Enjoy The Good Life

By Jerry Thornton

For thousands of years, great intellects have pondered three questions:

1. Can the Red Sox win a championship?
2. If they did win it all, would their fans lose interest?
3. If they win it all and the fans don’t lose interest, how will people handle success?

Halfway through 2005, we have our answers. They are: “Yes,” “Hell, no,” and “Like a bunch of dickweeds.”

I’ve got a message for Red Sox Nation. Take this to heart. Write it down. It is simply this: “Quit yer bellyachin‘.” Especially the Nation’s red-headed stepchildren, The Nimrods Who Call Sports Talk Radio. And it goes double for those extra-chromosome puds I run into in the course of my day who want to do nothing but gripe and complain about “What’s the matter with the Red Sox?”

Is it me? Am I missing something? I’ve waited my whole life to be able to say “The Sox are the defending World Series Champions.” The last time anyone could say that, they couldn’t even enjoy themselves because Prohibition had just stopped the flow of precious, precious booze to a desperate populace. Now we find ourselves at the halfway point of the Title Defense and the Red Sox, minus Curt Schilling, are in first place by two games. But all anyone wants to talk about is the degree and manner of Mark Bellhorn’s suckiness.

Too many people, way too many, came into this season looking for something to bitch about. They’ve taken whomever on the club is struggling, and jumped on him with cleats. The first out of the gate was Edgar Renteria, who committed the unpardonable sin of getting off to a slow start. But to listen to the nitwits among us, you would’ve thought he was hiding Natalie Holloway‘s body. I swear to you the coffee guy where I work, two games into the season, said the following: “Renteria’s playing like crap!” He’s since become my go-to guy when I want to know what the dildo faction of Red Sox Nation is thinking.

Kevin Millar stuck up for Renteria, saying “Don‘t boo Edgar, boo me…I suck.” And people took him up on the offer faster than if he’d said “Have a beer.” But then Millar started to hit. Just then, the numbskull contingent said “Hey, look! Manny’s batting average is down! Let’s get him, boys!” When Manny’s home run and RBI totals started to climb faster than gas prices, they had to look elsewhere. And that elsewhere was Bellhorn.

Bellhorn strikes out a lot. OK, “a lot” is an understatement. Bellhorn strikes out tons. His strikeouts come in bunches, piles, mounds, foothills, mountains, ranges, sub-continents of strikeouts. We get it. But that’s what he does. We knew that coming in, so why the surprise? He’s the No. 9 hitter, for crissakes. Pardon me if I’m not throwing batteries at him because he isn’t Roy Hobbs. And nine months is too short a time for me to forget him clanging a homer off the foul pole in the Bronx, the final nail in the Yankees’ coffin and one of the greatest sounds I’ve ever heard.

But the undisputed whipping boy for the Red Sox Unfaithful in the first half of 2005 is Keith Foulke. So far, Foulke’s season has been a train wreck. And he didn’t help himself by saying he didn’t care what “Johnny from Burger King” thinks. (Johnny cares, Mr. Foulke. He cares about the Red Sox. And he cares about serving a damn fine flame-broiled burger, fast, any way you want it. Is that so wrong?) So Foulke is a jerk. No kidding. Even when he was closing out crucial games last year, I was never under the impression this guy was Nelson Mandela. Every major leaguer is one amphetamine away from doing a Kenny Rogers on someone’s ass. I’ve seen too many Sox closers who were a sweetheart of a guy but couldn’t get big outs in big games. If I’m having a cookout, I’ll invite Bob Stanley. I just want to win championships.

I totally understand that you can’t live off last October forever. I’m not prepared to sit in the stands and contentedly root for a last place team, blissfully dreaming about that one-hopper back to Foulke for the next 86 years. But at the same time, I’m not going to waste the most enjoyable, stress-free season of my life finding fault with every picayune thing like I’m Statler and Waldorf in the balcony of The Muppet Show.

Maybe even nine months after the fact, we still have no idea how to be fans of the World Champs. Collectively we’re like Eddie Murphy in “Trading Places” when he finds himself instantly wealthy, but he only enjoys it for a little while. In no time, he’s squawking at his party guests for messing up the expensive furniture. My mother used to talk about how some people are only happy when they’re miserable. That ain’t me, and I hope that’s not us.

Because the missing element from all this complaining is “…and that’s why they can never win the Big One.” In the past, that phrase was always there when you were criticizing the Sox. It was the implied subject of the sentence; there even if you didn’t say it. But it’s gone now, for good. And that counts for something.

Forever I’ve had Sox players that I liked only to hear someone rip them because they couldn’t hit in the clutch. I’d quote the career numbers of a Jim Rice or a Nomar, and someone would take one bad playoff performance and hang it on them like a string of tin cans they’d have to pull around for their whole career. Or I’d take an obviously great clutch player like Luis Tiant or David Ortiz, and someone would say, “What’d he ever win?”

This is still the same team from last year. Until a new champ is crowned, I’ve got “scoreboard” over the rest of the world, and I’m not going to squander this opportunity. I’m going to do what I’ve heard Yankee fans do my whole life. The Sox lose a few? “First place, buddy.“ Bellhorn strikes out too much? “Yeah? What did he do when it counted, huh? Damn right.” Foulke is getting lit up? “What month is this, July? Talk to me in October, pal. That‘s when he gets it done.”

Enjoy. Life is too good to bitch.