"Please pray for the Red Sox"
Tuesday July 31, 2007
This isn't really the day of anonymous friends saying things. With this one I am just helping someone save face. I get an instant message, "a prayer request" Next line: "trading deadline is today, you know the sox are close...
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Surely you should be praying for Derek Lowe and Randy Wolf to get healthy. Go Dodgers!
Or surely, for the Cardinals to have enough starting pitching to eventually catch the Cubs. ;-)
Red is the color of the Devil. White is the color of Easter and the resurrection. Pray for Jermaine Dye to stay where he is.
Up front: I grew up in New York, and was a passionate Yankees fan in the Seventies and Eighties. I'm only a tepid Yankees fan now (Ron Guidry and Thurman Munson meant a lot to me; A-Rod and Roger Clemens, not so much).
What I find amusing is this: The Red Sox are one of the richest teams in baseball. They built their entire team around expensive free agents. They're currently shelling out big bucks to bring in more talent (Dye, Gagne, whoever). And hey, that's fine. Nothing illegal or immoral about that.
But in spite of all that, Red Sox fans STILL think of themselves as poor, woebegone little underdogs! And they STILL have the nerve to act as if the Sox are somehow different from the Yankees.
Wake up: your team is NOT any different from the Yankees. You're a big market team, just like the Yankees. Your team consists of high-priced mercenaries, just like the Yankees. There's not a single player of note on your roster who came up through your farm system (at least the Yankees had Jeter, Bernie Williams, Rivera, and Andy Pettitte).
It's fine by me that the Red Sox have (seemingly) beaten the Yankees at their own game this season. The Sox may win it all this year, and you're free to revel in that if they do.
Just stop pretending you occupy some kind of moral high ground. The Red Sox of 2007 embody everything Sox fans have always claimed to hate about the Yankees.
Two words to explain why the Red Sox are forgiven every mistaken excess: George Steinbrenner.
Can we pray against the Red Sox?
I grew up in the NY area with parents from Boston, so was indoctrinated into the Red Sox cult. (I now refer to this as "child abuse"). My first exposure was the 1967 World Series loss to the Cardinals. Later I found out about the cursed Yankees. The issues predate the Steinbrenner / free agent era, that's just the latest glob of goo the Sox fans cling to. The problem with the Red Sox was not that they were not good, like the Chicago Cubs or White Sox, but that they were very good, and lost "the big one" in spectacular fashion. The final straw for me was in 1986 with the Mets, a team I had never hated because they never were any harm to my beloved Red Sox. I actually stopped watching baseball or caring. And do you know what happened? I developed a sort of serene inner peace about the game. I watched the final games of the world series every year, getting caught up in the emotional high of watching the celebrations, not caring who won. I got chills watching Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens win their first World Series, yes, playing for the YANKEES!!! And, finally, ultimate chills and tears of joy in 2004 when the Sox finally won. It seems like alot of things, if you search for peace and stop struggling so hard for things, you live happier, and sometimes the things you were struggling for come to you. So, I will not pray for the Red Sox. There is no need. It is a baseball game. Relax and enjoy.
I have to agree with the friend here. I will pray for guidance, wisdom and the ability to live the will of God, but to pray for the mundane seems a bit arrogant.
But John Henry IS George Steinbrenner in almost every significant way.
When it was George Steinbrenner spending tons of money on free agents. Red Sox fans grumbled that Steinbrenner was "buying the pennant." So, how did John Henry assemble his championship team? By spending tons of money on free agents!
This year, it's clear that Henry got better value for his money than Steinbrenner did (if you MUST overpay for a starting pitcher, Curt Schilling is a much better buy than Carl Pavano!). I congratulate him for that. I just can't grasp how Red Sox fans continue to believe their team is somehow more virtuous than the hated Yankees, when it's clear that the Red Sox have achieved their current lofty status by doing exactly what they've always condemned George Steinbrenner for doing.
On behalf of all of us here in Red Sox Nation, thanks for the prayers! I suspect that the team's success in recent years (after being SUCH a trainwreck for SO VERY LONG) has done more to stir up belief in God here in New England than any evangelical outreach ever could.
And when one lives in Greater Boston, prayer is the only viable way to get parking...
Hey, David, where do you think the Bambino's curse came from? It came from God Almighty. The Red Sox don't need your prayers, they've got Ortiz, Ramirez, Pabelbon, Becket, Varitek, etc. The town of Boston is the place that needs your prayers. Go Angels!
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