who wouldn't call bullshit on that. And I'm a guy who can happily accept that Bruce Willis can become a space miner in two weeks and save the world from a giant asteroid, so let's just say I'm not the most difficult person in the world when it comes to movie veracity. But if the Red Sox hadn't won the way they did, and I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it. It just would have been too good to be true.

So I can see why people have such a hard time letting that team go. I loved it as much as anyone, and I still do. There's definitely a bit of sadness, watching that team on those DVDs and knowing that it's not the same anymore. Take The Steal. Kevin Millar leads off and draws a walk. Dave Roberts replaces him and steals the Base Heard 'Round the World, in a moment that's still electric no matter how many times I see it. Then Bill Mueller steps up and somehow punches a single up the middle, scoring Roberts and restoring life to a team that was well and truly finished. The moment is pivotal, and without it 2004 would have been the year where the Yankees utterly and completely destroyed the Red Sox in a sweep. It would have been as devastating and traumatic a loss as it was an uplifting, life-changing win. And the three players involved in that moment? All gone now--Millar to Baltimore, Roberts to San Diego, and Mueller to the Dodgers. Of course, they're not the only 2004 Sox who aren't 2006 Sox. Johnny Damon, Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe, Orlando Cabrera, Alan Embree, Mark Bellhorn and Mike Myers are all wearing other uniforms this spring.

Of all of these, Johnny Damon's signing with the Yankees...wait, excuse me, I mean to say his defection to the Yankees, as it's invariably described, seems to be receiving the most attention and anger from Sox fans. I was in Boston a few weeks ago and saw the t-shirts that said, "No Hair, No Beard, No Soul" and I've plenty of the Johnny-Damon-isn't-Jesus-he's-the-Anti-Christ jokes. It seems to me to be a lot of redirected anger and grief over losing that great 2004 team.

I've loved watching Johnny Damon play ever since he put on the Red Sox uniform. He's always seemed like a fun guy and there's never been a moment when I thought he wasn't giving everything he had. I want to wish him the best in the future, and I hope he continues to be a great player...okay, since he's a Yankee now, I can't say that. I want Nomar Garciaparra and Bill Mueller to have great seasons in Los Angeles, and Pedro to regain his health and pitch several more masterpieces this summer in Shea, and Millar to be loved and appreciated by the fans in Baltimore. I want Damon to...well, I want him to play poorly. Or better yet, I want him to play well on a Yankees team that wins only 60 games. But that's not because I'm mad at Damon, it's because I hate the Yankees. They're still the rival, still the infuriating team the Red Sox need to beat. As for Damon personally, I'm not angry. He had a much, much better offer on the table from the Yankees. An extra $12 million is pretty significant, and I can't in any way say he was wrong to take it. It's going to hurt to see him in pinstripes, of course, and for that reason I can't wholeheartedly be happy for him. But, in my qualified way, I wish him the best for the future. From a fan to a great player, he gave me a lot of great memories and I'm thankful for that.

But that sums up how it has to be with the Red Sox now. That 2004 team was really, truly a special team in a way that transcended the game; they were great characters, in a great story, and the whole ride was as exhilarating as any work of literature or art. Seriously. But it's time to let that team go and move on. Sox fans have always been cursed by the bad things that happened in our past; now we need to make sure not to become cursed by the greatest thing that ever happened to us.

As Red Sox fans, we have a clean slate at long last. Winning that World Series was truly an exorcism of all the bad spirits. Now the Sox are just another team, and that's a great thing. For me, the moment where I really saw the full extent of the exorcism was at the end of last summer. Although the Sox remained in contention, their season was marked by injury and disappointment, and rancor between fans and the team, and between the teammates themselves. It was not fun. And yet, I was okay with it. I still wanted the Sox to win just as much as ever. I still lived and died with the scores that night, and the difference between a good day and a bad day, for me, was still whether the Sox had won. But I could look at that team, with all of its pitching and defense problems, and I knew at the end of August that they just didn't have it. They were still good enough to make the playoffs, but I knew that the team I was watching wasn't going to go very far. And I was okay with that. Not happy about it. I still hoped they'd come through and reclaim that 2004 magic. But when they didn't, I wasn't as upset as I had been all the times before when they'd come close and fallen short. It wasn't the end of the world. I felt content knowing that they had won already, and they can and will win it again. People can talk about how it will never be the same again, that the next time the Red Sox win won't be as great and momentous as 2004, for all the reasons I talked about above. But I think the flip side is overlooked; winning might not ever be that good again, but losing will never be as bad, either.

So it's probably fitting that, in the absence of our Jesus Johnny Damon, the most visible player on the team is the positively Buddha-esque David Ortiz. As the Buddha would tell us, we must let go of those things that bind us. And the 2004 Red Sox bind us all. It's time to let go and move on. I've let go of my sentimental attachment to Jesus Johnny Damon. In a Zen-like state, I move confidently forward into the future; with Big Papi's warm smiling gaze shining down upon me, I know I am walking the path of the Baseball Buddha.