The Collective Fist Pump from Red Sox Nation
By ThrowsLikeAGirl
By Brian Buoniconti
With Red Sox Nation holding it's 'breath, the Boston Boys of Summer (well, okay, I guess for now they are "Boys of Spring") - after what seemed like forever - broke their five-game skid and the bats are beginning to snap out of their "mini-slump". Over the past week, the Sox have gone from a team on a six game tear, to one that couldn't get anything done, but it happened with the oddest of results...the fans, the media, everyone in Red Sox Nation is still behind this team.
If this were last year (or any other year for that matter) at this point the Nation would be down on their boys. Reporters and analysts would be all over the Sox with accusations of not living up to the hype and writing columns about how they're doomed to another year of playing "great" baseball only to finish second to the Yanks. (God, I hate them so much...). But not this year! Even after five dismal, sometimes "oh, so close" losses, hope still lives, and, in fact, is alive and well in Red Sox Nation. Even analysts are still praising the Sox as the "best team in the league." There is a faith that the slump will end, that the bats will come alive, and the pitchers will realize that they are - when they're all on top of their games - undoubtedly the best in the majors...and basically, in a word, unbeatable.
Why is that? Why is the faith now present in a notoriously critical Red Sox Nation? Why have fans not turned and the infamously negative Boston media jumped all over the slumping Sox? Because this year isn't any other year, it's different and you can feel it in air. It's what Sox fans cling to with every heartbreaking end to season after season; it's the reason we keep the faith from the day the Sox start spring training 'til they're mathematically eliminated (and beyond) and every time in-between; it's why we follow message boards and rumor mills to see who's going to be putting on the red socks in the off-season and why we do the same at the trade deadline; it's what keeps us selling out "friendly Fenway Park" on weeknights in April; it's what we've been waiting for so long...it's "next year." And we all know it.
How, you ask? How do we know in early May that we're watching the beginning of history? How do we know that this season could end a streak of eighty-six consecutive falls of saying "we‚ll get 'em next year!"?
...Because like the Boston Globe ad says
"On a clear April night...You can almost see October."
...Because on a Thursday night in April, while the Sox were playing the Devil Rays, the Fenway faithful that sold out the park were on their feet and loud as ever for the last out, and when Fouke struck out the batter to end the game, you could see the collective fist pump of Red Sox Nation.
...Because we all still believe. And no matter how much A-Rod talk there is, how many times the Yankees sign the big free-agent, how many times we see the heart wrenching replay of Boone's home run sailing out of Yankee Stadium and how many times we remember that sinking feeling in your stomach when you saw it happen, no matter what happens we'll still stay with this team 'til our last game, sometime in November, when everyone will realize that they'd been living "next year" all along.
— Brian Buoniconti
