Partner likes sports a lot, but I'm a little lukewarm on the subject. I like rugby, but for non-sports-related reasons. But I do like baseball, sort of. It's easy to understand (although I still don't really understand why you're out if they catch your pop fly), and it's very slow and restful. And sometimes the players look pretty hot in their little baseball outfits. I remember seeing Jim Rice pacing around left field in 1983 at Fenway Park; even at a distance, wearing that stupid uniform, he looked menacing.
Naturally, living in New England, we are Red Sox fans. This is a peculiar kind of fandom. Red Sox fans are generally hopeless about their team's chances in any given year. This comes from many years of losing (the Curse of the Bambino, etc.).
Until 2004, and then again in 2007, when the Red Sox actually won the World Series.
But it takes more than two championships to change a lifetime's attitudes.
This year, for example. We were barely a week into the new baseball season, and the Red Sox had lost their first six games in a row. Six! So I say to Partner: “What if this is the way the whole season goes? What if they lose every single game this season?”
“They probably will,” he said gloomily.
When you play Keno, sometimes, there's a prize for getting none of the numbers. Why not in baseball? It's amazing to lose six games in a row. (I think Charlie Brown's Little League team lost every single game one season, but that was only in the comics.)
Then, of course, the Red Sox had to go and win a game against the New York Yankees. (Which really pissed the Yankees off.) So we broke our streak, but in an entertaining way, because we always enjoy seeing Yankees fans miserable.
(Go look at those rugby players again. They're inspirational.)
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