September Truths
By Karlsie
It isn't the inevitable train wreck of the fall Sox that I just can't turn from (hey, I'm from Boston and no matter how nerve racking it is; this is what I'm used to) that has kept me from writing. It has been an overall sadness that I can't appreciate the Yankees climb from the basement to the top spot on the backs of a handful of guys that don't even make up 1/10th of the payroll.
Normally this is the type of thing I eat up: a bunch of rookies and used-to-be's that are making the league minimum playing for love carrying the over paid fat cats who play for money. It is something I should be reveling in - especially since it is happening to the Yankees. Instead, what haunt me are the words of my children arguing over things such as:
- If the Yankees win the World Series and Jason Giambi gets caught juicing, do they have to give the trophy to the team that really won?
- Why is Randy Johnson allowed to glare and intimidate players but David Wells is suspended for six games for swearing at leaving a ball up that may have cost his team the game?
- Since Palmero carried the O's until he was caught and sent home in disgrace, do all those teams that lost because of him get a chance to have those decisions reversed? If so, wouldn't that put a lot more teams in contention for the post-season? Why do they have to go home when they played for real and the O's cheated?
Kids are like that - they ask us hard hitting moral questions based on an innate sense of fairness we lose along the way as we see more and more gray areas in life.
I believe the Sox are going to the post season and I believe we will win another World Series to prove last year was not a fluke. I expect that people will eventually learn that team is not dependent upon a specific set of individuals but on a group of people shoring up each other's weaknesses while building on each other's strengths.
If nothing else, that is one thing I have learned from baseball.
Tonight I will curl up under my fleece blanket on the couch and read the words of Bart Giamatti regarding the Kevin Gross decision. Perhaps I'll sip a glass of wine while doing so before making the thousands of to-do lists in my head that govern my life when I am not in my chair watching the game. Tomorrow I will hit the ground running, as I always do. I know the post season started for me Friday night when the Yankees rolled into town and will end when I'm buying treats for costumed children who don't understand the sadness of the impending months where there is no baseball to distract me.
Through out it all, no matter who wins and who goes home there is one truth that will ever be in my life: win or lose: the Yankees suck. Always have, always will.
