The Diatribe * net

I am a displaced Sox Fan.  I have to admit, I’m still not comfortable uttering those words.  It defies logic.  Did I grow up in Boston?  Negative.  Did I endure 28 years (my lifespan) of agony rooting for a team that could never get the job done, no matter how close they came?  Negative.  In fact, in 1986, my 10 year-old self  was jumping up and down when the the Mets beat the Sox due in large part to Bill what’s his name. 

I know, I know, boo me.  Call it childhood ignorance.

It’s a hard stance to justify.  My family is all New York.  And I mean a Brooklyn-Coney Island-Simon & Garfunkel kind of New York.  It’s in my blood.  Somewhere.  Don’t get me wrong, I am NJ suburbs born and raised.  But like they say, you can take the Parents out of the City, but you can’t take the City out of the Parents.  And where the Parents roam, the children are sure to follow.  The older I get, and the more time I spend in Manhattan, the more I realize what the fuss is all about.  But for me, it’s not the trendy bars or the fancy hotels.  It’s not the neon of Times Square or the hipness of The Village.  It’s not The Triangle Below Canal Street or the neighborhood South of Houston.  No, it’s heritage, plain and simple.  It’s the colloquialisms, accents, and the feeling of belonging because it’s familiar.  Because it’s family.  It’s a part of how I was raised.  

And yet it’s not the Mets and it’s not the Yankees.  Hence, the great dilemma.

I can’t explain my infatuation with the Boston Red Sox.  All I know is that it came at a time when I was not interested in athletics on any level.  Basketball, the penultimate sport that held my last bit of attention faded away to self-consuming nothingness.  I abhorred professional sports.  Even after moving to a new city I lost all interst in the professional sports industry.  But on Sunday afternoons at 238 S. Huntington Ave, a tradition began to form.  It was nothing to write home to mom about, just Cool Jesus kicking back and watching the game.  But the roommate took notice, and more importantly, the roommate took interest.  And there, really, it began.  Something familiar.  Something regular.  Something true.  Something that I could identify with.  It wasn’t my parents’ team or the Big City to which I strived to belong.  No.  The Red Sox were an entity, a Common Ground, a way to reach out to Cool Jesus and later others, including LTJ.  The Sox became an example of life, pitiful and brilliant.  They too became a part of my blood.  In sports, longevity doesn’t matter:  Passion and perseverance prevail.  But, if even that fails, entertainment always follows:

Just this last week the Rem-Dawg said, (in his best Ed Sullivan impersonation), "Stay tuned, we have a really big shoe ahead of us, a really big shoe". 

How true.