They did it.
After all the hype, all the talk, all the hand-wringing, all the speculation about the starting pitchers and the bullpen and the suddenly quiet bats, the Boston Red Sox mowed down the competition this postseason, posting an October record of 11-3 and hoisting the franchise’s fourth World Series trophy in the past 14 years.
So, of course, we couldn’t properly celebrate from afar. At least, that’s how my son felt about it.
Check out Mitchy Four Bags, y’all:
Mitch Moreland saw one pitch.
He made the most of it. #Statcast pic.twitter.com/pS3P1NS7Xt
— MLB (@MLB) October 28, 2018
My favorite part of Mitch’s three-run moonshot? Yasiel Puig standing dead still and watching it sail over his head. I feel you, Yasiel; no sense running into the wall for that one.
I suffer from poor impulse control. It causes me to sometimes say things I shouldn’t. Things like “It is exactly because of how good this team is, and how much fun they are to watch, that I want this postseason to last as long as possible.”
That was something an impulsive and arrogant me — we’ll call him “Old Me” — wrote and published just before the start of an 18-inning, seven-plus-hour game that ended at 3:30 this morning and left me in a crumpled heap.
I’d love to say I’m not nervous. There are plenty of reasons not to be. The 2018 American League East Champions were the best team in baseball throughout the regular season, and won more games than any team in the history of their storied franchise. But this is not the regular season; this is the postseason … and the Red Sox, who also won their division the previous two years, are 1-6 in postseason play over their last two ALDS appearances.”
What a difference three weeks makes.
Maybe it’s because I’m from New England, where cynicism is a birthright. Maybe it’s because I’m a Red Sox fan who, despite seeing the team hoist three World Series trophies, still remembers what it feels like to watch it all fall apart in an instant. Maybe it’s because I’m a sensitive and emotional control freak with a deep-seated fear of disappointment who never lets himself believe that the good thing he hopes will happen actually is going to happen until after it already has happened.
Probably it’s all three of those things.
If I have but one regret in this life, it is that I named my son on the day of his birth rather than simply referring to him as “boy” until the end of last night’s game, at which point I’d have officially dubbed him The Magnificent & Merciful Lord Andrew Benintendi Zal. (Granted, it would have been odd to call him “boy” for the past 15 years … but, in hindsight, totally worth it.)