A Flawless Day… Almost

Leave it to the Boston Red Sox to ruin a perfect day.

The script was all right there in front of me, every detail pointing to June 30, 2004 going down in history as one of the watershed days of my life.  The weather was gorgeous, a moderate mixture of temperature, sun intensity, and gentle breeze that could have passed for San Diego in April as easily as Boston in early summer.

The reigning champion of “Best Day Ever” is October 10, 1999, and 6/30/04 had early potential to be right there with it in the Pantheon of Great Days.  10/10/99 was the day of Sox-Indians ALDS Game 4, a day which included (but was not limited to) purchasing tickets the day of the game at 7 AM, going to Mass in a mall, paying a cover charge at a bar simply to use the bathroom, passing out in a parked car on Brookline Avenue, cheering euphorically for a 23-7 Sox rout of the Indians, and heading west on the Mass. Pike toward Cleveland and a fateful Game 5 before cooler heads and the sobering effects of the human liver caused us to turn around and head back to Eastern Massachusetts.

Like 10/10, June 30 started in Boston, with my lovely Better Half, Jennifer, and I setting out early towards Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to meet up with her sister Heather and relax on a calm Granite State beach.  After a quick pit stop for bagels and gas, the day proceeded to follow the predetermined script: little to no traffic in the city, scenic drive on I-95 to New Hampshire, a seamless navigation of the Hampton Tolls and the Portsmouth traffic circle, magnificent views at the shore (both of natural splendor and man-made eye candy), delectable seafood dinner, soft-serve ice cream, and a power nap in the backseat while the girls drove me around and caught up on family gossip.

Returning to the Big City, the idealist plot of the day remained consistent; I finalized the rental of a new house for the fall and managed to survive our summer-league basketball game with only minimal damage to my ever-atrophying muscles and unrealistic ego.  We stopped by the Green Brier Pub in Brighton Center for some post-game libations and the camaraderie of a roomful of card-carrying members of the Nation, eyes glued to NESN’s coverage of the Sox and the Yanks down in the Bronx.

Then it occurred to me.  The Red Sox have such a stranglehold over me and thousands (perhaps millions) of other die-hards.  Even though the players themselves are mere humans in a legal sense, the franchise has a spiritual, cosmic influence on the mental state of all who are infected with the disease of Sox fandom.

Late in the game, David Ortiz committed an egregious error with the bases loaded, allowing the tying runs to score (without the Yankees getting a hit in the inning), instantly switching from worshipful hero to vagrant goat.  After his miscue, revisionist history of the day filled my mind.  I thought back to leaving the gas station at 8:30 AM, a splendid summer day in front of me, nothing but positive, contented thoughts in my head.  Turning on the radio, I found it tuned to sports radio WEEI, where I heard the familiar voices of Gerry Callahan and John Dennis lambasting the Sox’ pathetic performance (especially defensively) on Tuesday night.  I shut the radio off.  I never shut off Dennis and Callahan in the morning.  I didn’t want the negativity to ruin my day.

At the beach, I sat down in my portable folding chair and started to read the Boston Globe.  I took one glance at the lead article on the sports page, and tossed the entire paper aside.  No matter how uplifting the news in the rest of the paper, the pain of reading the sports section would have been too much to handle, especially on the kind of storybook, nostalgia-inducing day through which I was living.

At the basketball game, one of my teammates asked me what I thought about the Sox game from Tuesday night.  I refused to talk about it, once again defensively guarding myself against the spiritual letdown of letting recent Red Sox malaise infect the positive thoughts circling through my brain.

But I couldn’t escape Ortiz’s error.

When it happened, Jennifer and I were on our way home from the Green Brier, and we were listening to the game on the radio.  After Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano described the error and dejectedly reported the game being tied at 2-2, I decided to leave the radio on, but I consciously shut my ears to the rest of the broadcast.  The result was a foregone conclusion.  Yankees 4, Red Sox 2.  The final score didn’t matter.  The game, and my good spirits, were lost with Ortiz’s costly error.

For those of you that aren’t Red Sox Nation die-hards, this is what it is like.  Maybe your love for your own team can drive you to such an emotional roller-coaster, but for Sox fans, the struggle of being a hardcore fan is a unique one.  It is a struggle of a fall day in 1999 ending in a triumphant victory and a subsequent ranking in the Pantheon of one’s life.  Unfortunately, it is also a struggle of an ugly loss in Yankee Stadium on a summer’s day in 2004.  For the true Red Sox fan, one exceptional day can be transformed from redolent memories of New Hampshire beaches, tasty seafood, and much-appreciated companionship, to a stained recollection of another June collapse… all in a New York minute.  Such is life in Red Sox Nation, circa 2004.

By Ryan McGowan     2004