Bronx, N.Y., September 4, 2002 — It was going to be different this year. The Red Sox weren’t only going to put a scare into the Yanks this time. Ever since they inhaled that heady and almost unprecedented five-games-up air early in the year, the demons of yesteryear were banished, and the Yankees were going down. As intoxicated with the sound of a hit record (certainly a hit in Boston, and in much of the country too) as the late George Harrison was on this day in 1970 when he released the song that shares this column’s title, Red Sox players, fans and new ownership and management were as fooled as Harrison was. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., September 3, 2002 — We live in a different world, here in 2002. As the first anniversary of the most extreme act of terrorism we can all hope to ever withstand approaches, we are all struggling for a whole new way of communicating, an entirely different set of effective metaphors. And the world of spectator sports, a bigger part of our lives than any of us want to acknowledge, is not immune to the problem. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., September 2, 2002 — “…and Carry a Big Stick.” Teddy Roosevelt uttered those words in public for the first time 101 years ago today, and I focused on them during all those times during today’s interminable game, rain delay and game again that Boston fans cheered, “Let’s Go, Red Sox.” Sure, they won today, and in the process extracted a bit of revenge for the way Mussina has treated them in their home park, though I really felt Mike’s undoing was more the work of home plate ump Mike Winters than the bats of the Red Sox. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., August 30, 2002 — Well, they’re playing baseball, though the way the Yanks ended up being threatened at 8-6 after leading this one 8-0 had some Yankee fans wondering if that was such a good thing. Apparently shellshocked, the fan celebrations seem subdued, and some fans are reacting as if there was a work stoppage. That is understandable with all the debate over months and months while this thing dragged on, and with the negative way the players were portrayed by the owners and in the media. But few seem to be reveling in the undeniable: We are now guaranteed to enjoy at least 13 consecutive years of major league baseball uninterrupted by a labor-related stoppage. In a sport whose glorious history is cited as often for the fans’ enjoyment as winning seasons for their favorite teams, how many of us realize that that is a claim that most of our fathers can’t make? Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., August 28, 2002 — Who could have scripted this one any better? OK. Perhaps a “cleaner” win would have had the Yanks scratching a run in the first on Robin’s hard single, rather than the two-base Hillenbrand error, Jeter bunt base hit and Giambi double-play grounder. Perhaps Mike’s outing could be considered even more dominating if the Red Sox had come out like the team that blew the world away in May, rather than the Keystone Kops who booted three balls in the first two innings. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., August 27, 2002 — It was the fourth or fifth, a good two innings before they picked up on it on CBS television. If Sue and I have a running battle, it is TV volume. A little too much rock ‘n’ roll in my past I guess, but I don’t hear quite the way I used to. But the roar of the Red Sox crowd in the early innings during Fossum’s strike out attack was a little hard to take, and we were taking turns lowering the volume. But not for long. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., August 26, 2002 — Some days, we go out and play and, win or lose, nothing special really happens. Sometimes the hits seem pedestrian, the defense routine, the game log run-of-the-mill. We score, they score, hopefully more of the former. So I try a look around the league, even into the unthinkable (what’s happening in other mass-market spectator sports), or what’s happening around the world. And then This Day in History usually comes through with an obscure fact or two that can be twisted into making a salient point about what happened in the game. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., August 25, 2002 — Andy Pettitte has surrendered six runs in two games in a row now (though only five were earned today). But even though he gave up a booming upper-deck three-run homer to Garrett Anderson five days ago in an ugly five-run inning, and was only scratched for a run here today, little bit here, little bit there, I think the starts were similar. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., August 24, 2002 —

I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.

But not true, I tell you. Debating with my better half whether or not to even attend last night’s game, she saw rain coming, and I saw fair skies. And hours later, I was shaking my head as I stood alone in the upper deck, looking up at a partly cloudy but decidedly nonthreatening sky. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., August 23, 2002 — Mrs. Carmela Soprano, who goes by the name of Edie Falco when she is not playing someone having a love/hate relationship with the idea of being a mafia wife, is currently appearing on Broadway in “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” a superbly written story of two people (and coworkers) struggling to connect on the night of their first date. At one point during their evening they call a radio station that invites listener requests, and ask the deejay to play “the most beautiful piece of music ever written.” Claude DeBussy would be 140 years old on August 22, so alas, we can’t ask him if he is flattered that the disk spinner chooses his Clair de Lune to play. Continue reading →