Yankees vs. Red Sox: Round 1

I spent most of this past week in Vancouver, which is about as far as you can go from New England and still get baseball updates in English. Ironically, while I was in Vancouver for a techno-centric conference, I was busy and couldn’t stay connected enough to the Internet to keep up with what was happening in the world of Major League Baseball. When I found the time at night to turn on the television, the time difference and the fact that I was in Canada meant that baseball updates weren’t that easy to find. I did hear about Dice-K’s heartbreaking loss against the Blue Jays, though; this made the news because the Blue Jays are Canada’s only baseball team.

Allow me to digress for a moment and say that Dice-K’s loss to Toronto made him likeable to me. Over the winter, before I decided to plunge into this ludicrous project, I tried to convince myself that Dice-K wasn’t that big a deal. But that was my way of trying to minimize what I really felt: for all that money, Dice-K should be a Yankee! After all, that’s what the Yankees do, isn’t it? In short, I was jealous. And then, all during Spring Training, I had to deal with the dissection of Dice-K’s every move, including various “news” stories about whether or not the “gyro-ball” is real, new, or just a lot of hype. In other words, I was rooting for Dice-K to fail.

And that reaction wasn’t something that had a lot of cognition or reason behind it; it was just what I felt. But then I reminded myself of what I’m trying to do here, to be able to root for the same team that my children do. And I watched Dice-K’s first game and tried to be objective. To be honest, I don’t know how objective I was. But I do know that I kept my thoughts to myself.

And then Dice-K lost a squeaker to a guy who almost no-hit the Sox. And then Dice-K lost a 2-1 game, even though he had 10 strikeouts. That last game kind of made him a tragic figure in my eyes, and I kind of like that. I mean, I can root for a guy like that, I guess. Now, I recognize that this is not the same as standing up and embracing Manny just for being Manny, but I look at it as a step in the right direction.

But tonight, my newly found and weak convictions face their biggest test, as the Yankees come to Fenway. I suppose it’s a good thing that I haven’t been exposed to any hype this week, because I don’t want the hype to color me more than I’ve chosen to color myself. But I did listen to the radio last night and the predictable predictions from the callers, like the guy who said that Boston’s going to win 57-0 on Saturday. Which I guess could still happen.

But back to Vancouver. That city is in the midst of Stanley Cup Playoff fever, with the Canucks in control in their series with the North Stars. However, I found it interesting that as I was heading to the airport, I heard some of the Vancouver morning DJ’s cautioning everyone that just because the Canucks are up 3 games to 1, there’s still plenty of time for them to blow it.

And then the Canucks went out and lost last night.

It seems that Vancouver hockey fans aren’t all that different from Boston Red Sox fans.