The Red Sox go up 3-0...
And the Nation begins wondering if this is could be the second act of the most heartbreaking collapse imaginable. In deference to the superstitious, I won't say this team has got the series in the bag; but if these guys don't win, it would seriously alter my whole understanding of the universe. If they somehow managed to blow it, I would have little choice but to conclude that there is, in fact, a God; that he takes an interest in baseball; and that he would have designed the outcomes of all the postseason games so far just in order to maximize the suffering of one particular group of people with little in common other than team allegiance.
Why is that the common wisdom about baseball is seemingly the most riddled with nonsense about "clutch," "curses," and so on, when it is almost certainly the sport in which psychology, character, etc. matter least? I often find talking about baseball with most fans infuriating, due to their lack of a basic understanding of what true skills are and what a batter or pitcher can control in a single game or at-bat. As much as I'd like to believe in a story about the unbelievable character and dedication of the Boston Red Sox, and the Yankees totally choking, it's kind of a sham. Winning in the postseason is about getting lucky and getting hot at the right time. Given enough time, certain "storylines" will emerge that seem to reveal truths about the teams they involve, but basically if you buy into this you're just attaching values to the "ability" of a person to win or lose repeated coin flips. Boston's failure to win a world series has a lot to do with poor management, of which the Babe Ruth sale is but a symptom, rather than the cause of all the trouble.
Then again, I wasn't really aware of baseball in 1986, so perhaps if I had been a Sox fan then I wouldn't be quite so rational about all this. I did survive the 2003 postseason, however; a huge difference in the abilities of the Yankees' and Red Sox's managers to make tough decisions was the reason for the Game 7 loss, not a curse.
Why is that the common wisdom about baseball is seemingly the most riddled with nonsense about "clutch," "curses," and so on, when it is almost certainly the sport in which psychology, character, etc. matter least? I often find talking about baseball with most fans infuriating, due to their lack of a basic understanding of what true skills are and what a batter or pitcher can control in a single game or at-bat. As much as I'd like to believe in a story about the unbelievable character and dedication of the Boston Red Sox, and the Yankees totally choking, it's kind of a sham. Winning in the postseason is about getting lucky and getting hot at the right time. Given enough time, certain "storylines" will emerge that seem to reveal truths about the teams they involve, but basically if you buy into this you're just attaching values to the "ability" of a person to win or lose repeated coin flips. Boston's failure to win a world series has a lot to do with poor management, of which the Babe Ruth sale is but a symptom, rather than the cause of all the trouble.
Then again, I wasn't really aware of baseball in 1986, so perhaps if I had been a Sox fan then I wouldn't be quite so rational about all this. I did survive the 2003 postseason, however; a huge difference in the abilities of the Yankees' and Red Sox's managers to make tough decisions was the reason for the Game 7 loss, not a curse.
posted by D at 2:41 PM
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