Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Everyone in Detroit is rooting wicked hard for the Red Sox right now. There's generally a sort of indifference to the AL East out here in Michigan, except of course for a dislike of the Yankees, but now, my goodness. I had three people come up to me and say, "Go Red Sox!" this morning, in an unsolicited response to my hat. Unfortunately that was at 7:30 am and before I had had any coffee, so all I could muster up in response was a sort of interested grunt.
It's sort of funny how this is working out. The Red Sox are pretty much out of the race and right now it's more about getting everyone out of the season alive than getting out of the season as winners. It's about dudes named Kevin Jarvis and Mike Burns (who?) and David Murphy, a guy barely older than me who manages to look somewhere in the vicinity of 48 years old. It's about pitchers with cancer and busted shoulders and cellophane knees and Julian freakin' Tavarez starting games.
It's about how David Ortiz is probably not going to get the MVP again and saying some rather silly things about that. Jeter is most likely going to get it, and I can't say I'm too torn up about it. Of course I would love to see Papi get the thing, but of all the Yankees on that team Jeter is one of the least objectionable, and he is having a great season. FJM points out that, in many ways, Travis Hafner is having a better one, which is their own personal crusade of the year, but since we live in the real world and not one where baseball awards are handed out with anything like impartial and proper weight given to the appropriate stats, I'm not going to be too upset if/when Jeter wins it.
All this, and usually I'd be sinking into a stupor right about now. A black, sullen resentment of baseball and all involved in the game of baseball. But it's not happening. I haven't been posting over here all that often, I know, but that's a combination of the fact that I'm posting more often over at Roar of the Tigers, I have a snotload of work these days, and I've been avoiding BCRS because I don't really want to think about what the Lions did this past Sunday. It's not because I'm down on baseball right now.
Quite the contrary, actually. In your senior year at the Michigan art school (or, in my case, my 'fourth' year) they finally deign to give you a studio all your own. By 'studio' I mean a 10'x10' bare cubicle with a concrete floor and inspiringly dull beige walls that you have to furnish, entirely, yourself. I've covered the damn thing in baseball stuff. There's a big poster of Fenway, a bunch of those little posters the Globe gives out all summer, a couple printouts of photos and photoshopped images I've made myself... some scorecards... some baseball cards... some napkins from Comerica... It's like being swaddled in baseball, really. And I fucking love it.
I'm watching the Tigers games every night I can and catching up on the Red Sox games on MLB.tv during my studio time. I check all the scores and standings-- congrats to the Mets, and the injured Pedro, and congrats to the West Michigan Whitecaps and the Toledo Mudhens for their Tigers organizational victories. I have matching posters of Brandon Inge in my apartment and my studio, and I have the photo of Jason Varitek facemashing ARod also hanging up in both spots.
The Red Sox are effectively done but I am excited about baseball right now. For a Tigers fan who was not even born yet in 1984, this is a wholly novel thing. Usually, this time of year, it's Red Sox or depression. Now I have something to get all riled up about, and it's not back home in Boston. Weird. Weird.
But we're starting a series with the Twins, and even if their season is finished, the Red Sox can help keep this ridiculous, insane Detroit magic alive. For once I'm not the only Tigers fan out here wholeheartedly pulling for the Red Sox. It's nice, you know? For one short series, everyone understands my deranged dual fandom.
Go Red Sox. Go Red Sox. Go Red Sox.Labels: baseball, MLB, Red Sox
9:09 AM
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