what fools these mortal bostonians be...

I'd been grousing about the palpable mania emanating online, along the airwaves, from the printed page -- yea, verily, from the pores of the city itself. Boston is Just! Freakin'! Nuts! about its sports teams (and I am compelled to use the possessive singular, as this city seems a sentient entity unto itself). I thought it was nuts when I first lived here in the late 70s and for five years in the 80s. Heck! I was nuts too, but nothing like this town is today.

Just in the last couple of days the biorythms have spiked exponentially, what with the arrivals of Kevin Garnett and Eric Gagne. Today's Herald, in a fairly subdued manner here, explains:

Yesterday, in fact, was a truly eye-opening day in the recent history of Boston sports. While the Celtics were all but adding the 6-foot-11 Garnett to the city skyline, the Red Sox were acquiring reliever Eric Gagne from the Texas Rangers. In the last four months, Moss, Garnett and Gagne all made sacrifices to bring their talents to Boston, just as Schilling did when he arrived from the Arizona Diamondbacks in November 2003.

So now here we are, in Summer 2007, and it seems as if each new season brings another major announcement. Sox starter Daisuke Matsuzaka is Japanese, Garnett and Moss are African-American, Gagne is Canadian. They all could have chosen not to come. Yet, they all now belong to Boston, and you can’t help but get the feeling the city is growing a little more each day, inside the walls and out.

Ah yes. Bostonians live & die with the wins & losses. They eat, sleep and shit Sox, Pats and Shamrocks; and they'd like to bleed Bruin if they could (but they can't, so they won't). And the passion required to live & die as does this lot is better left to a more mindless youth. I don't know, it could be nothing more than I'm 25 years older and have taken into perspective my share of excitement: The World Series, Superbowls and NBA Finals. And somehow I've concluded I can't exist in a realm of all-or-nothing anymore.

But I can still watch the games, yes? It's all entertainment: The games, the crowds, the chatter.

Beyond that I'm working on getting a life, albeit at a safe emotional distance.

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Update: Alriiiiight! Just got my Blockbuster mailing of the 2-disc set of Impossible to Forget: The Story of the 1967 Red Sox. That'll keep me busy.