Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
Boston wins the World Series! Throw out the sackcloth and ashes. Red Sox fandom will never be the same.
Oct 28, 2004 | At long last the sports fans of Boston have a championship to celebrate. Finally, finally, finally. They poured out of the bars and into the streets Wednesday night and let loose. They pumped fists, screamed, hugged, howled at the eclipsed moon, and who can blame them? Yes, sir, it's been a while since they've been able to celebrate like this.
Almost nine months.
The Red Sox shut out the Cardinals 3-0 in St. Louis Wednesday, completing a stunning four-game World Series sweep of a team that won 105 games during the regular season. It was the first major sports championship for Boston since the Patriots won the Super Bowl in February.
And, by the way, it's the first World Series title for the Red Sox since 1918.
Being a Red Sox fan will never be the same, at least not while anyone old enough to read these words still breathes. Lifetimes worth of losing, of frustration and heartache, of almosts and never-weres, are washed away. "Pesky holds the ball!" and "Behind the bag!" may not be forgotten, but they've been tamed.
Every team kicks away a golden chance at a championship now and then. Even these Cardinals, with all their championships and their happy, well-adjusted fans, had 3-1 leads in the 1968 and 1985 Series and lost them both. These things happen all over and become part of the rich tapestry of a team's history.
In Boston, they've come to define the very soul of fandom.
Chicago's teams have gone longer without a title. The White Sox last went to the World Series in 1959 and last won it in 1917. The Cubs last played in the Fall Classic in 1945 and haven't won since 1908. But somehow it's different in Chicago. The White Sox and Cubs are mere losers, only hapless. The Red Sox are tragic.
To be a Red Sox fan is to carry a burden, to know, absolutely know, that no matter how bright the dawn, tomorrow will bring a new darkness. To root for the Red Sox is to know that success is fleeting, and worse, any success just makes the inevitable defeat all the more painful.
Until now. Now it's all changed. This time the Sox blew a big lead in Game 1 of the Series, then got the lead back, blew that, and still won. Two well-pitched games later Sox fans found themselves with a 3-0 lead, staring at needing one win in four games.
And they scarcely knew what to do about it other than worry that if there was anything worse than blowing a 3-0 lead in a seven-game series, it had to be blowing a 3-0 lead in a seven-game series the week after you'd become the first team ever to overcome a 3-0 deficit in a seven-game series. And guess who had a chance to pull that one off.
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