At Last

Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
AL East East Champions!

 

---

Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
And when we look back on this years from now and are reminded how the Sox took the lead for good on April 18th, the panic of the past two weeks will be long forgotten.

 

---

Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

---

Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
What panic?

 

---

Biding time

Susan/Circle:
This is frustrating. I feel like I'm parked on the tarmac at Logan waiting for a gate to be freed.

 

---

Tara:
Seriously. Would they hurry up and win the Division already? It's getting old.

 

---

Susan/Circle:
Well, at least I've got my SI Pap's covah to get me through the day. Hummena hummena hummena.

 

---

Tara:
So you're not dissuaded to by Schilling's quote that Papelbon's ""not exactly a charter member of Mensa …""

 

---

Susan/Circle:
Are you kidding me? That's just how I like my men — hot and dumb.

 

---

Tara:
Yes, why not? If men can have their "women in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant" thing, then we are entitled to our "man in the backyard sweaty and splitting wood, shirtless."

 

---

Susan/Circle:
Purrrrrrrr.

 

---

Bring out the imp

Mike:
So now that the Division seems^* locked up, I'm a little embarrassed about my own doom and gloom pronouncements last week.

^*[said with fingers-crossed while knocking on wood]

 

---

Bill:
Yeah, and aftah reading Verducci's debunking of the biggest myths of MLB's wild-cahd era, our recent histrionics seem even more laughable.

 

---

Mike:
Well, I guess that's why they call us "fans" short for "fanatics" and not "imps" short for imperturbable.

 

---

Bill:
Seriously, I wish I could say otherwise, but the fact is, 100 times, no, make that 101 times out of 100 if the Sox have a 14.5 game lead that dwindles to a 1 game lead, I'm going to bust a nut.

 

---

Mike:
But no point in dwelling on our weaker moments.

 

---

Bill:
Of course not, especially during Christmas.

 

---

Mike:
On the first day of Christmas my Manny gave to me, 5 RBI.

 

---

Hit it now!

With apologies to the immortal James Brown …

Al:
Fellas, I think they're ready to do their thing.

 

---

Al:
Ready to get into it, man, you know.

Like a playoff machine, man.

 

---

Al:
Pitchin' it and hittin' it, you know

 

---

Doug:
Can I count it off?

 

---

Al:
Go ahead.

 

---

Doug:
1) Youks and Manny

2) Schilling

3) That's the magic

4) Rays slam the Yankees door.

 

---

Mike:
Get up. Stay on up.

 

---

Al:
Stay on the scene. Like a Sox machine.

 

---

One track mind

Yes, we are overly obsessed with a number …

Bill (thinking to himself):

 

---

Playoff spot clinched (but...)

Bill:
"Winning the AL East is a distant second to assembling a rested, healthy roster for Game 1 of the American League Division Series."

 

---

Mike:
Oh-kaaay …

 

---

Bill:
I know. As logical as that statement may be, it still sounds hollow when you say it.

 

---

Mike:
It's like when a girlfriend says "things are going too fast" and that she "needs some time" to, you know, "get some clarity."

 

---

Mike:
And then you run into your buds and they're all "Hey, where's your girl Linder;" and you're like, "Oh, it's all good, we just decided to, you know, slow it down a bit."

 

---

Bill:
Or they say, "Hey, I saw Linder at the Downtown Crossing with some dude in designah jeans" and you start rationalizing to yourself that it was probably her cousin or one of her gay friends.

 

---

Mike:
Just like we're rationalizing the Red Sox fade with comparisons to St. Louis last year and Detroit before that.

 

---

Where are you on the fan spectrum? Rational? Bat shit?

Steve:
OK, here's something positive: Despite all the crap that has befallen the Red Sox in '05, '06, and over the past few weeks of '07, nobody, not even the Curly Haired Boyfriend, has so much as mentioned "The Curse."

 

---

Steve:
That old canard is finally dead and buried.

 

---

Mike:
Yeah, true, but aftah 2004 I really did expect things to be totally different and yet it seems, with the exception of the Curse and 1918 and all that crap, we are pretty much right back where we were befoah.

 

---

Steve:
Well, as Don Rumsfeld will tell you, there is often a considerable gap between expectations and reality on the ground, but in the case of Red Sox Nation, I think there has been a real shift since the World Series win.

 

---

Mike:
What? Have you not been reading the blogs, listening to the radio?

 

---

Steve:
Yeah, I have, actually. And that's where I'm drawing my inference from.

 

---

Steve:
It seems to me that a good chunk of fans, I dunno 25% I'd guess, are actually talking and blogging and commenting in a downright rational fashion.

 

---

Steve:
And I'd say another 25% are concerned and sullen and quite probably expect the worst, but they are not going bat shit crazy or anything.

 

---

Mike:
That still leaves another 50%.

 

---

Steve:
Absolutely.  And of that remaining 50% there is a lot of gnashing of teeth and clinking of rosaries but, even then, the percentage of whacked out, "28 Days Later" wanting to eat the flesh off your bones fans have been reduced to a number smaller than I've ever seen.

 

---

Steve:
And I'm totally convinced that had there been no 2004 glory, the flesh eaters would outnumber the rationals 9:1 easily.

 

---

Mike:
Well, while I can't say I'm feeling all warm fuzzy after your overly long exposition, I confess that I can see some wheat in all the chaff of the past few days.

 

---

Steve:
  Yes, and Beckett goes tonight.  It's not over yet.

 

---

Epoch of belief, epoch of incredulity

Doug:
I'm so friggin angry right now that if I was in a bah fight I'd probably inadvertently cut off my own nutsack from the sheeah blindness of my rage.

 

---

Mike:
Hey, at least you've still got nuts to sack … aftah watching the estrogen fest that is the Septembah 07 Red Sox, my testes have shrunk up and withdrawn into my abdomen like a pair of wannabe ovaries.

 

---

Al:
So neithah of you is takes any consolation from the notion that the Red Sox just care about the postseason, not the division win, and are resting and preparing for when the games really count?

 

---

Doug:
Nope.

 

---

Mike:
No because you don't prepare for winning by losing.

 

---

Al:
Agree. But what if this is anothah case of the fans thinking they're smahtah than the front office?

 

---

Doug:
You know the problem with that is that half the time lately the fans are actually smahtah. Look at the case of Okajima.

 

---

Doug:
I mean way back in early Septembah every fan from Bangor to Braintree could clearly see that Okajima was outta gas and needed a rest.

 

---

Doug:
But despite the overwhelming evidence Francona stuck with the pahty line that Oki wasn't tiahd at all. Oh, but, lo and effin behold, turns out he is tiahd and needs to be shut down.

 

---

Doug:
So instead of resting him when we have a nice 6½ game lead, they wear him down some moah until now they have no choice but to sit him with a mere 1½ game lead.

 

---

Mike:
And then there's the case of J.D. Drew. Every fan from Woodstock to Woonsocket figured Drew would be about as useful to the Red Sox as tits on a bull, but His Royal Highness Theo just had to, had to have Drew.

 

---

Doug:
And Lugo, Gagne, Renteria … What the frig?

 

---

Al:
The 2005 late season fade was bad. 2006 was worse, and now, 2007, is trending to be the worst fade into oblivion yet.

 

---

Doug:
If this team doesn't go deep into the playoffs, I expect to see severed heads rolling down Yawkey Way come Novembah.

 

---

Mike:
Seriously. The Red Sox monarchy needs to understand we peasants are sick of eating this cake they've been feeding us since the World Series win.

 

---

Do the cuffs match the collar?

Mike:
You know growing up whenevah I'd heah people talking about '78, I always imagined the collapse to be some sort of dramatic, cataclysmic, big bang kind of event.

 

---

Mike:
Howevah, now going through a collapse of equal proportions myself first hand, I realize it's not like that at all. It's all slow and gradual, know what I mean?

 

---

Susan/Circle:
Exactly. Where you once figured it was like a shotgun barrel in the mouth with brains splattered against the wall kind of death, you now know it's more of a car running in a closed garage cahbon monoxide asphyxiation kind of ending … you know, peaceful, really.

 

---

Mike:
That's it, precisely.

 

---

Mike:
I tell you, though, aftah the Bucholz no-hittah, I thought that was a sign that the winds had shifted and we'd have smooth sailing into winning the division with a nice cushion. I just didn't see it coming to this.

 

---

Susan/Circle:
Yeah, well, life is funny that way, isn't it? I mean in a post-feminist age, who would have guessed that we'd see women asking themselves, "Is my anus pink enough?", and yet …

 

---

Mike:
Hmmm … First came the pink caps, now the pink sphincs. There's a twisted yet titillating symmetry to it all somehow.

 

---

Because er hatte Flair

Doug:
Once again, I'm soooo glad I set my panic demarcation at 3 games.

 

---

Bill:
So right now there's a half a game between you and complete and total loss of bowel control?

 

---

Doug:
Abso-fricken-lutely. How 'bout you?

 

---

Bill:
Me? Ah, no sweat. I went and saw Dr. Robert and said, "Doc give me whatevah the fuck Francona is on …"

 

---

Bill:
So now I'm rockin' like an autistic with ne'er a care in the world. Tonight we'll go get 'em, you know, rah.

 

---

Doug:
You think Manny's coming back?

 

---

Bill:
What are you insane!? Manny can't come back because he might get hurt!

 

---

Bill:
We need to wrap Manny in bubblewrap like an overripe kumquat and save him for those all-important games next April and May.

 

---

Doug:
Seriously. Why win today when you can win tomorrow? Or the day aftah? Or the day aftah that?

 

---

Bill:
Rock me Amadeus.

 

---