What's Wrong with the Boston Red Sox? (Hint: It's Not the Players)

The Boston Red Sox. If you are a sports fan, the name probably makes you think about the 2004 World Series, and how sick you were of hearing about them.
Maybe you had a co-worker who was a Red Sox fan that used to come in depressed after a big loss to the Yankees. Even if you don't follow sports, the chances are you know a Red Sox fan. They are a complex bunch. A group that has experienced more highs and lows than any other sports franchise. It is of these fans I write today. The 2007 Red Sox have just become the first team to clinch a playoff spot. Sure, we're still battling the Yankees for the Division Title. But we'll definitely be there in October. Looking back on this season, it was unlike any other in Red Sox history. For once, we had the best team in baseball. The best. For most of the season, we not only led our division, but we had the best record in baseball. We also have the best Red Sox team that I have seen in my lifetime.

I'll get back to this year's team in a moment. First, let me give a brief history of what it has been to be a Red Sox fan. Fans born around 1950 (my parents' generation of fans) got something special with the 1967 season. The season was so epic that it is of almost no consequence that they didn't win the World Series that year. 1978 brought highs and lows. In 1986 fans hit rock bottom. In 2003, we got as close to rock bottom as is possible outside of the World Series. Between these years, we were just another mediocre team with passionate fans. 2004 changed all that. The Red Sox exercised each and every one of their demons. We finally beat the Yankees in the postseason, and in the most satisfying way possible. The World Series was almost an afterthought after that, albeit an afterthought that put the rings on their fingers. The Red Sox had won their World Series. The millions of fans who thought they would never witness a championship were finally rewarded. Then, a funny thing happened. Time went on.

After the rings were handed out at Fenway on Opening Day 2005, the fans were brought back to earth to the tune of an 11-5 beating by the Yankees. The 2005
season ended at the hands of the eventual World Series champion White Sox, a team battling its own eighty-year demons. In 2006, we contended for a while,
but our postseason hopes were brought down due to a five game sweep at the hands of the Yankees. Then we get to 2007. I'll repeat my claim from before:
This is the best Red Sox team of my lifetime, that is, since 1983. Better than the 2004 team, which used great chemistry and an unbelievable 8-game run to
win it all.

Don't believe me? Let's take a closer look. We have the best starting rotation in baseball, with two vets (Curt Schilling and Tim Wakefield), one young
gunslinger (Josh Beckett), and one 100 million dollar wild card (Daisuke Matzusaka). We have the best bullpen, featuring the best closer in the game
(Jonathan Papelbon), and another Japanese enigma (Hideki Okajima) who turned out great. The offensive side? Manny Ramirez and Ortiz can beat you with the home run. Kevin Youkilis, Mike Lowell, and Dustin Pedroia can out think you at the plate. Coco Crisp and Julio Lugo can bunt and steal their way around the diamond with the kind of speed the Red Sox have never had. The other two men in the lineup? Only the captain of the team (Jason Varitek) and J.D. Drew, who
has played okay, just not $70 million worth.

We began the season with a sweep of the Yankees at Fenway. We followed it by taking two of three from them at Yankees stadium. In one of those victories,
we hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs, which is the best regular season moment I have ever witnessed in my life. That was at the beginning. At the trade deadline, we added the 2003 Cy Young winner (Eric Gagne). We had our young phenom (Clay Buchholz) throw a no-hitter in his second major league start. We brought up another rookie (Jacoby Ellsbury) who is faster than both Crisp and Lugo, and oh yeah, he hit safely in his first 12 major league games, didn't get a hit the next game, and has hit safe in every one since then.

With all of this going on, you'd think Red Sox fans would be ecstatic about their team. Sure, it hasn't come up all aces. Schilling hasn't been reliable. Dice-K is stuck at 14 wins. Papelbon and Okajima are slowly coming unraveled as the season progresses. Manny and Youkilis are hurt. The Yankees swept us in August and took two of three in September. Gagne has been directly responsible for at least four losses. You know what? Through it all we stayed in first. The Yankees have gone from 14.5 games back to as little as 1.5 games, going back and forth between those two numbers.

Still, we've been the best team in baseball for most of the season. And you know what? For most Red Sox fans over 40 I know, this has been the most stressful season they have ever known. Sure, the Yankees have gained ground. But we're on pace to win 95 games! We're in the playoffs! I have had a blast this season, and most fans my age have too. I started thinking about this, and I have come up with a conclusion. The Red Sox fans of the previous generation have been scarred beyond repair by the events of 1978, 1986, and 2003. In between they found that while mediocrity wasn't great, at least it didn't hurt. As those twenty-five years went on, most Red Sox fans actually preferred this mediocrity, if it didn't mean that they wouldn't get hurt again. It's like someone who went through an incredibly painful divorce. Sure, they go on living, but when it comes to a relationship again, maybe not getting hurt is as good as being in love again. As great as 2004 was, it couldn't heal all of the scars. These fans were used to seeing the big choke, and for over half their lives have believed that it would always come and they were always right.

The fans of my generation are different. I was three years old in 1986. 2003 devastated me, but I was able to get past it, because it was really the first time the Red Sox had broken my heart. Then, we rebounded the next year to make up for it and then some. The fans of my generation aren't used to constant heartache. We witnessed firsthand that miracles can happen, and we haven't witnessed the extreme punch to the gut that the previous generation has. This
fan base has become so used to getting hurt that they won't even put themselves in the position to get hurt anymore. A Robin Cook book I read recently
described it perfectly. In the book, a character is sitting watching the Red Sox game. He isn't upset, because the Red Sox are losing. If they were ahead,
he would drive himself crazy imagining the different way the Red Sox would blow the game. Knowing that they couldn't hurt you, you have a better experience,
as sick as that sounds. And if (knock on wood) something catastrophic does happen, the fans think to themselves "I knew it" and take themselves completely
out of the game.

Never was this more evident during the most recent Red Sox Yankees series. In the first game, we were up 7-2 in the eighth, before the Yankees came up with
6 runs to take a 8-7 lead. I watched this game with my mom, and her reaction was the same as the 30,00 fans at the game: she looked like someone pooped in her dinner. The fans were gone, and instead of thinking 'hey, this game isn't over, let's get them back', they thought, 'I knew we were going to lose, an my
fears have just been validated, like almost every other time I believed in the Red Sox'. Sure enough, the Red Sox didn't pull it off. The same thing happened two nights later when a 1-1 pitcher's duel was broken up in the 8th inning by a 3 run Derek Jeter homer. I thought to myself, 'well, I guess the 'majesty' of the Yankees can be too much for even the Red Sox to overcome once and a while'. Then, five days later, the Toronto Blue Jays, playing for nothing but pride, blew a 4-run lead in the bottom of the ninth at Yankee Stadium. The Blue Jays not only didn't fold, they shut the Yankees down for five more innings, winning in the 14th. How does a team like the Blue Jays, after losing a four point lead at Yankee Stadium, and shut down one of the most dangerous lineups in baseball with a shaky-at-best bullpen?

I guess that was a rhetorical question. This all brings me the the point of this article. Please Red Sox fans, heed my call. This is 2007. The past is
past. There was never a curse, and there sure as heck isn't one now. Don't complain that the Sox are turning into the Yankees just because they go after
big free agents. The reason they have such a payroll is simple: they are in the biggest baseball market in the country that isn't split between two teams.
New York, Chicago and L.A. all have multiple teams. Boston has an entire region that lives and breathes the Red Sox from April to (hopefully more often than
not) October every year. More importantly, don't let yourself get defeated when things go bad. Never is this more important than this year. In the postseason, get rid of all your doom and gloom, and wake up to realize that you've got a damn fine baseball team to root for, which is more than most cities
get. Don't sit and brood about the Yankees getting their revenge for 2004. I firmly believe that the Red Sox are truly a better team than the Yankees, a
better team than the Indians, and are pretty well matched up with the Angels. How do I know? Well, in the last Yankee series, except for the bottom of one
eighth inning and one Jeter home run, the Red Sox were in control of that series. The truth is evident on Derek Jeter's face as he caught the game-ending
pop-up from Ortiz in the final game. He was ecstatic because his team won a game they were one swing away from losing.

So forget Bill Buckner. Forget Aaron Boone. Remember Big Papi. Remember Clay Buchholz, Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia, the future of the team. Get
ready for this postseason. Pop in your 2004 ALCS DVDs and get pumped up. You owe it to your team and to yourselves. I know its presumptuous to think that
I can change a mindset of an entire region that has existed for the latter half of the last century. But I tried. At the risk of tainting this entire article by ending it with a very trite cliche: The past is past. The Future is now. Let's get ready for some postseason baseball.