October 27, 2004
Silence of the Hams
The World Series figures to end tonight — Thursday, at the latest — with the Boston Red Sox celebrating their first world championship since 1918. At the risk of sounding like the grumpiest man in the room, this does not please me. In part, this is because the World Series has been a real dog, the first one since 1999 to want for drama and compelling games. But mostly, my refusal to join in the nationwide embrace of the Sox boils down to repeated run-ins with drunken or boorish Red Sox fans at stadia across this great land of ours. These people were obnoxious enough when they were fortune’s foe; how insufferable will they be now that they’ve won something?
There is one bright side to this, though. The expiration date on sappy no-one-but-me-knows-what-it’s-like-to-lose-the-big-game pablum looms like an oasis in a desert.
Congratulations to Boston fans on their imminent championship. Now kindly stick a sock in the wailing about how heart-breaking it is to root for a perpetual contender.
