Salad Days, Volume#38: Buckner's Inferno

" You are no longer my son...
You are dead to me".

There is something pathological about being a Boston Sports fan. There is something fundamentally wrong with anyone who would root for any team from Boston. As a Boston fan there is a delusional misconception that the fate of your team somehow, inexplicably, hangs in the balance depending upon you and you alone. The fact that you root so hard and observe some bizarre game-time ritual somehow makes the difference in the fate of your team. Maybe it is some hidden self-loathing because we are stuck up here in the vast frozen Northeast of America. Maybe it is because we feel some inferiority toward larger metropolitan areas like New York or Los Angeles. Whatever the reason , this pathological belief lends itself to self-hate, in that, when your team loses it is somehow your fault. To whit, for the last week, I've been absolutely sick over the Patriots' inexplicable loss to the previously mediocre New York Giants in the big Super Bowl. It is still unfathomable to me that somehow the Pats lost to Eli Manning, making him look like Fuckin' Broadway Joe Namath against the Bal'more Colts of old. I know the reason they lost, too. It was because I brought two celebratory cigars to my ol' friend T-Bone's house when we watched the game, so we could smoke 'em after the Patsies' almost certain victory. I had predicted 38 - 17 Pats. I was over-cocky; It was my fault. I shouldn't have brought the cigars.

It got me to thinking: as a New England Sports fanatic over the years, so much of my Psyche has been affected by the fortunes of my teams, to an extremely unhealthy level. I'm sure much more than the average fan of , for example, the New York Yankees. When you look at it logically, the average Boston fan is much more invested than the average Boston player. The fact I care so much about the Boston Red Sox is dismally out of proportion to the level that they care about me. For example, the Red Sox had my undivided attention durinng their second recent run at the championship last November. But at the same time last year, I was in the process of almost losing my job and being transferred to another department at my work. Did David Ortiz ever give me a call? Did Manny Ramirez ever ask how things were going at my new job?....no, they did not. Goes to show you. Anyway, it got me to thinking about the good old Salad Days, and all the highs and lows I have shared with my buddies over the years with our common experience of being sick Boston Homers. See if you remember any of these.

Fenway Park, October 1975-

It was about 1:30n in the AM, when Carlton Fisk hit the game-winning home run in the bottom of the, like, 13th inning, to beat the Big Red Machine. I was all by myself at my parent's house,ansd the only one awake for possibly the greatest moment in modern baseball history. As I watched Pudge trot smoothly around the basepaths early that morning, I had a small nagging feeling. I had a feeling that, even though the Sox had miraulously come from behind to win game six, somehing was eerily sure to go wrong in game 7. Sure enough, the next night, the Sox lose to the mighty Reds and go on to 'win' the series 3 games to 4. My first taste of the Babe's Curse.

Fenway Park, September 1978-

The Red Sox had a remarkable 14-1/2 game lead in the American League East mid-way through August. It was a seemingly insurmountable lead over the much loathed New York Yankees. But, by the last game of the regular season, the Sox had swooned to the degree that they and the Yanks were in a dead-heat, causing an unprecidented season-ending one game play-off to decide who would win the East. My Biology teacher, Mr. Richard Lane, just so happened to be a big Sox fan. In our biology class tha September day, he felt it more educational to see the Old Towners beat the Yanks than to study cellular structure. A good call, in retrospect. That is, until the late innings ogf the game. This is when a diminutive 2nd baseman named Bucky Fuckin' Dent homered off Mike Fuckin' Torres and the Yankees won the game and the East. My second taste of the Babe's Curse.

January 1986, Super Bowl-

The Patiots, whe I was a kid, were the laughing stock of the NFL. They were perrenial losers, and it weasn't even close as to who would be holding down the bottom of the AFC East. There were some great players, such as Steve Grogan, Sam the Bam Cunningham, and Minnie Mack Heron, but the Patsies never seemed to get any respect, nor deserved any. But this year, it was apparently different. They somehow found themselves in the position of winning three playoff games on the road and the sacrificial lambs offered up tho the Super Bowl Shuffle Bears a la Walter Payton, Jim McMann and Refrigerator Perry. Coincidentally, 1986 found me to be rooming with my good buddies Myk, aka Shag van Doggen and Diamond Dave Cleaveland. We decided to have a big Super Bowl party. Little did we know that one Tony Eason of the Patriots would be crashing said festivities by receiving the worst flogging in Super Bowl history. By half-time, the Pats were already down by about 35 -7 and we had thrown one of our television out of our appartment window and some of us were smashing it to bits out on Main St. in Orono Maine. Remember that scene out of 2001 Space Oddysey, where the Monkeys all gathered around the Monolith and jumped up and down and smashed sticks into the ground? Add about two or three cases of beer and thast's what our Super Bowl party looked like. What an Ass Whoopin'. I think it was about 44-10 at the end. In our frustration, I think we lost two TV's and one kitchen window that day. Ah, c'est la vie!

May 1986, Ground Round, Norwood Mass.-

Me and my cousin Ian, his homeys Jack, Joe Pace, and his Polish friend Louie were swilling beer at the Ground Round hoping that the once mighty Celtics, now led by Larry' Legend' Bird, could get by the diabolical Detroit Pistons and advance to face the Lakers and win the NBA Finals. The last seconds were ticking off and the lowly and despicable Pistons, led by Dennis Rodman, Bil Lambeer and John Salley had the Celts against the ropes. Me and the boys, our lips smudged with Buffalo Wing sauce, our breath sweet with c.75 draft beer, were fixin' to start fights with any and all Piston fans who dare show their allegience in the partisan fields of suburban Massachusetts. Just then, however, we would hear the call that would be etched in the annuls of Boston Lore, Johnny Most called out to those faithful that would hear: 'Bird Stole the Ball, Bird Stole the Ball, Bird stole the Ball'. Bird passed to DJ and the Celtics Won! We celebrated and hugged guys we didn't even know and I personally picked up and kissed a guy from Stoughton that had previously sworn to be a Piston's fan. We high-fived and hugged strangers and the Celts went on to beat the Lakers and won their last NBA championship until this date. Good things, brother, good things.

October 1986,Bounty Tavern, Bangor Maine-

I was sure of it. This time for sure the Red Sox would win... Much has been written about the 1986 World Series and Mookie Fuckin' Wilson and the Babe's Curse and the ball getting through Buckners' legs. It was all true and it was all too tragic. However, at the time, I was in my natural prime and my blind allegience to the Bosox was, at least temporarily, trumped by the need to chase babes and do the Funky Cold Medina at the Bounty Tavern. Yes, yes, me and a group of my esteemed associates were alas plying our trade at our fav nightspot, aided by the soothing balms of Rusty Nails and Ton Loc. We had watched the post-season attentitively so far, but were sure the Sox would prevail. All of us, T-Bone, looking suave in his skinny tie and cuffed trowsers, Shag, in his Keith Richard 'just rolled out of bed' savoir faire, Stove-pipe, doing the Lazy Snake on the dance floor, and yours truly, watched the silent TV above the bar in abject horror as Billy Bucks painfully reaches down to scoop up a weak grounder that should have ended the game, and came up with a mitt full of air. As the Mets roll victorious into the night, Shag lights the scarificial light, I saw Satan laughing with delight, the day the music died. We had just entered Dante's seventh level of Red Sox Hell. But I digress.

February 2001-Super Bowl-

T-Bone and me reunited for another try with the Patriots. So much water under the bridge since their crushing defeat in '86 and their disapointing Super Bowl loss to Green Bay a la Brett Favre and Desmond 'Tutu'. A different era, a new era for Boston sports. Tom Brady steps out of the phone booth and picks a tragic but heroic Drew Bledsoe off the pavement and sticks the St. Louis Rams greatest show on turf into the coffin. Adam Vinetieri drives in the final nail with no time remaining, and T-Bone and I pour an ice cold shot of some special Polish Vodka, and like Red Aurbach, light up the celebretory stogies. We finally had won something. At the victory parade in Boston that next week, the loudest cheers were that of 'Yankees Suck, Yankees suck'.

October 2003, Yankee Stadium-

The agony of this one is so fresh that even 4-5 years later, I hesitate to speak of it. Once again T-Bone and I at his crib, a bit older and long in the tooth, but none the less. The game goes into extra innings, and against the Yanks, you know by now how it goes. Since it's to painful to relate on paper directly, I will express in Haiku, how it ended for the Sox that year:

Pedro, out of Gas

Coach Grady burned the Biscuits

Aaron Fuckin' Boone.

St.Louis, October 2004-

'Ground ball to the pitcher's mound, stabbed by Faulk, he has it, flips to first, and the Boston Red Sox have won the World Series. For the first time in 86 years, the Boston Red Sox are baseball's champions. Can you believe it'. Answering Joe Castiglioni's rhetorical question, no I could not Fucking believe it, I can't fucking believe it. Paraphrasing Neil Armstrong on what he must have actually, REALLY said when he landed on the Moon, ''Jesus Fucking Christ, I am standing on the Mother-Fucking Moon. Holy Fucking Sheep-Shit"!! It was that unbelievable. Much has been written of it in the last few years by better writers than me, and I can assure you it's all true. And I lived to see it. Me and ol' T-Bone smoke the cigar again and get out the special hootch. I toasted my old Paba. Good stuff....It's good to be from Beantown....

...Until this last week. The mighty undefeated Patriots, undeniably now a dynasty, were sure to romp and stomp the hapless Giants of Gotham, and so sweet it would be. It has been the best era in Boston sports history. The Red Sox,champions agaion in 2007, have won two Titles in the young millenium. The Patriots have recently won three Super Bowls and were a couple of plays from going to the prom last year. The Celtics are now the cream of the NBA East and with the newly aquired Garnett and Allen have old cynical codgers like me at least peeking from the corner of our eyes, just wishing. And the Bruins...well, three out of four ain't bad. Anyway, it seemed no harm could come to any denison of Dorchester or Citizen of Southie. That was until I went and bought those damned cigars. I should have known better, I got cocky. The Pats snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and squandered a perfect season. As the final seconds ticked of and the stunning realization dawned on us that they indeed were not impervious to a higher power, I gathered up my jacket and shoes, gave ol' T-Bone a nod, threw my unsmoked cigars in the trash and went out the door to drive home, not even ever have gotten a chance to get drunk. Alas, there is next year, as there always is. There will be more cigars to smoke and more Polish Vodka to toast. As for me, though, I'm taking a little break from sports for a while. One shouldn't take things too seriously. It's only a game. There are more important things in life, you know...

...but in a few weeks, pitchers and catchers are reporting to Ft. Myers Florida.