This article is the first in a 17-part series chronicling the unbearable pain caused by being a Red Sox fan in light of recent events that occurred in St. Petersburg, Fla. The words that follow will likely be self-deprecating, self-loathing and self-pitying. The author will likely ignore the fact that 29 other teams in major league baseball have fans and that those fans are human beings with real emotions and real feelings and all that stuff. If you are a fan of one of those 29 teams, you should probably not read any further. In fact, just turn the page right now. Go on, do it. Read a gallery review or something. Seriously. Go.
Anyway. When did it happen for you?
When did it all become clear? When did reality sink in? When did that ever-fearsome "big picture" come into focus?
When did your mentality change from "Wow, we just witnessed the greatest comeback in postseason history" to "Oh, God, now we actually have to win two more of these?"
When did you realize that one of the most dramatic wins in Red Sox history would probably go to waste? That Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz and J.D. Drew, three men who had just led the Red Sox back from a 7-0 deficit to the biggest comeback in any postseason game since 1929 -- 1929! -- were probably, eventually, going to come up short when it really mattered? That no matter how dramatic one win is, it just isn't always enough?
As you can probably guess, I'm about to brag that I was panicking long before it was cool.
At 12:16 a.m. on what was technically Friday morning, exactly five years to the minute after Aaron Boone's home run doomed the 2003 Red Sox in that year's ALCS, Drew singled home the winning run to end the Sox' 8-7 win over Tampa Bay. Over the next three hours, I underwent the five stages of celebration -- for grief, there's denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance; for me, there was disbelief, euphoria, more disbelief, optimism and ...
Reality.
At around 3:30 a.m. (up until this point, I was way too giddy to sleep), it hit me: For some reason, I'm celebrating the fact that my team is trailing three games to two, is pretty lousy on the road, and won't go to the World Series without consecutive wins over James Shields and Matt Garza.
With an ace Shields against an ailing Josh Beckett, I thought the Rays were probably favorites to end it right there in Game 6. But even if you're generous and consider the teams evenly matched, the Red Sox' chances of winning the final two games were still pretty damn low -- 25 percent.
That's right, 25 percent. I could, and I did, boil it all down to one simple yet hideous number. Maybe that's because I'm just a nerd. Or maybe it's because the Sox' front office had Bill James brainwash me. Or maybe, just maybe, it's because I'm the most cynical baseball fan alive.
The simplest way to put it is that I'm a nonbeliever. I don't believe in the intangibles. I don't believe in destiny, or fate, or God-given mandates for teams to win games. I don't believe in curses or jinxes or rally caps or rally monkeys. I don't believe in hot streaks; I don't believe in slumps. I don't believe in the clutch. And in this case most importantly, I don't believe in that all-important buzzword that everyone loves to throw around after a game like Game 5: momentum.
Forget it. None of it exists. In baseball, the only thing you can truly believe in is complete and total randomness, and if you can't accept the fact that sometimes what's random is cruel, then maybe you should be watching soaps instead. Those are scripted. Baseball, no matter how much we sometimes wish otherwise, is not.
As great as Game 5 was, it doesn't mean we should've all expected Game 7. The Rays won, as most teams with 3-2 leads in seven-game series generally do. It all makes sense. Agonizingly perfect sense.
So now, with the Red Sox at home and Kazmir facing Hamels in Game One tonight, it's hard to do much else besides ... shrug. There's really only one thing you can say.
Screw it. Only six days 'til Celtics season.
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