Actually, it does get old

In the midst of Patriots-related happiness (Playoffs! My dad taking me to the game against the Jaguars this Saturday!) it's a drag to revisit the Red Sox drama, but, well, this is a dual site and I feel obligated at this point to say something about the Sox.

However, the reason I've been quiet on the Sox front becomes clear immediately when I actually open my mouth about it: essentially, I just don't care right now.

I don't mean I don't care about the team or that I won't root for them come April or that I've jumped off the bandwagon. But I could care less about the stupid drama at this point. I'm sick of Lucchino's smarmy media tactics, I'm sick of hearing devastating things like the latest rumor that Theo was let go because "instant gratification people" in the organization disagreed with his plan to let the field lay fallow for a year or two. And yes, I call that devastating--because that's the way I foresaw a bright Red Sox future, too. Now?

Now, I hate to say it, but I'm just burned out. I know I wrote that I was burned out a month ago, but I'm still burned out. Without any of the simpler joys to watch--a hit, a double play, a home run, a sweet catch--without the ability to focus on the present, I'm afraid the Theo Situation has just turned me off baseball for the time being. I guess I've taken it harder than I even thought I would when it happened.

But to me, there still *is* a Theo Situation, whether he's gone or not, because every time they don't get a deal done, I can't help but think Theo would've done it...or that Theo would never have tantalized us with the possibility in the first place. Every time there's a new ridiculous rumor floating around about Manny, Miggy, the Orioles, the Yankees, a big cup of nothing and an arms deal with the Dominican, just before the ennui kicks in I indulge myself in the delusion that Theo would not have allowed it. Or, perhaps more truthfully, that with Theo at the helm I'd have more confidence in a good outcome for the team.

Remember in my multi-part epistle about the World Series, how I wrote:

In some parallel universe, Bucky Dent's home run is curving foul, and Yaz didn't pop out to end the game but instead hit a resounding double or perhaps even a triple; Wade Boggs never cried in the dugout and Grady Little never dreamed of walking off that mound without Pedro Martinez firmly in tow.

We've known that universe. We've lived in that universe at times, when things on this side got too cruel. And not just with baseball, either; we've all imagined some other side where maybe someone didn't die or we didn't make this or that decision.

This--Mark Bellhorn's home run striking the Pesky Pole, the pole opposite the one christened by Fisk's famous walkoff in 1975--mirror images--was that universe reversed, was the other side of the looking glass, was the dream-world made flesh.

Now it seems like in this off-season we've been flung back through the looking-glass, and I'm back to living in that parallel world, the one where Theo's still here and we embrace his decisions with the trust he's earned from us and we field a fearsome competitor again in 2007 and beyond, shored up with our own homegrown farm system--dozens of Nomars, Hanleys, Shoppachs, Youkilises, Nixons. "In Theo We Trust" reigns supreme in Red Sox Nation, even when the team is not, at present, very good--we know it will return to former glory.

I live in this parallel universe so much that when something forces me back into the reality of the Red Sox in the present day, despite the fact that I do know better, I wonder every time if it's just a bad dream.

Like, for example, when I have a conversation like the following, which took place on the Neverending Email Thread (tm) today:

Kristen: I got the schedule and group ticket thing in the mail the other day and apparently their motto this year is "It Never Gets Old."

Um, k.

Me: D'Oh.

Mer: Uhh...actually, it does. And it did.

Annette: Oh, the unintentional humor in that is delightful.

I mean...what the hell happened? Whatever it was, can we just pretend it didn't?

Comments

[peter*]

We actually don't have to think that emotionally yet, accent yet, because there is more for the front office to do. I think something helpful and harmful but BIG is impending. Just my thoughts, such as they are.