What Can Be Said?

What can I say about my boys, the Red Sox, which has not already been said by my friends this morning? They are a beacon of hope in a dreary world, even while they raise in us such high anxiety it is hardly to be believed. Who didn’t have heart palpitations last night, with Foulke up, facing the go ahead run in the bottom of the 9th having walked two? Who didn’t wonder if a ball sailing over a right field wall would dash our hopes of life and further sleeplessness? Who failed to marvel as umpires got not one, but two difficult calls correct?

Not I — that can be said.

For the record, I would also like to state that I honestly thought Alex Rodriguez was a better man than that. I have not forgotten that his youth and mine coincided in Seattle.

And tonight, hope again! And fear, my friends. Fear that destiny, fate, and long history move us towards heartbreak once again. Hope that this year, this time, this at bat, might be different. In a world where polling numbers and analysts tell us who we will elect, where reality tv is shot months before we watch it, where even a baby’s face and sex are known before it is birthed… two great nations stand facing each other, and do not know whether the morning brings joy and exultation, or the bitter and ashy taste of defeat.

How few things we do not, or do not expect to know in advance. How ill-prepared we are for the mystery of wait and see. But we were not supposed to be here. The prophets told us our hope was lost, our cause barren. The sages said that it had never been done before. Our own hearts told us that our team labors always under an ill star. But we are here. We hope. We live. We strive.

And all that may be said with certainty is that tomorrow, we will awaken to a great emotion. One nation will stand. One will fall. And the roll call of history will go on.