Win, Or I'll Jump!

I didn't want it to get to this point. Leaving a note from high up here on the Tobin Bridge. Funny, I can even see Fenway Park from here. Funny? What am I saying? Maddening, is more like it.

Not that I don't have plenty of company up here. It seems like half of Red Sox Nation is trooping up here. We'll have to jump in shifts.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Back in the balmy days of May and June, the Sox were cruising, safely in first place and up by as many as 14-1/2 games over the hated Yankees. Life was sweet. It was even sweeter watching Joe Torre's face turn more and more sour night after night. Ha! Even signing Roger "the Retro Rocket" Clemens wasn't the silver bullet the pin-pricked pinstripes were looking for.

Then came late summer. And early fall. And suddenly the Yankees were winning night and after night and the Sox are folding like a cheap chair under Pavarotti, may he rest in peace.

Why do I feel like I have seen this particular horror film before? Because I have. Almost exactly 30 years ago to be exact. That was the year (1978) that the Sox also blew a 14-game lead to the Yanks, then, in a fateful one-game playoff, disappeared entirely thanks to the immortal Bucky "bleeping" Dent's homerun.

The Sox' lead has once again all but vanished. (A mere game-and-a-half, as of this writing.) A key difference now, as opposed to then, is that the Sox are already assured of a playoff spot thanks to the perverted wrinkle of the wild card. Shouldn't that be good enough? Frankly, no. The Sox have finished second to the Yankees 8 of the last 9 seasons. Enough is enough.

We thought, naively, it seems to have turned out, that we had banished and fully exorcized the ghosts and curses in that magical year of 2004. Turns out that curse, or whatever it was, may be as hardy as a New England winter, with the shelf life of a Twinkie. It lives.

So, here I am, up on the Tobin. There are those who counsel restraint; why not wait for this last week of the season to play out before doing anything this drastic? Great--just when I had finally secured a primo spot right on the railing.

Fine.
Win. Or I'll jump.