Given a few days have passed since the Red Sox lost the ALCS, the heartache and disappointment have lessened and I have a new attitude.
This baseball season was a great one and lot of fun, because this Red Sox team was fun. They were exciting to watch and were inspirational with their “never-say-die” attitudes and their camaraderie. At first, I was ecstatic that they made it to the playoffs. When they were down 2-0 to the Oakland As, I just hoped for them to win one game and not get swept. I was ecstatic again when they won that series. When they faced the Yankees, I just hoped they would win more than 1 game, doing better than they did in 1999 in the ALCS against the Yankees. When they were down 3-2 in that series, I was grateful they had done that well. And when they won Game 6, I was again ecstatic.
And then they took the final game as far as you can, to the 11th inning, and they almost did it. Would it have been better for them not have brought us so close to the brink? Would it have been better for them to have lose in the first round? Of course not. Yes, they took us to amazing heights of joy, only to cast into the depths of disappointment. But oh what heights they were.
I’ll be talking to my grandkids about this game, like my elders talked to me about 1978 and 1975 and people still talk about 1986. But it doesn’t have to be about despairing of winning. I don’t believe in curses. I prefer to think of it in the postive sense. The Red Sox took the Yankees to the 11th inning of the 7th game of the ALCS and came within a hairs breadth of beating them. That’s a pretty darn good accomplishment for a team that nobody gave a chance back in April and May. Thanks, Red Sox, for a great season.
