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SOX WATCH
A World Series of pain
BY CHRIS WRIGHT

Stephen King is supposed to have remarked that a Cubs–Red Sox World Series would mean the apocalypse had arrived — because neither team can possibly win. He might actually have hit on something here. "If the Red Sox do win the World Series," says one local fan, "this town will burn to the ground." After Monday’s win against Oakland, I lay in bed and listened to the police sirens and car horns and unearthly hollers filling the night, and wondered whether the apocalypse hadn’t already arrived.

But I wasn’t too concerned. I was just glad to be here.

Earlier, during the ninth inning, I had felt a very disconcerting fluttering in my chest. "Oh great," I thought. "Heart attack." At one point, as Derek Lowe walked another runner and loaded the bases, I picked up a copy of the New Yorker and started to read an article about Joan Didion. At the time, it seemed a better option than death. Then came Lowe’s sinker and the entire Red Sox team boing-boinging around the field and the crazed celebrations here in Boston. As for myself, I did not join the hordes of booze-fueled fans turning over cars in Kenmore Square. I live in the South End. I turned over flowerpots.

You can understand people’s relief. When Johnny Damon and Damian Jackson clashed heads back in the seventh, it looked like the Curse was up to its old tricks. I was in the bathroom at the time, dealing with my dyspepsia. I came back and there was an ambulance on the field. A friend called me on my cell phone: "Johnnyyyy!" But it could have been worse. Had Damon followed the example of his teammates and shaved his hair off before the game, the collision might have proved fatal. It’s actually possible that Johnny Damon was saved by a mullet.

So maybe the Curse has finally run its course — or better yet, the Sox’ ill fortune has simply been transferred onto the Ones Who Suck. Every empire, after all, must come to an end. As one Sox fan puts it, "Goddammit, the Yankees are so fucking 20th century."

There’s a rumor going around town right now that the people at the Ritz-Carlton — which is where the Yankees stay when they’re in Boston — were so skeptical of the Sox’ post-season chances that they failed to reserve any rooms for the Bronx Bombers for their potential trip to town this weekend. "No hotel will confirm or deny any of its guests," says a Ritz-Carlton spokesperson when asked about the rumor. "The Ritz-Carlton cannot hold our players, is that what you’re saying?" barks a Yankees spokesman. "We’ll wait and see if it’s true."

Yes, we’ll wait and see. That’s something we’re very good at doing in this town. Maybe the Yanks, forced to stay at the Norwood Ramada Inn, will arrive at Fenway Park feeling cranky and overtired. Maybe the Sox will beat them in four, then go on to hammer the Cubs. Or maybe not. Either way, I’ll be glad when all this is over. The thing is, I watched Monday’s game at home, feeling lonely and depressed and suffering from crippling indigestion. Unless I want to evoke the wrath of the baseball gods, this is the way it’ll have to stay until the end of the World Series. Or the end of the world — whichever comes first.


Issue Date: October 10 - 16, 2003
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