This review was sent to us by "A shamelessly smirking Red Sox fan"
My wife and I were at Blockbuster last night wondering whether to rent a thirteen-year-old film still on the New Releases rack or to fruitlessly try to search for an available movie that had just came out. Alas, Blockbuster had disappointed me more times than the Red Sox.
However, a few copies of STILL WE BELIEVE: The Red Sox Movie was still, incredibly, available. Knowing that I would not be denied, my baseball widow sighed and said, "Go rent it." Her choice was yet another movie about mountain-climbing so I let her watch it while I devoured my SI World Series edition.
The most interesting and amusing thing about SWB: TRSM was how consistently wrong the eight fans were about their team. When they lost a June game in the middle of the week to a sub-.500 team, the season was over. Opined one California Sox fan, "They have to win the division to get to the post-season. Seattle's too strong." And, of course, the chorus of "This is The Year."
A lot of Red Sox fans ate a lot of humble pie this year to go with their late October Fenway franks because the Red Sox, unlike the sage prognostications of "Angry Bill", won the whole enchilada this year.
However, the primary value of the movie is to give eight faces and names and life stories to the long-suffering Red Sox Nation that, until recently, had only been written about or shown in little filler pre-game shows or news segments.
To paraphrase a quote from a Frenchman about Americans in general, to understand the New England mind one must first understand Red Sox baseball. The expectation of failure, the calm unwavering anticipation of Shakesperean tragedy, the Hardy-esque fatalism, is part and parcel to the existence of Red Sox Nation and even the charm and heroism of the team's hard-core fan base. Someone this year once defined faith as believing in something when common sense tells you not to.
This was perfectly delineated in Game Four of the ALCS, played less than twenty-four hours after the seats behind home plate were emptying out during the Yankees's 19-8 blowout of the Olde Towne Team. Yet, back Red Sox Nation came for Game Four, even if only to see their beloved team play out the string and maybe, just maybe, salvage a lone victory against the Evil Empire and repeat 1999's history.
But watching SWB: TRSM as late as I have, one can see the many profound changes that had taken place since the end of last season, changes that are common in the baseball world. The self-proclaimed idiots had gone from the Neo-Nazi look to Woodstock holdovers, from a closer-by-committee philosophy to having a proven closer anchoring the bullpen and, of course, the biggest change, going all the way without one of its most beloved players, Nomar Garciaparra.
STILL WE BELIEVE: The Red Sox Movie will bring tears to the eyes of those who had suffered along with these representative eight fans, smiles and even shameless smirks from those us who had stuck with the team throughout the incredible 2004 season.
Posted by lefty at October 31, 2004 10:15 AM