The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Baseball

Yes, folks, it's that time of year again.  I speak, of course, of October, the home month of the World Series.  And last night, the Boston Red Sox slaughtered the newcomer Colorado Rockies.  It was almost boring.  Almost.  But being a born and bred Red Sox fan, I had to look anyway.........

 Let me say something about fans here.  There are fairweather fans, and Boston has a lot of those since winning the Series in 2004.  There are fans who are fans because their boyfriends/girlfriends/husbands/wives are fans.  And that's ok I guess.  But the truest baseball fans I've ever found are Mets fans, Cubs fans, and Red Sox fans.  I mean, who else could still love these guys after waiting 86 years for a Series trophy?  Yep, me for one.  And my dad for another.  I remember watching the games with him on tv.  And I remember the annual outings to Fenway, back in the 80's and the chant then was "Dewey, Dewey, Dewey".  And we'd be shouting it at the top of our lungs.  The chant of "YOOOOOOOOklis" in last nights game reminded me of those games and those times.

That's the kind of sad part of this series.  I live in South Carolina and my dad lives in Connecticut.  But during baseball season, we talked often, and we talked baseball.  Red Sox baseball.  Papi and Manny and Tek, Shilling and the bloody sock, and Johnny Damon's defection to the Evil Empire.  How we hated the structural changes they made to the wall at Fenway.  And how we sometimes wondered if Terry Francona knew what he was doing, and then how we knew he was a great manager.

Here in SC, baseball is really NOT the sport of choice and, unless you have cable tv (which I do not), it's hard to find a game to watch.  Even harder to find a Red Sox game to watch.  But FOX shows the playoffs so I watched as my Red Sox stole the Indians chances away in game 7.  It made me cry.  I don't have anyone to talk with about the games anymore.

My dad is still with us.  But, after apparently having several ministrokes, his mind is not.  Hard to take when you're talking to him one day about the Sox and The War and the one room schoolhouse he went to as a kid, and then find out he's in the hospital and doesn't know who anyone is.   And no one seems to know quite why.

So, I'll still carry the flame.  I'll watch the Series to its end, whether bitter or sweet.  But I miss my Dad, my baseball buddy. And Red Sox baseball will be something bittersweet to me.