I have been a Red Sox fan for over 50 years,
and if there’s one thing I have learned it
is to deal with defeat, disappointment and downright psychological disaster. This victory of the Yankees is particularly sweet, but if Red Sox history is any guide it will only lead to disappointment in the finals.
On the other hand, a World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Houston Astros reaching a conclusion at the same time as the Kerry-Bush battle could seem like an alignment of the stars and planets fit to
delight the adepts of both “biblical rapture” and progressives hoping for a political and paradigmatic realignment.
The possibilities, though limited, are all fraught with “moral significance” or “eschatological content”:
1) Red Sox and Kerry both win; it’s the millenium, the second coming, and rapture
all in one.
2) Red Sox win, Kerry loses; God gives a consolation prize to the godless liberals
3) Astros win; Kerry wins; the rapturists
get the consolation prize
4) Astros win; Bush wins; the triumph of faith over reason; the humbling of the Eastern establishment and the establishment
of athletic theocracy.
Of course it may be the Cardinals, rather than the Astros, in which case any Bostonian’s memory returns with trepidation to memories of Enos Slaughter and Johnny Peskey (1946) or Bob Gibson and Lou Brock (1967). The latter match-up would enrich the baseball lore of an already historic rivalry, but this year an Astros-Red Sox World Series would transcend
mere baseball and enter in American mythology.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Oct 21 2004 10:03 utc | 1