Quando fiam uti chelidon

Doug:
Well, nobody can say that they didn't see that coming.

 

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Bill:
Nope. And at times like these you just have to give thanks...

 

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Doug:
Thank you Boston Red Sox for your foreshadowing back in April, the cruelest month, the coming of this dry death, this dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit, where here one can neithah stand nor lie nor sit...

 

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Bill:
And thank you Boston Red Sox for the wicked pack of Tarot cahds you drew stahting at the beginning of Septembah — the drowned Phoenician Sailor, (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)

Here is T Francona, The Leader of the Sox, the fady one of situations.

Oh, here is the man with the neck tattoos, and here the Bard, And here is the glare-eyed Lackey, and this cahd,

Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,

Which I am forbidden to see.

 

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Doug:
And that corpse Theo planted last year in the Fens,

It has begun to sprout. It set bloom this year.

 

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Bill:
Yes, we knew, we knew our fate, the Unreal Collapse, a dead sound on the final stroke of nine, and of the days ahead undah the brown fog of a wintah dawn.

 

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Doug:
Ah, yes, that brown fog of a wintah dawn.

 

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Bill:
You know, brown is so in right now.

 

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Doug:
Are you kidding me? I looking friggin good in brown.

 

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Comments

[LarryE]

h.b. Echoing many others today, thank you for another great year of entertainment and interest. This blog and the community it serves is very special. It's also weird. I haven't met you, h.b., or any of the other posters but I feel I know you and them in some remote, and admittedly partial, but at times emotionally-nourishing way.

Sox fans should take solace in the fact that even if we had gotten to the post-season, it's virtually impossible to imagine we'd beat the Phillies. I agree with YouDaMan that this team lacked a fire and resilience that, for example the '04 team had. I didn't always like everythink that Millar and Damon said and did, but I feel it's undeniable that they provided a looseness to the clubhouse that the '11 team probably could have used in the last month. I hope Francona's not made the scapegoat, because it wasn't his fault the starting pitching sucked so bad. Things change, as l.c. has said today. This offseason, it will be interesting to see WHICH things change with our beloved Red Sox.

Thanks again, h.b.

[NolaSox]

@Yaz, well it wasn't Wakefield cause I would keep him all for myself.

It was actually a local microbrew wheat, which unfortunately was reminiscent of orange dish soap, so more like .

[NolaSox]

ugh, apparently my choice of punctuation around "insert name of fruity mlb pitcher here" means omit.

[Blue Stater]

Surely I am not the only observer of the current baseball scene to notice that the twin epic collapses of the moment are those of the Boston Red Sox and the Atlanta, née Boston, Braves? Do we really need more bad karma right now?

And thank you, h.b., as I should have written earlier, for the strip. Only the foibles of our Red Sox would inspire something like Soxaholix. Sorta puts me in mind of the discussion on the PBS MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour the night after the '86 WS collapse. It featured, if memory serves, the director of the Fogg Art Museum and the chair of the Harvard classics department in a discussion of how, in classical artworks, young men dare greatly and fall greatly. I somehow doubt that that discussion and Soxaholix would arise out of the doings of, say, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

[PaPesky]

I was in sec. 27, 3 rows off the field...15 yards from Crawford. I am now convinced that he has been the Ray's Most Valuable Player two years in a row -- he just happened to accomplish this feat wearing two different uniforms. He could not have ever won a gold glove.
Baltimore fans verbally raped us after the game. MFS- m..Showalter- a hollow, stuffed manager of 93 loses.

[soxdownunder]

Well, that was a serious downer as mrs sdu, the 8 year old 'sox fan and I prepare for our little prilgrimige to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the Maggie's attempt to repeat. However, it was truly epic, and sorta/kinda why we love baseball. Plus, as today's strip shows us, we still have TSE and hb channelling the same. Thanks.

I'm throwing my sad, resigned support behind the Brewers cos I love a fat first baseman who whacks the ball real hard and Laverne & Shirley came from there. Whatever.

sdu

[vancouversoxfan]

h.b. another classic!

That was two epic fails for me this year...At least you have the Bruins...*sigh*

[Paul in DC]

Hey, for most of the night last night in Baltimore, we had fun, and that's why we go to the park... Sox lost a close game and MFYs coughed up a seven-run lead in the eighth... What can you do. The MFY's do that kind of thing, and if you like it when it works for you (2004) you have to also put up with it when it doesn't. And keep Tito but not the slackers.

[pseudosanity78]

h.b.

Added commentary on some of the strips in the Best Of...book would be welcome! Whether it be from you or the constant regulars on the site.

I know I'm probably asking too much from what is a one person show, but if you have additional notes, non-published comics, and other such 'extras', that would be an unmissable purchase.

And...um...a tangible copy this time around? I don't mind paying more for it, I'd just really like something to keep on my bookshelf.

[Jason O.]

Kind words? This strip and its regular commenters suck: Myself included.

[sonomasox]

Been checking in and reading all day. Still working through the pain to comment much...just to echo most of the sentiments above. Thanks, HB. Thanks Sox for a decent May - Aug. Thanks to TSE and rest for putting into words what I can't.

Go Maggies!

[Primitive Screwhead]

Just wanna pile on the Thanks to hb for another great season of strips.

So, The Sox find a way to spectacularly blow it all in the end.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Here's to next year.

[Harwich Rich]

...and like Paps says "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"

[Jeff in NC]

Until He Who Dwelleth in His Mom's Basement shows, this faceplant of a season feels somehow incomplete. Just sayin'.

[Lazlo Freem]

Somehow, I just don't give a fuck. They can't hurt me anymore. I feel nothing. Maybe 04 & 07 did that for me, I dunno. They have been preparing us for this for over a month. These guys couldn't string together 2 wins in like what, 40 games? They were going to miraculously turn it all around in the post season? With the mouthbreather on the mound and who's army? Who are we kidding? The fork was stuck in these guys weeks ago.

[Survived75]

But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable) thing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was horribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The jaw-bone remote smote my side, which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of an ugly crowd, just beginning to shake in the wind; I thought my eyes were open; I was half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically stretching them still further apart. But, spite of all this, I could see no scoreboard before me to steer by; though it seemed but a minute since I had been watching the card, by the steady LED glow illuminating it. A stark, bewildered feeling, as of death, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped the remote, but with the crazy conceit that the remote was, somehow, in some enchanted way, inverted. My God! what is the matter with me? thought I. Lo! in my brief sleep I had turned myself about, and was fronting Yawkey Way, with my back to the Fenway mound. In an instant I faced back, but not in time to prevent the vessel from flying up into the wind, and capsizing.
Look not too long in the face of the fire, O thou fan of the Olde Town Team! Never dream with thy hand on the remote! Turn not thy back to the W-L line; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp- all others but liars!

[Survived75]

Thanks, h.b. What you do here is Art.

[Rob in CT]

S'75 - impressive!

[Harwich Rich]

Have a feeling Tito's opting for early retirement today.

[IC]

Ha. Brilliant. Thanks for another great season. Sigh.