The Sheila Variations

This is something I wrote last year

... in the wake of the playoffs. I could find no humor, no comfort, last October. I wrote a rambling piece to try to deal with, and express what I felt was going on ... my feelings about victory, about being a Red Sox fan (and, more specifically, being a Red Sox fan in Yankee-Land), about how to handle defeat ... and how the lessons learned in defeat can be quite punishing, but sometimes they are the most valuable. (So THERE to those "It's just a game" people).

(Dan - some of this will probably sound familiar to you!)

When I wrote this, I was very melancholy. I had put so much hope, so much TIME into my team ... and I literally could not see myself to a day like today. I couldn't see myself out of the defeat of last year. If you had told me back then that we would have a playoffs like we had this year, and then do what we just did in the Series, I would have either thought you were nuts, or just saying that to taunt me with the impossible.

I took this piece out today to re-read it. I had forgotten most of it, actually ... and I came across a section where I imagined what it would be like if the Red Sox won the World Series.

Little did I know that we would do so the very next year. If you had told me that, it would have blown my MIND.

Here's an excerpt of what I wrote. I realize it makes me sound a little bit insane. (Like this is new!) One thing: I use hyperbolic language, first of all, because I think it's funny, and I also use it because that was truly how I felt at the time.

I wonder sometimes what would happen if the Red Sox won the World Series. I do not believe in curses. I believe in hard work, optimism, and having the will to win. And yet, I still lose myself in fantasies about future days of freedom and release. It is not so much that I picture myself at Fenway Park, surrounded by my uncles and cousins, on that glorious day in the future, jumping up and down, screaming like an angry chimp, because my team had finally won. I do not lose myself in reveries about what the noise-level would be like in Boston on that glorious future day. I do not imagine teary-eyed men falling to their knees beneath the Citgo sign, thanking the Lord for deliverance.

Although, obviously, if I have to be perfectly honest, these visions have taken up some space in my mind. From time to time.

My fantasy is more metaphysical than all of that, more psychological. It gets a bit global. Civil wars in Central Asia are involved. The abandonment of the Silk Road is contemplated. I think about what it would actually mean if the losers of the world suddenly found themselves on the winning side of history.

How would we, as Red Sox fans, define ourselves then? If we won? How would that change our identities? Our spirits? We have internalized defeat. It is part of who we are. It is part of the chip-on-the-shoulder devil-may-care charm of the die-hard Red Sox fan. We may lose the playoffs at the very last minute, and we all may have nervous breakdowns and panic attacks, and we may get into fist fights at bars in Southie, and we may tear up our score cards in contempt of our own team, and we may shriek in agony when players make mistakes which cost us the game. All of this may occur, and yet – when we stand up again, we will still be Red Sox fans.

However, here is the point that I am trying to make:

Without the agony and the fist fights and the panic attacks and the desolate men putting their heads down on the bar to nurse their broken hearts in silence … who would we be?

The pride of the victor is not for us.

We have the bludgeoned humility and charm of the losers of the world. There is dignity in losing. There is dignity in not getting what you want. My uncles would kill me for saying this, but it is true.

I have a confession to make. In addition to being a Red Sox fan, I am also 2nd generation Irish. So you can see that I have two strikes against me, in terms of embracing the pose of the victor, of standing beneath the Citgo sign like some 60-foot-tall statue of Lenin in the middle of Siberia.

But perhaps there is another side to all of this. Perhaps I am looking at this incorrectly, swooning like a typical Irishman with the thrill of being an eternal martyr. Perhaps when we win a World Series someday, we will not be just like any other winning team. We will not strut about like puffed-up peacocks, like an occupying Roman army, sure of our place at the top of the world. Our joy in the triumph will be different because it will be so hard-won.

Non-baseball fans will celebrate when the Red Sox win, because somewhere they would know that an imbalance had been righted. Fans from other teams will, I believe, take pleasure in the Red Sox win, will smile when they see us, the beleaguered Red Sox fans, finally celebrating in a drunken orgy on the nightly news. Perhaps even a Yankee fan or two will take a moment to be glad for us. Perhaps they will even see, in our swirling transcendent ecstasy, something that is missing for them in their revelries. Like the Russian hockey players said was true for them in Lake Placid in 1980. After the "miracle on ice", the Russian team stood around on the ice, as the US team literally became gibbering maniacal chimp, and the Russians leaned their chins on their sticks, and just watched the spectacle of joy. It was as though they had forgotten the rush. The joy of winning.

Winning all the time is, indeed, a blessing from God, but those who intimately know defeat have something superior. They will take nothing for granted in this life. They understand in their hearts that happiness is not meant to last, so that while it graces your life, you had better revel in it. They will celebrate, yes, but they also will not forget to get on their knees and thank God for their good fortune. Their win will not be just a win. It will be a triumph of good on this darkened planet.

You must be graceful in defeat, yes, but it is even more crucial to be graceful in victory. Those who manage to be graceful during victory are the only ones who deserve the term "great", in my humble opinion. These are the ones who have the secret elixir of life.

Posted by sheila