Grim News

These are just things that popped up in my head over the weekend.  I may expand on some of these topics later, but right now I’m dealing with a fussy 6 week old girl and I’m heading to the office shortly.

• Since when do Liberals have a monopoly on “Big Government”?  The last Liberal President ran a budget surplus.  The current Conservative President is running record deficits.  Liberals might be guilty of “tax and spend” on occasion, but that is preferable to “tax cut and spend”.  When the time comes, and we have to pay off this debt, it’s going to be ugly.

• Candidates who deliberately misstate issues in order to score easy points with voters are one of the biggest problems we have in Government.  Jim Martin, the Democratic candidate for US Senate here in Georgia, is calling the Fair Tax “a 23% national sales tax” without mentioning that it completely eliminates Income Tax, Estate Tax, Capital Gains Tax, and half a dozen other taxes.  I voted Democrat in more than a few races this year, but this one ad was enough for me to vote for Saxby Chambliss, who sponsored the Fair Tax in the Senate.

• Thanks to Barack Obama, I am now forced to root for the Phillies to win the World Series in 5 games.  He’s gonna get killed in the polls if he winds up pushing back the start of game 6 just so he can blanket the airwaves with a 30 minute speech.  Does he really think that voters in Pennsylvania and Florida (two states that are very much “in play” this year) are going to want to hear him talk instead of watching their teams in the Fall Classic?  I don’t care how important the election is to you, you have to understand the audience, and the audience just wants to watch the damn game.  Would it really have killed Obama to schedule his speech half an hour earlier or, even better, on the day before? (travel day for both teams)

• Thank you, Penn State, for making sure that Ohio State will not be in the BCS Championship Game for the third year running.  If only you could do something about USC.

• Please, mighty gods of college football, do something about Alabama and Georgia.  Maybe let Auburn bring back a half dozen NFL alumni for a game or two?

• Wrath of the Lich King drops on November 13.  Don’t expect me to be social, coherent, or even willing to leave the house that weekend.  I’ll still be writing, but it will be for that other blog. (You know… the one I get paid to write?)

The next 3 weeks are the only time of the year when I’ll watch baseball over football, and even then… only on Monday night.  Seriously, does anyone outside of Minnesota or Louisiana care about Vikings vs Saints?

Not when the Red Sox are going for the jugular in game 4, they don’t.

It amused me to no end to hear the announcers try to work in the phrase “The ground cannot cause a fumble” on a rundown play in the 9th inning.  I know that football has passed our former national pastime in terms of popularity, but playoffs are playoffs.  The idea that someone might not be playing another game this season is even enough for me not to immediately hit the remote button when I accidentally come across a WNBA game. (I’d rather watch Nascar than “below the rim” hoops… and “Left Turning for Dollars” isn’t exactly burning up my Tivo, know what I’m saying?)

For those of you who know me, this is no shock.  For everyone else, here is a little obligatory biographical information.

I am a proud member of Red Sox Nation.

For me, the experience is a little personal.  After all, I’m not from Boston, had never been there until 3 years ago, and never even seen the Red Sox in person until my fanhood had been established.  Considering the fact that I live in Atlanta, which has a baseball team of it’s own last time I checked, there doesn’t appear to be a reason that I should be such a fan, right?

Not quite…

Back in 1996, I was a Braves season ticket holder.  I *liked* Boston but I wasn’t a die hard fan.  So there I am with tickets to the World Series against the Yankees.  I was fortunate enough to be at the clinching game 6 of the previous year’s World Series against the Indians, and was looking forward to game 4 when the Braves might be able to do it again against the Yankees.  It didn’t bother me that the Yanks took game 3 in Atlanta thus making it impossible for me to be part of another series clinching win.  But in game 4, I developed my first honest-to-god hatred in professional sports thanks to Jim-fucking-Leyritz.  The Spank-mes went on to win the Series that year, and started a run almost as good as the Braves’ streak of 14 straight post-season appearances. (sarcasm alert… 4 World Series vs 1 for the Braves… I don’t care how many times in a row you get a shot at it, you gotta win once in a while.)

So how does this make me a Sox fan?

Well, naturally, the Braves had fewer opportunities to exact revenge on the Spankees so I turned to their fiercest rivals, the Boston Red Sox.  I rooted for the Sox on general principle because they were the arch-enemy of the team I hated the most.  But I was not yet a hardcore Sox fan…

One day I was perusing some baseball trivia, and noticed that Roger Maris, of the Yankees, hit his record-breaking 61st home run against the Red Sox.   It was just another trivial indignity that the Yankees inflicted on their long-standing rivals, and not much of a big deal… Until I noticed the name of the pitcher that gave up the record breaking home run.

Surely the name is just a coincidence.  I mean, not every “Smith” is a close relative, right?  So I call my dad and ask “Hey pop, do you know anyone named Tracy Stallard from Coeburn Virginia?”  Dad responds “Well, I know that our entire family is from Coeburn, so at the very least he’s probably your cousin.”  A few digs worth of research later, and sure enough, Tracy is family.  In my most irrational, “only-a-sports-fan” method of justification, the Yankees made some history at my family’s expense!  They must pay!

By this time, I was following the Braves and the Sox with equal intensity.  The hometown team I had grown up watching and the team that was most likely to make the Yankees’ lives a living hell if anyone could do it.  What eventually caused my complete change from Braves fan to Red Sox fan was watching the Sox play.  Watching the fans who were tuned in to every pitch.  Talking to fans who remembered the starting outfielders from the 1978 team ( Lynn, Rice, and Dewey Evans.  Yaz split time with 1B) Compare and contrast with my fellow Braves season ticket holders, who were more likely than not to show up in the 4th inning and leave after the 7th while chatting on their cell phones the entire time.  Being a Sox fan was just more FUN than being a Braves fan.  Granted the Sox still had their share of misery to deal with.  2003 and Aaron-fucking-Boone was yet another Yankee-forged trauma to the psyche of every Red Sox fan, but at least you knew that next year you’d have another crack at those bastard Yankees.  Who were the Braves ever passionate about from a rivalry standpoint?  The Mets?  The Phillies?  The Marlins?  The Twins? (I gotta admit… 1991 still stings a bit)

So when 2004 hit and the Sox finally broke The Curse, I was just as happy as I was that night in October 1995 when I saw the Braves win their only World Series.  I was a little understated about it because I knew that there were a lot of bandwagoneers out there, and I’m not a big fan of the bandwagon types.  Over the last 4 years, it has been almost too easy to be a Sox fan, but dammit, I have a Yankee-hating pedigree that I’ll put up against anyone.  Bill Buckner didn’t scar my psyche, but I’ve seen my share of Sox heartbreaking moments.  In other words, I’ve earned it.  Maybe not as much as the guy who grew up at Fenway watching Ted Williams, but you can’t help who you want to cheer for.  You just follow your heart.

I’m not going to make any predictions about the Sox in this post-season.  I won’t jinx the Sox like that, but you gotta admit that any team down 0-2 to the Sox with Beckett on the mound for game three is facing some pretty long odds.