Daddy? Daddy.

Just finished reading Sports Guy's ALCS Game 2 running diary. It was the least I could do for The Nation.

I wonder about Kayvon and Ev (footnote1), and the collective blood alcohol level of Bostonians world wide today. I used to disdain their die-hard provinciality, but now I'm starting to understand why people from Boston are always such adamant Sox fans: I guess it's something like collective masochists' pride. I can sympathize, and at some level I can even identify with that mentality. You've suffered for so long, your father and grandfather have suffered even longer, and though you know that it is irrational to choose to continue the dispair, you instead hold onto it even tighter because without it, you don't have, and have never had much else. So you say to yourself, "Well it's (almost) been a shitty century without a Red Sox championship, but at least we still have those 4 World Series game 7's, and the Yankees, to bitch about." So I guess it's between suffering and nothingness. More than a World Championship, Red Sox fans need a rope, or Buddha.

But I guess it's still too early to tell? Down 0-2, your best pitcher's ankle can't be fixed with horse tranquilizer, and your second best pitcher is the self-proclaimed son of New York?

All this Bostonian passion for their team is putting my LA basketball roots to shame. The fact that Jack (Nicholson, not Cho), the most recognizable fan of the Yankees or the ManchesterU of the NBA, apparantly made an appearnce at the Yankee stadium yesterday did not help my cause at all. But I will always have the Clippers.

(and to be completely fair, not just because I'm a Lakers' fan: the Lakers are winning like the Yankees and Manchester U but do not sell out with the ludicrous payrolls of either team; in the NBA, that honor belongs to the NEW YORK knicks)

By the way, all this talk about baseball, a sport in which I have no inherent interest, is only partly spawned by the ALCS. I have been enlisted in our staff softball tournament tomorrow, and I'm pegged in the left field. Vegas has put the over/under of my dropped fly balls at 5.3. I just hope I don't strike out as many times.

(footnote1)
a reply email from ev:
--------------------------------
Thu, 14 Oct 2004 22:23:33 -0400
From: "XXXXXXX, Evan F"
Subject: RE: 0-2
To: thejeffcho@yahoo.com, "Amir XXXXXX (US - San Francisco) XXXX"

I seem to remember a game like this last year when the chips were down... When a lot of people were throwing in the proverbial towel, but we fans of Louis Tiant knew better. Late in September 1978, El Tiante overheard Rick Burleson telling a reporter that "it's really too bad, we thought we had the season wrapped up but now we're 4 back with 8 to play (or something like that) and we have to face the fact we won't be playing in the postseason..." Louis stormed over, interrupted the interview, and shouted at Burleson,

"Bool-cheet! BOOL-CHEET!!!!

You win today!

YOU WIN TOMORROW!

AND THEN YOU SEE WHERE YOU ARE!!!!"

And they ran off eight straight to force a one-game playoff (which need not be mentioned save in passing).

Believe.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Cho [mailto:thejeffcho@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 6:56 PM
To: Amir XXXXX (US - San Francisco) XXXX; XXXXXXX, Evan F
Subject: 0-2


Just found out this morning, my condolences. Still
believe?

cho