I am so grateful that the two bars I went to tonight, mostly to see friends, but also to sorta watch the Red Sox game, were too crowded and annoying to stay at. I, myself, am not much of a sports fan, but it seemed like a somewhat festive opportunity to be with my friends. It was so interesting. A newscaster called it a "luxury" to be able to watch the game from a bar. I disagree.
As soon as I walked in, you could feel the tension in the air. Rows of heads facing upward towards various television screens. No room to walk. Waitresses and bus boys wearing Red Sox jerseys. When I finally found my friends and sat down, I noticed the divergent Yankee section on one side of the table, and the Red Sox on the other. I found out later that the table's yankee fans had formulated a synergistic triangle that covered both sides. People were unusually inhospitable (even for Bostonians) and their intentness on watching this game was obviously taking precedence over acknowledging much else.
The talk of a mythical "yankee triangle" would have been hokey enough for me, except that the three yanks fans were avoiding a lot of movement and trips to the bathroom to preserve the trinity. My die-hard yankee friend felt like she was ruining the energy by being in the same bar she was in last night when the yankees lost. Energy? huh?
I got to thinking. Why to people instantly become spiritual and conversely superstitious around baseball games? All of a sudden you see people with clenched prayer hands. Talk of bizarre superstitious methods like not washing jerseys or sitting in a specific seat are totally justified...albeit, hilarious.
I also don't understand what a "double-play" is. I admit it. I'm not much concerned with commentators personalities or major league politics or anything like that. I really don't care. I also have no animosity towards the yankees and i dont feel the need to jeer them or call them "bitches" or any other nonsense.
With that knowledge, I went into this outing with no expectations other than to be a my conscientious-observer self. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for how stressed out everyone was. I have two best friends. One of my friends is a huge Yankee fan. The other,a loud, boisterous RedSox fan. Well, he's just loud and boisterous and we love it. AT concerts, he's the one everyone wants to talk to because he just goes nuts. Literally. He's got way too much energy. My other friend, a Poughkepsie-based Yankees fan who now lives in Boston proclaimed that she hated the Red ox and would route for the Florida team if the Redsox won. Someone joked that she oughtta dig out her "aqua" attire from the closet. Having suffered taunting the night before for her Yankees allegiance, I think she was feelin' prematurely frustrated. This also being the end of the week, everyone's exhausted and tired and ready for a break.
My Loud, boisterous friend decided he had to leave within moments of her comments about hating the red sox. Personally, i think he was offended. She texted him right away to tell him she even though she hated the red sox, she still loved him. Within a half-hour, we left. i was too intense and stressful for my friend. i was just observing like i always do. i never got too deep into this stuff. it was never a instilled in me, maybe because i was the only girl. i'm glad for it now. i said goodbye to my yanks friend and was on my way to go home or so i thought.
i went to the second bar in an attempt to find an ex-coworker
at an old hang-out. i wasn't going to, but i figured that was my old, anti-social self rearing it's head. it seemed foolish not to at least check as i was in the neighborhood. i said hi to jay the bouncer who was outside with the rest of the buzzed smokers (smoking is banned in boston and nearby cities now). i complimented him on his hair, although it's now an unnatural shade of blonde. a bunch of months ago, he talked me into dying his hair. i thought it was a weird ploy to get over the house. i never called him like a said i would. i felt momentarily disingenuous, not for the unfulfilled offer, but for the compliment. i had to say something though and couldn't think of anything else to buffer the bit of discomfort i feel walkin into an irish pub by myself. that shortly ended after i walked in and saw about 200 ppl just standing wherever there was an inch of space. there were a lot more women then men it seemed, but a lotta riled up folks, nonetheless. but to my delayed pleasure, no one chain-smoking in my face! i should say that i barely noticed the lack of smoke in either bar until i stopped to notice it. i have to say, i do like it. sorry. i couldn't find my co-worker. it just wasn't in the cards. no amount of glove-twisting could have changed that. I went home early. I'm glad i did.
It was a night of seemingly hard feelings over what i perceive to be a a fairly innocuous "game." i dunno, it seems like there's this tacit connection between blind patriotism and blind fanism. why is that? and why do people become really religious all of a sudden over country and baseball?
To watch the footage on the local news now just proves how attached folks get to winning, whether it be a quasi-war or a baseball game. anyone associated with the "other side" is an enemy. that's why fans fight i figure. because the average american thinks in such stark, black and white terms, there can be no in between. you either are or you are not. i remember the same faces yelling "bitch" at the screen tonight, extolling the blue-collar virtues of George W. Bush. We want to see the hero in everyone---the winner in everyone. We want it so bad, we will attack anyone who gets in our way. Is it because we feel like "losers"? And if I ask God to make me win and i still lose, is God a loser too?
I watched footage of traumatized 10 year olds on Landsdowne street who said "this is the worst day of my life." Leave it to pre-pubescence to be melodramatic, but where does that come from? Someone at my table tonight actually said "If the red sox win, I'm going to have the same gut-wrenching feeling i had when Bush won the election." What? I dunno. Really? I just don't get it.
Anyway, that's what happened to me tonight. I'm off to do some stuff tomorrow that will hopefully involve some calmness. In the future, I will likely avoid such heated competitions. It's not the game itself I don't like, it's the reactions that I can't get into.
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