Legends of the Fall: Tales from a Beleaguered Sox Fan

In a mercy-killing that would have made Jack Kevorkian proud, the Oakland A's finally pulled the plug on the Boston Red Sox' season last night, beating the Anaheim Angels 9-7 to maintain their lead in the AL wild card race. The win officially kills Boston's playoff hopes, which had been languishing on life support for the past week.

With the Sox eliminated, we last holdouts among the citizenry of Red Sox Nation can at last be at peace with our misery.

But as the throngs of Sox loyalists line up along the guardrails of the Tobin Bridge to take the ultimate plunge, one cannot help but think that it should not have come down to this. Common sense and historical wisdom should have prevented Sox fans from once again playing the role of fool in this perennial tragic drama.

For far too long, we loyal, baseball-loving denizens of the Hub have foolishly suspended our disbelief, ignored our better senses, and laid out our ever-wishful souls, all for the sake of our bumbling Olde Towne Team. This year, more than any other, we showed up in droves to support our team, making thin our wallets as we set a Red Sox franchise record for season attendance. More fans passed through the turnstiles of Fenway Park in 2000 than in any previous season; the last 57 home games of the year were all sellouts.

What was the reward for such undying commitment and unwavering support? Nothing more than another year of maddening mediocrity: by season's end this Sunday, the Sox could very possibly find themselves no higher than third place in the AL East and fourth in the wild card.

One could say we fans should have known better. History has proven

nothing if not that the Red Sox were never meant to prevail on baseball's grandest stage. Even our most admired hero and thought-to-be savior, ace Pedro Martinez, admitted as much when, following the Sox' devastating 2-1 loss to the Indians last Wednesday, he acknowledged, "We were not meant to win that game."

In defense of us fans, though, our passions were not stirred without cause. Who among us was not enthralled by the events of last season, when the Beantowne Nine captured the wild card (not to mention the hearts and minds of all native New Englanders) and advanced all the way to the league championship series? Surely there was enough reason for optimism this season that even the editors of Sports Illustrated made the most brazen of predictions, picking the Red Sox to win the 2000 World Series.

But, in retrospect, we got too far ahead of ourselves. And so now the baseball gods have humbled us on account of our hubris. We dared to tempt fate, believing that the Sox might finally cast off the cursed mantle of 82 years of futility. But alas, our pride was found to be in excess and we were struck down in the sight of our enemies, namely the ever-loathsome front-runners who hail from the Bronx.

Even still, surely no team deserved as much calamity as befell Boston this year. The first casualty of outrageous fortune came before the season even started, as promising righthanded starter Juan Pena went down with a season-ending arm injury in spring training. Third baseman John Valentin was Boston's next victim, as a freak play in the infield disabled him for the year.

Pedro, meanwhile, was cursed by a lack of run support all season, receiving a grand total of just seven runs in his six losses this season. Carl Everett, whose slugging skills were supposed to finally replace the bat of Mo Vaughn, was revealed to be little more than a whack job, whose off-the-field tantrums overshadowed his team-leading home run total. Perhaps the four teams that released Carl prior to his joining the Red Sox knew something we didn't.

Despite all the turmoil, though, the Sox might still have had a shot at the postseason had their efforts not been undermined by the ineptness of Sox general (mis)manager Dan Duquette. After pledging in that now-infamous SI article last spring to make a serious bid for an impact player to help put the Sox over the top, Duquette sat idly by while the trading deadline came and went last July. While the Yankees bolstered their roster with the likes of Denny Neagle, Dave Justice, and Jose Canseco, the Duke brought us the immortal Ed Sprague, Mike Lansing, and Sean Berry.

In the process, Duquette has sent the Sox' payroll soaring to George Steinbrenner-type levels, sans the output on the field. As a result, Red Sox management will likely find itself in the unavoidable situation of having to raise ticket prices, which are already the highest in the majors, in order to cover its inflated spending.

And so there seems to be no hope for this cursed ballclub either now or in the immediate future. It's enough to make anyone want to hurl himself off a bridge.

Looking back, Sox fans might have been better off had they employed more caution in their approach to following this team. Perhaps we should not have allowed ourselves to get carried away with enthusiasm, so that we might never have been so greatly disappointed. Likely, we were foolish to not temper our passions that we might avoid the extremes of short-lived highs and devastating lows that mark the passage of each Boston summer.

Teetering on the edge of the Tobin above the icy waters of the River Charles, these sage admonitions seem to make perfect sense. But they come too late.

For us wretched souls who allowed ourselves to once again be suckered in

this season, there remains but the single inescapable fate of drowning amid a sea of troubles.

Perhaps others who were not so easily duped by the failed promise of last spring can emerge from the events of this wasted summer unaffected. But

for those who are guided by the smatterings of their hearts and not the

prudence of their nobler reason, there can be but one ultimate conclusion,

ever suppressed each spring and summer and yet always revealed by the arrival of fall:

Damn Sox did it to us again.