There was a time when baseball was America’s pastime, its major source of entertainment and regional rivalries. It filled a big space in my heart growing up, with an accomplished pitcher for a father, and actual “sandlot” games until dark, sometimes with a baseball wrapped in tape to protect broken stitches. Little League was the highlight of the summer for many boys (no girls allowed back then).
Where I grew up on the Mississippi River, most fans chose one of the geographically closest teams — the Cubs or Cardinals. I randomly settled on the Detroit Tigers, but my brother unforgivably chose the Yankees, who were in the midst of another indomitable dynasty. Mantle, Maris, Berra, Skowron, Howard and others burrowed into our young brains and in many ways, became immortal. Does anyone else remember the Yankees light-hitting second baseman Bobby Richardson (a total of 34 home runs in a 12-year career) driving in 12 runs in a seven-game World Series the Yankees lost in 1960? As long as I do, he’s immortal.
I was a bandwagon baseball fan as a young adult, but the Red Sox in the early 2000s were too entertaining to resist, their lineup filled with skilled and eccentric characters. Has anyone ever been as talented, goofy, and mercurial as Manny Ramirez? How about long-haired Johnny Damon happily dubbing the team “a bunch of idiots” in 2004, a welcome and accurate nickname that stuck.
Back then, the rivalry between the Yankees and Red Sox was real, with plenty of hard feelings. They honestly didn’t like each other, and scuffled repeatedly on the field. Opposing fans happily taunted each other and the players. Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martinez hit a rough stretch against the New York team and infamously told reporters, “What can I say? Just tip my hat and call the Yankees my daddy.” After that, Yankees fans taunted the future Hall of Fame inductee with chants of “Who’s your daddy?” when he was on the mound.
The Sox spectacularly let their diehard fans down in 2003. They gave up a lead in the eighth inning of a playoff game and lost to the Yankees in the 11th on a home run by Aaron [expletive] Boone, a suitable successor to Bucky [expletive] Dent, the Yankee villain of 1978.
That 86-year history of futility is what made the 2004 season such a mystical and magical experience. In October, they were down 3-0 in the ALCS series after two Yankee blowout wins. Only the most delusional fans believed they could be the first team ever to come back from that deficit.
But after two extra-inning wins, all of New England became rabid and superstitious. It seemed they were, in a sportswriter’s phrase, “part of the fabric of our community.” Everyone from garbagemen to CEOs, academics to hard-scrabble dirt farmers wore the same lucky shirt as when the comeback began. When the journey ended with a World Series victory under a full moon, Red Sox fans breathed easily for the first time in weeks, even years.
That history is the reason the most recent decimation of the Sox by the Yankees (a two-game total score of 18-2) sent me to the thesaurus for adjectives to describe its emotional toll. The season featured about six weeks of otherworldly baseball surrounded by months of lackluster, sloppy games showing every weakness of a team intent on under-spending for player payroll while ticket prices remain among the highest in baseball. Fans and tourists still pack the legendary park even though the team has been barely mediocre (except for an outlier in 2018) for a decade.
I chose “ignominious” (shameful, dishonorable, and abominable, all at once) as the most apt adjective because beyond the loss by one team, it showcased the incredible intrusion of both the pursuit of business profits and reliance on data analytics in what was once “the summer game,” played for its joy and miracles. Just when an emotional, intuitive move (the manager sticking with the season’s best pitchers for a few more batters) could have provided a spark, analytics pointed a different way and an avalanche of runs followed, leaving fans and players dispirited.
It’s a different game today, and a different approach to managing and team-building. After watching the Sox pinch pennies on payroll while reaping dollars hand over fist from sky-high ticket prices and media contracts, it’s easy to mourn our September plight and once again call the Yankees “our daddy.” And with a baseball lockout probable for this winter and spring, I can’t even say “Wait till next year… “
Allen Woods is a freelance writer, author of the Revolutionary-era historical fiction novel “The Sword and Scabbard,” and Greenfield resident. His column appears regularly on a Saturday. Comments are welcome here or at awoods2846@gmail.com.