What I’ll take most from this season is the shared experiences with my fellow Sox fans. Given the team’s scorching 17-2 start, there was something special about the year right out of the gate and we all got to sit back and marvel at it together, very little of the pre-2004 gloom-and-doom casting a shadow on the horizon, just the hopeful question of whether this could possibly be the best Red Sox team in history. We now know the answer to that: it is.
The act of following a baseball team tends to focus on win-loss columns and box scores and stats, understandably enough, but the very presence of the game leaves concentric ripples that expand into our daily lives, becoming a state of existence. We watch because we like baseball: the strategy, the individual matchups, the players and their feats. A diving catch, a runner rounding second as he’s legging out a triple, a filthy breaking pitch just over the black. We watch because the game has positive associations for us: carefree summer days, an Italian sausage from a street vendor, a cold beer. Memories of our childhoods, how we were introduced to the sport and who taught it to us. Its leisurely pace. And we watch because the uniforms have the name of our city stitched across the front: we share in the highs and lows together, their achievements are ours, providing a connectedness and a civic purpose that is profoundly unifying. That embroidered red lettering on the jersey, the raised B on the cap, we’re from there. A Sox fan is your family and you’re all in this together.
The Red Sox have won their fourth World Series in fourteen years, and while it’s remarkable as a baseball achievement, for me what will linger long after the ballpark lights have dimmed is that connected feeling with my fellow fans. Catching a game at Fenway with family and friends, our faces splashed by the same sun, our throats hoarsened by the same chants, our fists raised from the same victories. Fingers flying as texts are sent back and forth and social media posts are made about the team’s exploits, instantly interacting with Sox Nation despite the hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles separating you. Experiencing the moments as one. And it’s important to note that Dodger fans share that same connectedness with one another, those same psychic links. As do Astro fans, and yes, even Yankee fans. And so on. Concentric circles. We’re all motivated by the same basic wants and needs. Living is not a zero sum game. Enjoy the ride.