Lots of anger from a Red Sox fan

Following the Red Sox painful 6 to 5 loss to the New York Yankees on Friday I began a phase of self-imposed solitary confinement and reflection. Surely, like all Sox fans, I was devastated -- but perhaps this was only the first stage of the healing process.

I thought: Maybe it wasn't about winning. Maybe reversing the curse isn't that important. Perhaps instead it's about companionship and friendship. Perhaps instead it's about brotherhood and fraternity. Perhaps instead it's about taking the good with the bad.

But after much thought and reflection I decided that truthfully, it is about anger.

I am angry that I saw a Yankees fan as I passed in my lab this morning and he had nothing to say. He was not glowing from his victory. He was at total ease. And I hate that he was at total ease when we were up 5 to 2 in the 8th inning.

I am angry that the Red Sox slogan this year was "Cowboy Up," a symptom of the radical right further taking over this country. I detest its addictiveness, and I cringe when I realize that three of our hitters spend more time saying, "God was with me on that pitch," than demanding where God was for them on the other twenty outs they made in clutch situations.

I like that I live in Taxachusetts and I like that the current president, born and schooled in the northeast, decided that people from around here weren't his style. So as a plea for next year, can we please drop the "Cowboy Up" routine?

I am angry that next year some new piece of s**t is going to be in right field for the Yankees, following in the lone of the ever-distinguished and calm Paul O'Neill and Karem Garcia. And I am angry that the current aforementioned object is so worthless to the Yankees that Joe Tore nearly called him Sergio Garcia in a post-game interview.

I am angry that Boston Mayor Thomas Menino makes a bet with the NYC mayor every time Boston plays New York in a big sporting event. If they win, they get a lobster and clam chowder dinner for four. If we win, we get some of New York's finest food: pizza, hot dogs, and bagels. I am angry with my Long Island friend who argues that this is a fair deal and challenges me, "Have you ever had a New York bagel?" Yes, I have had a New York bagel; it is made of the same basic s**t that every bagel is made of: flour, yeast, and water. If I wanted a New York bagel, I wouldn't trade a 15 dollar lobster for it. I would drive down to Manhattan Bagel in Boston and buy one for 99 cents.

I am angry that a friend of mine thought it was really cool that Boston Globe sports writers were contributing to a New York paper, and vice versa. It is bad enough that the New York Times Company owns our biggest paper. We do not need to read an editorial from a New Yorker telling us that Grady may be back next year and this is Buckner anew. Do not lecture us on Buckner -- we will tell you about his legend and his "Red Sox mystique" if we consider you worthy enough.

I am angry at the stupid grin that Tim McCarver and Brett Boone sheepishly tried to hide as Aaron Boone's home run sailed into the upper stratosphere. Is Fox even aware of the concept of a conflict of interest when it chooses its commentators?

But maybe all this anger is my attempt to avoid the lesson from Thursday's game. What did average Red Sox fans feel when they knew it was all slipping away? I am not sure. Maybe they started thinking about God, and maybe that crucial game proved that there is no God. No God could be so cruel, so vicious, and so ruthless. We were on our knees; we had our bibles at our side. We prayed. And there was no deliverance. Every Red Sox fan knew that if we were going to lose, we weren't going to get blown out -- we were going to lose by blowing a lead.

However, I think that the game proved that there is a God. I doubt that he is a Yankees fan, and he is most certainly not Red Sox fan. But the absurdity of the Red Sox loss is too obvious to be the workings of a curse or a coincidence. I think he is just a laughing observer. He does not control if Trot Nixon gets a hit or not, as much as Nixon would argue otherwise. He does not bring Cowboy Up, Inc. to enforce a copyright patent and have thousands of shirts destroyed because they violate the law rather than give them to homeless kids. He can not grant Grady the intelligence of a chimpanzee. He does not control whether Kenmore Square gets burned to the ground following Armageddon (A Red Sox loss like this at Fenway). But he is the entire peanut gallery that enjoys the misery of Red Sox nation, and he understands my anger.

Jacob George is a junior majoring in Civil Engineering