Friday, October 05, 2007

the urge to ditch my family and hitch hike to anaheim will be strong

I know it's for the good of the bullpen, but this one day on, one day off stuff is killing me.

Here is a cautionary tale:

I had plans this summer to go see my parents in California for a week in mid-August. Then something came up at work and I had abruptly reschedule my visit, and when my mother suggested the first weekend in October, I agreed without thinking, because I was overwhelmed by how many homicides, and because I'm an idiot. Only later did I realize that I'd committed to spending 10 days away from home smack in the middle of baseball's postseason. The first thing I thought was, "This sucks, I don't want to be in California watching the play-offs by myself, I want to be in Boston." The next thing I thought was, "You cannot alter your plans. If you do that, you will jinx everything, and the Sox will blow the lead and not even make the playoffs." At the time it seemed like a wise decision, which is probably proof positive that I am a fucking maniac. What's worse is that now the postseason is here, the Sox are in, and when Game 2 starts tonight at 8:30 EST, I am going to be on a plane to Oakland.

Thank God I'm flying Jet Blue, because they have a deal with XM. Tonight's game will be a bizarre marriage of tradition and technology: I'll be flying cross-country at 30,000 feet and … listening to the Sox game on the radio. Given my tendency to fill my clear plastic zip lock bag with nip-sized bottles of booze and my propensity for histrionics when it comes to the Red Sox, I would say that there is a 47% chance I'll be leaving that plane in handcuffs, but hopefully not before the final out.

Because I don't want to tempt the gods of schadenfreude, I will say this: Yankees game? What Yankees game? Oh, you mean the Yankees played last night? That's cool. I didn't watch any of it, or check the final score as soon as I got home last night or anything. I bet they won, though. They had Wang pitching, and he's their ace, and when you've got your ace on the mound, you -- yeah, I’m sorry, I can't keep a straight face any longer.

posted by always thinking about papelbon @ 2:45 PM