Thinky Thoughts on the World Series, in Review

• In 2004, I was living away from home and flew back for the first World Series parade of my lifetime. I think I thought it would be the only one. Glad I turned out to be wrong about that. In 2007, I had achieved a long-time dream of mine and moved back home, so that, when I went to the 2007 parade, all I had to do was walk out of my office at work and down to City Hall Plaza. That was lovely. I am now living away from home again (for someone who actually loves Boston passionately, I feel like I spend most of my time trying to get there instead of being there!), and I decided not to fly home for this parade. I've already seen two, I reasoned, and I was just home last weekend, and I've got a busy November coming up, so it would be irresponsible. As with all responsible, practical decisions, I am quite crushed by all my reasoned adulthood-ness. Thank God there are livestreams happening that I can watch tomorrow.


• I think part of the reason it's so depressing not to be there for the parade is because I have this very real feeling of it being the last hurrah. Once the parade is over, this magical ride of a season will be over. And I don't want it to be over! I had a blast this season! One of the bloggers said that we should all be careful what we wished for, because we wanted them to win it as quickly as possible, but then, once it was won, our season would be over, and that actually was the opposite of what we wanted. Which is totally true. I DON'T WANT TO LET GO. HOW CAN IT EVER BE BETTER THAN THIS?


• Then again, after 2004, I thought I'd reached the pinnacle of Red-Sox-fan-ness, and then all of this happened, so who knows what waits around the bend? I'm looking forward to it. I swear I am.


• Btw, the fact that I am all nostalgic for this postseason cracks me up, since I spent EVERY SINGLE GAME of it wanting to DIE.


• Which a friend says just makes me a Red Sox fan, which I think is still true. For me, a good inning is any inning when we're not losing. I consider innings when we're winning to be an unexpected bonus. Even now, after three World Series rings in a decade, I am pleasantly surprised every time we win a game. I wonder if I will ever lose that, or if it is ingrained in me. I suspect the new generation, who doesn't remember a time before this one, might suffer from it less, but, hey, anybody who lived through 2011 and 2012 does remember what it's like to watch teams lose in spectacular fashion, so there's that.


• And, actually, on the subject of the fact that now the Red Sox win a lot: I've noticed that a lot of people seem to think it's odd that many people still get very excited about the Red Sox winning the World Series. I find it odd that they think that's odd. Like, they're surprised we still love our baseball team? Did they think we spent all those years rooting for them because we loved that they lost all the time? I think they wanted us all to turn out to be masochists who reveled in all the pain, and I think they expected all of us to lose interest once we lost that part of our identity, and I think they are utterly bewildered that no, actually, we still really love our baseball team. And I like that about us: It wasn't about the myth, it was about the fact that, after all, New England just likes baseball. We liked it when we were losing and we like it now that we're winning, and I will forever be perplexed by people asking me if I feel less interested in the Red Sox now. No. It was only ever a compelling storyline to the rest of the world. To us, it was just our team, the same as every other team, and I, personally, am kind of happy to have them that way. I still love a good storyline, don't get me wrong--I'm a storyteller--and this season had one, undeniably, and yes, that probably contributes to how much I love this particular incarnation of my team. But it's a different storyline. Every season of baseball has the potential to be a brand new storyline you've never seen before. That's why people who love baseball love baseball. It's no coincidence that the "Wait 'til next year" is so closely associated with the epic losing baseball teams. Baseball is new and fresh when the year is new and fresh, and you think, "Who knows what could be in store for me this year? In baseball, in life?" I love everything about it. Why would I stop now?


• (That said, I do strive not to be obnoxious about it. I root genuinely for the teams that haven't been there in a while, I do. But am I going to root for those teams over my team? Probably not. Just got to be honest there. Unless it's the Cubs. I might honestly root for the Cubs over my team at this point, just because I feel for you guys.)


• One night in August, I was watching the baseball game. This is the great thing about baseball, how it's played daily, so you can flip it on in the background, constantly. I was getting ready to move back away from home, and I was enjoying the ability to watch the Red Sox nightly for a little while longer. We were losing the game by quite a lot, but I was doing other stuff--probably I was answering your comments, honestly--and the sound of it was familiar, so I just kept it on. The bottom of the ninth inning came, and we were down by five. And then we scored, again and again and again. Suddenly, I was no longer answering comments, I was watching the game. My mother, who had been out with friends, called me to tell me she was on her way back. "What are you doing?" she asked me, and I said, "I am watching this baseball game and OH MY GOD THEY JUST TIED IT UP." My father, who had gone to bed but was in the room above me and heard me shout, came downstairs, and I was like, "WE JUST SCORED FIVE RUNS IN THIS INNING TO TIE THIS GAME UP." He sat with me, and we watched them score the winning run together, and when it was over my father just said, disbelievingly, "This team..." We should have known, right then, that they were going to go all the way, that no one was going to stop them.


• I will say that I was actually pretty confident after the ALDS. I watched all of the LDSs, and there was no team that looked like they could take the Red Sox in my assessment. I thought we might actually win it all right then, but I never said it out loud for fear of jinxing them. And then, of course, because I'm a Red Sox fan, I immediately began to doubt. When they lost Game 1 of the ALCS, I was out with Red Sox fans, and we were all like, "THAT'S IT, THEY'RE GOING TO BE SWEPT NOW." Shame on us.