Question: What's the difference between a Fenway Frank and a Yankee Stadium hot dog?
Answer: You can still get a Yankee Stadium hot dog in October.
It's been a while since that joke has been relevant, but now that the Red Sox are absent from the postseason for the first time since 2002, Yankee fans will surely be dusting off that old knee-slapper.
The Red Sox's streak of three consecutive playoff appearances is over, and in the end, it's hard to place the blame anywhere but bad luck.
It was the Tale of Two Teams this season for the Boston Red Sox. The team that started the season in April looked like a World Series contender, and by the All-Star Break, a three-game cushion over the New York Yankees sent Red Sox Nation into summer ecstasy. Fans knew it wouldn't be that easy to lock up the division, but none could have anticipated such a second-half flop.
The number of maladies that afflicted the Red Sox in the second half of the season was almost biblical. Injury followed injury. By August, it was impossible to even blame the team for the cruel hand fate had dealt them.
Sure, Josh Beckett didn't pan out, and Coco Crisp was a disappointment. Yes, Theo could have made more moves in July (or a move, for that matter), but even The Wonder Kid can't control back and knee injuries. And when one of your starting pitchers is struck with cancer, it's hard to be truly disappointed with an underperforming team.
By September, the club was a walking MASH unit, and it raised the white flag when it shipped one of the team's few bright spots, David Wells, back to San Diego. Statistically, the Red Sox were eliminated from the playoffs on Sept. 20; and apart from David Ortiz breaking Jimmy Foxx's 1938 home run record, there has been little reason left to watch the Boys from Fenway this fall.
God knows what Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo continue to talk about during the game. Sure, baseball will continue without the Red Sox, but fans from Maine to Rhode Island will tell you the baseball season ends on Oct. 1, when the Sox play their final game of this schizophrenic 2006 season. The little comfort that remains is the hope that the Yankees won't win the World Series, but even that petulant hope has lost much of its allure after this season.
When you talk to any Boston fan, the answer is the same. Now that the Red Sox are done, they'll turn their attention to the New England
Patriots.
The Patriots just aren't the same, though. There is a certain comfort with the regularity of baseball games, compared to the once-a-week hype that is the football season. And if Brady and company continue their current streak of underperformance, New England fans may have nothing to turn to but the Celtics, the Bruins, or worse, each other.
We New Englanders are a stoic bunch, taciturn some might say, but without our beloved Red Sox, things turn really ugly. The team is our communicative liquor-get some Red Sox in us, and we open up. At least in 2003, we could all complain about injustices perpetuated against the team year in and year out. But now we're faced not with the frustration of a team that didn't win it all, but a team that didn't even make it.
New England has more to offer than just the Red Sox. Beautiful landscapes, a rich cultural and literary history, and more, making this one of the most exciting regions in the country. Autumn is easily the best time to live in New England. A suggestion: now that you're sans-Sox, learn to love apples.
There is an old saying about New England that we have two seasons: winter and the Fourth of July. The Red Sox seemed to help make those darkening October days just a little brighter.
At least be glad you don't live in Chicago. New England still has the foliage.
