I believe in baseball.
The marathon season culminating in a September dash for the playoffs; the traditions, rivalries, and legends handed down from generation to generation and the communal coming together they engender; the ambiguity of balls and strikes and safe and out, the conviction that never was there an umpire so blind; the way a single call, error, near-miss, or act of Herculean prowess can change the course of a season: for all these reasons and more, I ascribe to baseball mythic importance.
In baseball, certainties are rare, but there are two beliefs I hold with religious devotion: my hometown team, the Tampa Bay Rays, are the David to the Goliaths of the American League East, the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, and for that reason they are the most inspiring and exciting team to watch.
Perhaps just as importantly, the Sox are all thugs, and to root for them is blasphemy.
This second conviction goes way back to my childhood, when I watched Pedro Martinez, once the Red Sox’ ace, pitch the dirtiest, meanest game I’d ever seen, only to take a no-hitter deep into the night. It was reinforced during the 2008 season when the rivalry between the Rays and the Sox intensified and was carried all the way into the seventh game of the American League Championship Series.
Should I someday have a child, I imagine his or her birth will be the most exhilarating day of my life; until then, however, that distinction will always belong to the night I watched the Rays clinch a World Series berth by taking down the Sox.
Alas, it’s been a disappointing few months for the Rays.
In October, they nearly came back against the Texas Rangers to win the chance to face the Yankees in the Championship Series, but Rangers starting pitcher Cliff Lee silenced their bats in the final game of the series and crushed that dream. Then, half the Rays’ offense and nearly its entire bullpen signed elsewhere, leaving only a shell of the team that, against all odds, had won the league’s toughest division two of the past three years.
The darkest day came when Carl Crawford, long the Rays’ team leader, signed a mammoth deal with the Sox. Tears were shed all over the Bay Area when, in his first press conference as a Red Sock, Crawford uttered the impossible: “My heart is here in Boston.”
It looked as if things couldn’t get any worse. Then, last Friday night, my brother called. “Did you see the news?” he asked. “The Rays are about to sign Manny and Johnny.”
I screamed into the phone. This couldn’t be happening.
Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon are terrific players. They’re both former All-Stars. Any team should be glad to have them. Except for one thing: They both used to be Red Sox players. Not only that, they used to be two of the most visible stars of the team I grew up despising.
Some of my friends have gotten on board the Manny-and-Johnny train, albeit reluctantly. The two heavy-hitters may add the punch the Rays’ lineup needs to be competitive, they reason.
They might be right. But I just can’t do it. It’s too much. I can’t root for either of them.
Unless, of course, Johnny and Manny become integral parts of a Rays playoff bid, in which case I will unflinchingly embrace the newest Rays. Because in baseball, the only thing that matters more than the past is the present, and when your team is neck-and-neck for the division title, it’s amazing how much can change.
Stranger things have happened in this game I love so much.
Nathaniel French is a senior theater major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
