Summer of Silent Longing

The following appeared in the June 29th issue of the Eagle-Tribune in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Alongside the limitless blue skies, the afternoon dips in the pool, and the savory smell of grilled food of summertime comes – dreadfully for this writer – the peak of the baseball season, or, as our national pastimes aficionados of this area might call it, “Red Sox Season.”

Where’s Tom Sawyer? I’ll help him paint his fence if it’ll get me out of watching a dreadfully droll Red Sox game every time I step into a bar for a drink.

I’ve been told over and over by some of my best friends and at least one of my favorite writers that baseball is an “intelligent man’s game,” akin to a competitive game of chess, and that, according to one brainiac on Yahoo! Answers, baseball fans are intelligent and “don’t need cheerleaders.” Maybe I’m in the minority, or maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t recall ever sitting next to someone screaming “Yankess Suck!” (regardless of whom the Red Sox are playing) at a television screen, then having them turn back to me and asking, “what was that you were saying about the G8 Summit?” Number crushing like so and so has a .658 BPS on Tuesday nights against the Yankees in June is not a sign of supreme intellect, but a sign of too much time on your hands. Like most things in life, baseball is a product of too much over-thinking for a game that, when we played as kids, we would designate two titles: the kids picked first and the kids picked last. Those two answers never required much thought.

Baseball games are boring, the perfect companion via radio for a fishing trip, or by the window with a book. With both, at the sound of Don Orsillo or Joe Castiglioni’s voice inflexion at “it’s a deep drive…” we can look up at not miss anything of what is happening within a game. Turning on SportsCenter in the summer, or dreadfully, Baseball Tonight late at night is the perfect sleeping aid. Even the Top Plays won’t arouse me from a slumber because there is nothing impressive about a game-winning home run, nothing spectacular about a diving catch.

Don’t get me wrong, I care if the Red Sox win. I was born and raised in this area and allegiance to my local sports teams is something I take tremendous pride in. My major issue is that there are too many fans in this area who have watched every game since Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS and none before that; too many “Pink Hats” that mourn one loss in mid-April as if the Sox had just been eliminated from playoff contention by the Kansas City Royals. Just like no one watched the Boston Celtics when Sebastian Telfair was their starting point guard, no one watched the Red Sox when the Yankees continually crushed them 19 times a year. I’m guessing the true Celtics fans will be welcoming the “Yankees Suck” crowd into their fandom as the “L.A. Sucks” crowd. How long before Celtics fans are as hated nationally as Red Sox fans? It’s a shame.

I used to like going to Fenway Park on an idle Monday night about ten years ago when tickets in the bleachers were available for $20 from a scalper on Yawkey Way. The anxious buzz of the crowd, the smell of Fenway Franks and Italian sausages lingering through a calm midsummer’s night, the color and size of the outfield grass exaggerated against the lights towering overhead are all something uniquely American. Going to the ballpark whisks any fan or non-fan to the days where school was out for summer and games of catch lasted until the ball became something your glove guessed for under the glow of a streetlight.

Now it’s a 162-game tailgate party, every game like it’s the most important one; we can count on droves of intoxicated Red Sox fans cheering loudly at every Josh Beckett strikeout or booing and slurring at the hopeless J.D. Drew. Fenway is overcrowded and outdated at such outrageous ticket prices. The ownership needs to take a cue from the Yankees and destroy and rebuild. So forgive me if I’m not enthusiastic about a Red Sox only summer.

The good news is that it’s just one month long. The Patriots report at the end of July and the Olympics (a very good excuse to be incredibly patriotic for two straight weeks) begins the second week of August. For now, I’ll just enjoy a good book and two weeks of Wimbledon tennis.

Now there is an intelligent sport.