The View From 312 Feet

At the beginning of the summer a Brit asked me to explain baseball to him. Explain baseball. Explain. Baseball. [Blank stare] How do you explain all of the subtleties of the game to someone who has never been forced to play it in high school gym class, to someone who has never even played T-ball? Hell, the man had never even seen a game except for in the movies.

The horror I felt at the enormity of the task then (and even now) must have been obvious. He quickly qualified his request by saying that he understood the the basics but what he wanted really wanted to know about was the logistics of the game. He wanted me to explain the leagues, the teams, and the history of the whole thing.

Certainly a more manageable task and on that led to a long discussion. At the end of which it came out that he was really trying to figure out the heart of the game. He wanted to know about the indefinable quality that made the game important to Americans. Again a difficult task, and really be definition an impossible one. We finally settled on the idea that was football was to him, baseball is to a lot of Americans. That was, of course, a cop-out but how else are you going to describe it?

This, though, this series of games is what baseball is about. Staying up 'til all hours of the night, knowing that I have to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning to go to work. Worrying that the act of writing this is the reason they aren't getting off to such a great start tonight. Reading anything and everything I can find. Dissecting the game with the guys at work, who I'm pretty sure are impressed that I can discuss it intelligently. Worrying that even though they were up by twelve runs in the first game, they would somehow find a way to blow it. Baseball is obsession. Baseball is superstition. Baseball is love.

Everyone keeps saying: These aren't your father's Red Sox. That may be true but I grew up watching my father be a fan of his Red Sox. I've seen the heartbreak they can cause. I am well aware of: There's always next year. I just hope that we don't have to wait until next year.

Baseball is eternal hope that shines through the impending doom. I hope we never lose that feeling because it makes the victory all that much sweeter. To be able to say "I believed" is a great thing.