I got a feeling there’s a miracle due

Dad with Luis Tiant in 2003

My father turns 75 years old today.  Eight years ago I gave a speech at his retirement party.  I’ve since lost the text to the speech but part of it touched upon his love for the Red Sox, his belief that every year is the year and his frustration with Jimy Williams (this was 2001, you understand).  This April we celebrated my parents’ 45th wedding anniversary.  When talking about a 50th anniversary party, my father just wants me to schedule it for a night there isn’t a Sox game.   The night of his retirement party there was a Red Sox game AND Game 7 of the Stanley Cup involving one Mr. Raymond Bourque.  My father was none too pleased we scheduled a party the night of a Pedro start, I promise you!

2001 turned out to be one of the most frustrating Red Sox seasons in recent memory.  Jimy Williams got fired during the season, Joe Kerrigan added fuel to the fire and basically destroyed whatever spirit was left on the team.  It was a God-awful time to be a Sox fan…yet we still were.  I won’t lie, when I gave that speech at my dad’s retirement party I was pretty much convinced the Red Sox weren’t ever going to give him a World Series win in his lifetime.  It was okay.  I was still a fan.  It just make me sad that my father had devoted so much of his heart to the team and every year the team would end up breaking it.

New owners, new GM, new manager and two World Series championships later… 🙂

So happy birthday to my dad!  Here’s to his seeing at least two more Red Sox world championships!

Back to 2010:

A bit of non Sox-related fun caused me to miss most of last night’s game.  So even though I’ve seen bits on replay, I still haven’t really seen Daisuke pitch yet this year.  I’m glad I missed the mock cheers, the booing and the four-run first (in the replay on MLBN I noticed the fans weren’t the only ones mocking Daisuke – Bob Costas and John Smoltz were engaging in it too – bitter much, John? – SO glad I missed that aspect of the game) and, really, as long as the end result is what it was, I’m okay with having missed it.

Four-game sweep of a team many had either sweeping the Sox or at least taking the series.  The Sox swept the Jays, got swept by the Orioles and then swept the Angels.   (It’s interesting to note that both teams came into this series coming off of three consecutive losses.)  Tonight we get Phil Hughes pitching against Josh Beckett.  This is the first Yankees series in a while that I am a little anxious about.  I’ll tell you what, I didn’t miss having this feeling.

Tonight the Sox are on NESN and MLBN.  Tomorrow they’re on Fox and Sunday they’re on ESPN (and NESN?  Is it ESPN2 again?  This new scheduling stuff is confusing me) so, of course, they make the series that much more tense by nationally televising EVERY game of it.

There’s the possibility that these games will be stress-free, right?