E-Mail This Article to a Friend I’m crushed The Boys of Summer are back. Time to pick this season’s favorite. BY KRIS FRIESWICK

The endless, cold winter months of anguish, recrimination, and torment are finally giving way to ... the endless, cold spring months of anguish, recrimination, and torment. April is here, and with it comes that most ancient rite of the Red Sox fan: sizing up the chances that this could be The Year.

It isn’t The Year, of course, based on the laws of probability, statistics, and the Red Sox’ propensity to totally shit the bed whenever the pressure is on. I’m a lifelong Sox fan who can vividly remember following my father’s example and heaving my tiny Red Sox hat at the TV from the comfort of my playpen. I’m as devastated as the next person when I watch a team that could achieve glorious heights of greatness suddenly, when everything is at stake, disintegrate like baseball’s own Hindenburg.

Unlike the next person, however, I’ve got a fallback plan to get me through the cringing, the teeth gnashing, the highest high, the lowest low, the long, slow train wreck of August. I’ve got my annual crush.

The annual crush is a system I devised quite unconsciously when I realized, at age 12, that I would receive very little return on my emotional investment in the Red Sox. I was throwing good enthusiasm after bad. But not being a Red Sox fan was unthinkable. Trapped in a one-team town, I found something else to keep me hanging on when being a Sox fan got too masochistic. See, every fan has his or her own coping mechanism. Some turn to prayer, some to ritual or superstition, some (most, actually) to alcohol. I turn to my crush, that season’s chosen object of affection, whose personal "stats" (sports-related and otherwise) are committed to memory. (I always thought that if baseball-card companies had any smarts, they’d include a player’s marital status, birth sign, likes/dislikes, and ideal first date.)

My first big baseball crush was Carlton Fisk. He was everything I thought a man should be. That sandy-brown hair, those thighs of steel, and, man, could he hit. Fisk dominated my chaste preteen fantasies. I learned young that those fantasies could keep me interested in the game when August came, and the inevitable slide began. At that time of year, all I wanted to do was turn off the TV and go sob my eyes out in a dark room until the final inning was over and I didn’t have to watch anymore. My crush on Carlton, and every baseball player since, has given me the will to stay in the room, to stay in the game, to be the fan I know I should be, even when I can’t bear to watch another second.

My second notable crush was Dennis Eckersley. Eck was the first bad boy on whom I ever crushed — and that launched a dangerous pattern I’ve only recently broken. Even now, knowing how schnockered the man frequently was on the mound, I hold a special, tingly place in my heart for that gangly, mullet-wearing, beautiful knucklehead.

I explained the crush concept to my new husband two seasons ago, when I was crushing on Brian Daubach. My beloved didn’t quite understand it, and got a little pissy whenever Bri trotted out to first. He even gave the guy a nickname — Doughnuts Daubach, on account of his slowly expanding waistline. When Doughnuts headed to Texas, my husband breathed a sigh of relief. I was glad when Daubach returned this year, but I can’t bring myself to have a crush on someone I now think of as Doughnuts, so I’m afraid he’s out.

On my short list for this year, we have the perennial favorite, Nomar Garciaparra. I’ve never been one to crush with the pack, though, so I’ll leave him to his established fan base. Jason Varitek, long a favorite, is definitely on the short list, owing to his exceptional leadership skills, athletic abilities, and fine ass. Joining him is Kevin Millar, who has that impish, frat-boy charm that has always proven so enjoyable — but inevitably problematic — in real life. Curt Schilling? Not so much. And Johnny Damon was definitely on my list last year, but now he too closely resembles a dark-haired Kris Kristofferson, with the flowing locks and full beard. Fine for hunters and ’70s rock stars, weird for baseball players.

So after much review, I’m pleased to announce that number one on my short list for this year’s Red Sox Crush is outfielder Gabe Kapler, all six feet two inches of California-grown hotness. Also, as a sign of my impending maturity, I am going to co-crush on Red Sox owner Larry Lucchino, who, in case you haven’t seen him in person, is quite a looker, in a Harrison Ford–meets–Don Johnson sort of way.

Die-hard fans may scoff at my need for a crush to maintain an interest in a sport that should, in itself, be fascinating enough. If they’re content without a little something on the side, more power to them. Just remember this: even the best relationships need a little spice to keep them fresh when the going gets tough, you start wondering why you stay, and your eyes start to wander to better teams with better records. Sometimes, deep in August, only the turn of a muscled shoulder or a finely honed hamstring is enough to keep me from chucking it all and becoming a tennis groupie.

Send Red Sox crushes to Kris Frieswick at k.frieswick@verizon.net