No, not Christmas. Not fall clothing season. Not the impending long Columbus Day weekend. No, no, when you're a girl born and bred in the Boston area (especially as of late), the best time of year happens in early October. Soxtober, to be exact. Red Sox playoff season is here, and it starts tonight. 10pm (EST) vs. the Angels. The roster is set and I am giddier than a little girl on Christmas Eve.
Forget the fact that it's a Wednesday night, and that my alarm will go off at the ungodly hour of 6:45am tomorrow for work. Forget that I am bound to have a few too many Coronas at Cask'n Flagon tonight. And forget the fact that half of those beers will probably be spilled on my new, green, Varitek t-shirt. It's the playoffs, and I finally get to be in Boston for all of it. My Dad would be appalled if I go about the next few weeks any other way. Dad (and Mom, but definitely Dad) raised me to be a Red Sox fan. Yankees are evil, Fenway Park is sacred and the Red Sox are the only team worth being frenzied over.
There are baby photos of me, being held by my Dad, on the not-so-great night of the 1986 World Series (let's not mention what happened that night). I sat -- or more like slouched -- in Dad's lap, hardly 10 months old, in a Boston Red Sox onesie.
Another photo, cerca 4 years old, next to my brother Ryan in a high chair. He wears a baby sized Boston Red Sox cap. I wear a new Red Sox jacket -- I remember wanting that jacket so badly. It looked like one that the players wore, and I knew that made it cool. I lived in it, and wore it to shreads. Until the white and red threads of the Red Sox logo started stringing apart. I cried my eyes out.
In 2004, the Red Sox won the World Series during my first few weeks at UMass. I threw on my pink Red Sox hat, and ran out the door of my dorm to go celebrate with some other 17,000 college undergraduates. My mom thought of my grammie-- afterall, it was her that stayed a fan for her entire life and never saw them win. For Mom, the Red Sox mean something far more than parades and trophies and curses and overpriced tickets.
I flirted with boys in college who started conversation after seeing my baseball made Red Sox bracelet (I wore them way before they were popular, cheap, and at every tourist shop in Fanueil Hall). I went on dates to watch games, wished there were classes I could take on just Boston culture and the Sox, and cut classes last fall to see the celebratory parade. I still don't date men that wear Yankees hats (sorry boys, it's an automatic dealbreaker), and my boyfriend is fairly assured that in the rare occasion that I see Jacoby Ellsbury out anywhere, I'm allowed and obligated to have a hot, steamy tryst.
It's October 1st, and we are once again in post-season games. Excuse me while I try not to smile too much behind my desk at work. Is it 10pm yet?
-M
