ALIVE!

I'll admit it... I gave up.

I listened to the score run up to 5-0 and I waved the white flag in my head.
I rationalized that it was better to have your brains beaten in than to have a Wild Pitch/Bill Buckner/Grady Little/Aaron Boone moment frozen in time.

I ate a nice meal with my brother and my wife and tucked my kids into bed...
But I guess there was one tiny part of me holding out because I hit record on the DVR when I took my boys upstairs.

Maybe it was a small part of me that remembered Dave Roberts and thought "Maybe... just maybe."

When I finished Where The Wild Things Are, I flipped the tivo and saw Ortiz's homer.

I thought "too little too late... but at least they aren't going to let themselves be embarassed."

Fast forwarding through the Rays at bats and careful not to hit the wrong button again on my remote I got to the Drew homer... and then some part of me clicked.

It was that new strand in my DNA, call it the 2004 helix, that has changed my perspective on the world.

Any knucklehead who thinks that Red Sox fans long for the Curse and their old identity of losing doesn't understand that we Sox fans are now different animals on the sub-atomic level.

That sense of doom that used to come about when the Red Sox were doing well has been replaced with a feeling of confidence that even a 7-0 lead isn't enough to stop us.

And when Coco fouled off 9,921 pitches... I didn't have a sense of dread.
Rather I kept picturing something wonderful.

And it happened.


And I got a great experience of watching it with my brother.
Ted has moved away from baseball but watching him get excited with me made me feel like we were 6 and 7 years old again in Weston Massachusetts.

The biggest difference was we were watching the Red Sox WIN!

Everything clicked... Pena hitting into a double play, Longoria throwing that ball into the stands...and finally Drew.

When that ball bounced into the bullpen, is there a Red Sox fan alive who didn't suddenly think "We're going to win this series"?

And now Terry Francona is adding to his legend and possibly a Hall of Fame resume.

The man is 8-1 in post season elimination games as a manager.
And he is two wins in Tampa Bay... two games started by Josh Beckett and Jon Lester... from pulling off his third come back from a 3-1 hole in five seasons.

I like this change in my DNA

I'm sorry everyone who hates us Red Sox fans...
WE'RE ALIVE!

I hate my remote control

My stupid and overly complicated remote control impeded on my enjoyment of game 3 of the 2008 American League Division Series.

Let me explain.

The days of parking my ass down and watching 4 straight baseball games in one October day are pretty much gone. I have duties as a husband, a father of 2 and the reality of being closer to 40 than to 30.

So while I wanted to sit on my new couch and watch all of game 3, I had dinner to feed to my guys, a bath to give them and I had to read them Where The Wild Things Are a few times.

All the while a great games was unfolding.

But I didn't sweat it.
I simply hit pause on my remote control.
I wasn't recording it, but you can pause and rewind live TV.

Recording the game would mean erasing some of my kids shows...
and YOU explain to my guys that there is no Thomas and Friends or The Upside Down Show in the morning.

So the game was paused and I did my fatherly duties, with some help from my dad who was in town.

Dinner was eaten, baths were given and books were read and before long, boys were asleep.

I scampered downstairs and unpaused the game. I was watching events that were an hour and a half old as if they were live.

And the game unspooled... and it was intense... it was surreal (a three run bloop single? Beckett and Varitek not on the same page?)... and it reached out to those heart wrenching 9th and 10th inning where a basehit would have won the series... a wild pitch or a 4th ball would have sent the Red Sox to the ALCS.

And I was still and hour and a half behind real time.
Each inning I was expecting to jump from the couch screaming.
Each inning I was left squirming.

And I could fast forward through the commercials as my dad and I couldn't afford to wait.

Of course I could have called a friend or check on line... but I wanted to experience the game as if it were live.

Going into the 11th, I fast forwarded and then when I got past the commericals, I hit play.

Or at least I meant to.
Instead I hit the button right above it... a button that to the thumb feels identical to the play button...

It's a button that is called "list" and what it does is it plays what shows have been recorded on the DVR.

In other words I changed the channel to the shows I tape for my kids.
So instead of watching Papelbon stare down the heart of the Angels order... I saw Moose and Zee from Noggin singing "Everywhere I Go."
And I realized that because I was trying to preserve my kids shows by not recording the game, if I flipped back to TBS, I would no longer be 1 hour and a half back but rather in real time.

I flipped back and lo and behold the TBS post game show was analyzing the Angels victory.

I missed the ending of the game because of the stupidity of the remote design.
Why put that button there?
Don't they realize it can destroy a fan's enjoyment of a game?

It's like a self destruct button.
Or like having a small vent that if hit with a torpedo could destroy the Death Star... and not putting a screen over that dent.

Just imagine being wound tight watching your favorite team and suddenly you hear this song...

I don't think this song is supposed to inspire F Bombs.