Before Game 5

(I know this day has been overblogged, and really I think I must go on a blog diet, but there is a bit of an excuse, because I was just settled in for a solid day of work, with clear achievable goals, and then at 10:30 the phone rings and it's the secretary at E's school and, well, you can guess the rest of the story, so I got a tiny bit of work done, in between reading Heidi aloud and playing board games, and, well, some blogging. But this post really must be written before 8 p.m., so here it is, and that's the end of me, for now.)

I'm going to go out on a limb and say: I agree with Manny.

[OK, I'm spending too much time here, and hitting too many registration pages, trying to find the perfect link, but probably if you care at all about this post you know what he said, and if you don't, well, here's the money quote:

“We’re not going to give up,” he said. “We’re just going to go, play the game and move on. If it doesn’t happen, so who cares? It’s always next year. It’s not like the end of the world.”

And this is the one that people aren't talking about so much:

“Why should we panic?” he said. “We got a great team. If it doesn’t happen, good. We come next year and try to do it again.”

Both from the NY Times.]

Lucy asked me the other day to write the definitive Red Sox post, encompassing my feelings about this year and what it's like to be a long-term Red Sox fan now that everyone has gotten on the Red Sox Nation bandwagon. This isn't going to be that so much except, well, maybe part of that.

Anyway, here's how I feel: This is a great team. I love this team. And this team, in my book, has achieved: after the Yankees came back and that disastrous series in Toronto, they did not collapse. Last year's team would have collapsed (hell, they'd already collapsed). Want to talk about the 90s? Let's not. This team took first place way the hell back in whenever, and they kept it. They won the division. THEY WON THE DIVISION. That's just huge. And they slaughtered the Angels. And these Cleveland games? They've been hella good baseball (though I must admit that I've had the TV on in the sunroom and sat in the living room, where I can hear, and see the reflection in the glass double doors, and run in for the replay if I need to, but watching? Way too stressful.)

Do I want them to win tonight? Of course. Do I think there should be heads on a platter if they don't? Definitely not. This is a team that is not going to go gentle into that good night. Think Papelbon, Lester, Buchholz, Ellsbury, Pedroia. Think Beckett, for god's sake. Youkilis. And the old guys still have it too (no comment on Schilling, except that we will be forever grateful).

This isn't the Red Sox who always end up losing. This is the Red Sox who win, and sometimes they lose. They're still a great team. I still love them. But the Curse is gone. And I'm not sure these newbies to Red Sox Nation can truly appreciate that, but I do.

I'm leaving out the role of class, race, and nostalgia in the constitution of Red Sox Nation, but a girl can only blog so much. And that's it for me.

Edited to add: OK, I do have one more thing to say: regardless of all this positivity, Eric Gagne has got to go. And that really is it.