Every now and again, I find it important to reprioritize the things you find important in life. Things like friends, family, schoolwork, and religion are all important, but it helps to figure out which of these things is most important to you. Personally, I reprioritized on Tuesday night, and I decided that the Red Sox were truly the best thing I had going for me.
Accordingly, I am now writing this column from a public library in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts. After the Red Sox Game 3 victory, I ran to the Anderson Computer Lab, bout a round-trip ticket to Providence, and finagled my way to Cape Cod to see the Red Sox win their first World Series since 1918. I regret nothing. Seeing my beloved Red Sox win the World Series with a horde of friendly fans ranks up will probably be the best moment in my wretched life until I decide to get married or have a child; whichever comes first.
After the Red Sox's clinching victory, I was showered in Dom Perignon (sp?) champagne and Sam Adams Boston Ale. We shouted in the streets and smashed our sweeping brooms on the pavement. We tackled each other outside of a bar celebrating the area's most cherished victory since the Battle of Bunker Hill (which, technically, we lost, but it was a Hell of a moral victory).
Seriously, how 'bout them Red Sox? My grandfather was born in 1923 and had never seen his beloved hometown team bring home a world championship. The choke jobs of the 1967, 1975, 1978, 1986, and 2003 Red Sox are fresh in his memories, but he mostly complains about the 1946 team. The team that had ten all-stars. The team that may have been the best baseball crew ever assembled. The team that almost won the championship if Peske didn't count the stitches and allowed Enos Slaughter's Mad Dash. He was 23 when he dealt with this heartbreak. He's 81 now. He has his championship, just like I have mine. How deep is that?
For the record, I was going to use the Red Sox as an opening to this column because I couldn't possibly write about the subject two columns in a row, could I? Of course I can. This truly is the best moment of my life. Want the list of the best moments? OK, here we go (in no particular order other than the Red Sox being number one): RED SOX, first kiss, high school graduation, loss of virginity, winning second place in the Student Congress state championships without the benefit of Ritalin and after getting zero sleep (it followed my prom), and the Patriots winning the Super Bowl. That's an awesome list.
This brings me to the theme of this column (yes, I do have one). Sports and girls have taken up four of my six best moments. I have a friend who works at the Anderson Computer Lab. He saw me booking my tickets to Providence and mocked me. He wanted to know how I could gather any emotional validation from 25 people I don't know winning a championship. The truth is, sports and girls are pretty similar. You're there for the ups and the downs. You have wonderful moments and you have terrible ones. For every World Series championship and first kiss (and, unlike the Yankees dynasty bandwagon, I have had an equal number of both), you have 20 losing seasons or a playoff heartbreaks. In both situations you are emotionally invested in something over which you have little control. If I were to have another list of things that have made me angriest, the Red Sox, first-kiss girl, and virginity-loss girl would be in the top five (along with a kid in high school who would punch me and call me gay...interestingly enough he came out of the closet a year after we graduated so I can't be angry anymore).
To a non-sports fan, it's almost embarrassing to be caught up in this. The Red Sox made me cry. How lame is that? Well, it gets a lot less lame when you see a million people crying at the same thing. You can look at each other and know that it's 100% worth it. The Red Sox won the World Series and nothing can take that away from me, my grandfather, and the thousands of other fans who have finally received a form of validation.
