Baseball: The Epic

What a series. What a week for baseball. Seven games, five of them in rapid succession over five nights, with running times of over four and five hours, like baseball's answer to LotR. Late inning comebacks. Hitting barrages. Pitching and hitting breakdowns, and comebacks. Injured pitchers shrugging off pain and playing in bloody socks like Roy Hobbs in "The Natural." And the greatest comeback in baseball history.

And that's only the American League.

This is why I like baseball.

The fact that the Red Sox were the winner, and the Yankees were the loser, shouldn't make a difference. But it does. It matters because I'm a Mets fan and no matter how much I want to be a gracious and kind New Yorker, I just can't. To my partial shame, I take far too much pleasure in watching the Yankees lose, even though my team is simply not as good and possibly never will be. It matters because if you are not a Yankee fan, you just don't like George Steinbrenner and how he does things, and can't wait to see him lose. It matters because by now everyone who isn't from the "Red Sox Nation" wants to see the Sox win it all, if for no other reason than to be done with it and move on to the next team.

But it also matters because these are the two most storied teams in baseball, perhaps in all of American sports. Because every time they play, the passions are this high. (What is John Crichton who once asked if the rematch is as good? Well, this time it was, becuase it always is.) Because what is merely a game turns into epic drama when they are around. The other series, between St. Louis and Houston is also great baseball, also going to a seventh game, featuring one of the greatest pitchers of all time, Roger Clemens, and the hitting prowess of two powerful lineups. But it's not epic. There is no "Curse" to think about, no angry Boss George lurking, no comparisions of either team with Darth Vader.

Sports at its best is theater. Unscripted, unpredictable theater, where anything can happen. And sometimes, something happens that never, ever happened before.

This is why I watch. This is why, despite my best efforts to not watch last night, believing that I was just inviting disappointment when the Sox invented a new way to lose, I found myself awake as midnight approached. I turned on the radio to hear that the Sox lead 10-3 and there were two outs in the bottom of the 9th. I went to the living room, where Batya was still awake, and put on the TV. This I HAD to see.

Wow.

Just wow.

Peter David's and Kurt Busiek's Salutes to the Red Sox

Go to www.peterdavid.net and revel in the noted writer and baseball fan's revision of a certain poem.

Meanwhile, Kurt Busiek posted this proclamation at Newsarama.com:

"LET IT BE KNOWN, in the County of Middlesex and all the civilized lands beyond, that on this day and in this place, a proclamation is made, issued by the good citizens of the City of Boston and the surrounding region, and most particularly by enthusiasts of the Red Stockings athletic club, to the worthies of the Borough of the Bronx, the City of New York and contiguous areas, and in specific those followers of the sporting organization known as the Yankees, offering those greetings and felicitations common to well-mannered discourse, all good wishes for continued health and prosperity, and an inquiry as to the identity of their father."