I’m Your Fan
At first, this was because I had guessed that a Red Sox win would have been a nice psychological boost for the Kerry campaign — in a corny way, it shows that amazing comebacks are possible, and that there’s a winning mindset in New England. It may sound desperate, but I’m take any little bit of upside in this ridiculously tight race for the White House.
Then, after the Sox took the first three games, I set aside that mercenary motivation and found myself really, honesty hoping they’d finish off the Cardinals with a sweep. They’d come so far and worked so hard that their story became irresistible. And when they did clinch it — when they made it plain that they deserved the victory by unexpectedly dominating the St. Louis Cardinals — I was surprisingly happy for them.
Bad with the Good
Alas, I don’t expect that good will to last. For one thing, by ‘reversing the curse,’ they have effectively converted the image of their team from one of a rag-tag bunch of losers afflicted by an eighty-six year old hex to that of a rag-tag bunch of losers, period. The 2004 Red Sox are probably the most special Red Sox team ever, but everything that was special about the franchise itself disappeared with the third out of the ninth inning last night.
To make matters worse, Curt Schilling, the Sox’ putative ace and, in my mind, Asshole Number One, has used this almost magical moment of notoriety in an exceedingly distasteful manner by, first, coming out as a Bush supporter on Good Morning, America today. Tomorrow he’ll follow up that gesture with appearances in New Hampshire, stumping for the worst president in American history. I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I would wager that, for generations of liberal-leaning fans in New England, Schilling has poisoned what should have been a uniformly sweet victory.
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