September Stress

Now some you of, dear readers, may scratch your heads as you read this post. It reveals a side of me that doesn't get out much--not many people I interact with on a daily basis want to discuss this topic (mostly because I interact with moms in "mom mode" and children), but I am a baseball fan.

And it's September. And for the last few years, I've been without a team. Not completely without, more like in limbo. I was a die-hard Braves fan, but since we moved from Atlanta eight years ago, it's been hard to remain die-hard (especially now that TBS doesn't show any games and we don't get SportSouth--are they even on that channel anymore?). Plus, I was ready to give up on them once Glavine left. So for our six years in New Jersey, I kinda rooted for the Mets, because that was Rob's team when he was growing up, and because I think that the Yankees are just plain evil.

Now we're in the Philly suburbs, but I just can't get excited about the Phillies, even though they are doing well. Maybe it goes back to when they beat out the Braves in the NLCS that year (was it 1993?) with that long-haired freak of a pitcher (what was his name again? Mitch something?). The Phillies just don't do it for me.

As a fan of the game in general, I've always had a soft spot for the Boston Red Sox (how could you not?), and of course we rooted for them in 2004. That was a lot of late nights--those games against the Yankees were so long! I was thrilled for them when they won the Series. Since then, I've kinda followed them here and there. And then last year, we went to Boston for the weekend before going on to Martha's Vineyard, and we took the whole family on the tour of Fenway Park. (We couldn't get tickets to a game--Rob and I even tried sneaking in during the late innings one night, but no dice.) The Fenway tour was the high point of our Boston trip for me.

So last night, we're watching the scores on the crawler, and I see that the Red Sox have lost. And the Yankees are winning. My stomach just tied itself into knots, and I said to Rob, "I don't think I'm emotionally equipped to be a Red Sox fan!" They're killing me (as they've killed generations of Sox fans before me, I know)! The Yankees are only a game and a half out! The Sox have lost their last four games! There are nine games left! We were down to magic number time, people--what are you doing! Aaaaaggghhh!

Did I mention that I love September? Go Sox!