Misery Loves Company: Two Guys Watch Baseball

Games 35 and 36 - Red Sox

Twins 5, Red Sox 0
Red Sox 6, Twins 5
Record: 23-13

I picked a bad night to give up sniffing glue. I'm sitting at the computer, following the game online, and my heart is pounding as the score pinballs from 3-2 Twins, to 4-3 Sox, to tied at 4, to 6-4 Sox, to 6-5 Sox in the bottom of the ninth with the winning run on first and two out, to...Manny settling under Matt LeCroy's fly to left to end the game. I think I need to break down and get that Extra Innings package, because "watching" a game online is wicked nerve-wracking (and no, I'm not from New England, but I did see Good Will Hunting several times).

The larger question, I suppose, is why I'm online at 10:00 on a Saturday night. My 24 year-old self would be horrified. (And, if I know Whitney, he is, too.) The fact that I'm babysitting for my daughter while my wife howls at the moon at a bachelorette party is a reasonable excuse, I suppose, but it raises a larger question. There's a great song called "We Don't Do That Anymore" by the Sidewinders, an obscure band that I loved in college. The chorus goes, "Staying up all night/we don't do that anymore". The song is letter perfect in reflecting the change in attitude that just sneaks up on us as we grow older.

One of the things I cherish about baseball (sports in general, really, but baseball primarily) is that it's among the few things that let me be as immature as ever. It makes me feel at least a little young when my heart starts racing in the bottom of the ninth inning of a close game. I don't pretend to be a grown-up when I curse at the television when the Sox bullpen blows a lead. I can be as irrational as I want to be when I'm in the thrall of a tight Sox-Yankees game in September, and nobody can tell me otherwise. My inner 11 year-old is alive and well, and that makes me happy.

Tomorrow's game is on ESPN, so the wife should retire early and leave me to my insanity.