Perhaps nothing better illustrates the bipolar nature of sports fans than this past week in Red Sox baseball.
Last Friday in this space, I floated the question of whether the season was over for the Red Sox. I asked you to either confirm or assuage my fears. Some of you attempted to talk me off the ledge. Some of you thought you'd give me a push. And that was before the Sox were swept in most horrific fashion in the Bronx. But now, one week later, I find myself feeling somewhat better about the whole thing.
Maybe it's the superior play against the Tigers, certainly not pushovers as they lead the AL Central. Maybe it's the fighting spirit — both literally and figuratively — the Sox have showed of late. Or maybe it's that Josh Beckett, no doubt still boiling over getting a no-decision for his part in that marathon 15-inning game last Friday, was not about to let such an indignity happen again as he stepped up, and promptly sat down one Tiger hitter after another. Whatever the case, this team looks markedly different than the one that slunk off the Yankee Stadium field on Sunday.
And then there's Mike Lowell — playing in the absence of Kevin Youkilis (due to his suspension for fighting with the Tigers' Rick Porcello) — who seems intent on keeping his bat in the lineup. Home runs have a way of making a strong point.
However, perhaps nothing did as much to raise the spirits of Red Sox Nation as the appearance of Jerry Remy in the NESN broadcast booth during Wednesday night's game. Thanks to a message on the Fenway Park scoreboard, the fans knew he was in the house, and they gave him the requisite and much-deserved standing ovation. Remy looked a little choked up, but he informed Don Orsillo that he wouldn't cry, not until he comes back for good. Then, one presumes, he'll make with the waterworks.
Can you blame the team for wanting to play their best for the RemDawg? (That's what I'm clearly attributing their resurgence to.) It seems as reasonable an explanation as any. Despite the success of the Eck-periment, we've been missing Remy this season. Perhaps we didn't realize how much until he came back, as briefly as it was.
I suspect the players miss him as well. Remy claimed Wednesday night that he hadn't been watching too much Red Sox baseball of late because it bothered him, knowing that he was supposed to be there, calling the games. Orsillo, quite rightly, told him it was probably better for his health not to have watched the team over the past couple of weeks. Those of us who did watch the carnage in the Bronx know exactly what he's talking about, as we're likely sleep-deprived and suffering from liver fatigue.
But I think it's more than a coincidence that once Remy returned, the team appears to have righted the ship, so to speak. By his own estimates, Remy will be back full-time "soon." And because after the past three games, I feel nothing but sunny toward my baseball team; there’s no doubt the Red Sox will rise to the task at hand.
Listen, baseball fans are certainly not logical, and we are prone to fits of pique and suspicion. But every now and then, one person comes along whom we believe. We listen to Peter Gammons when he tells us something — that a trade is about to go down or that so-and-so will be hitting near the top of the lineup in the coming weeks — because he has earned that trust. And we believe Jerry Remy when he tells us the Red Sox will be fighting it out for the division at the end of the season. The man wants to come back to broadcast meaningful Red Sox games down the strecth. Is anyone going to want to let him down?
It's somewhat rare for the fans to have such a symbiotic fondness with their broadcaster. But Remy has never pretended to be anything more than a fan who's been lucky enough to call games for the rest of us. He may have played a little, but he holds no reverent notions about his own playing ability and has embraced his cult hero status with pride. There seems to be nowhere he'd rather be than goofing with Orsillo about his mechanical bull proclivities and calling the games for us.
Granted, I don't have a lot of experience with out-of- town broadcasters, but the execrable John Sterling of New York's WBCS and the deplorable Michael Kay of the YES Network make me pine for Remy whenever I have the misfortune to hear them call a game. I even have a friend — a native New Yorker and Yankees fan — who recently moved back to Manhattan after years in Boston, and he told me one of the things he misses most about living in the Hub is Remy on the TV. That's high praise indeed.
So maybe the reason things look sunnier a few days (and a handful of wins) removed from the Yankees series is that the Red Sox appear to be picking up the slack and playing better fundamental baseball. Maybe it's that Youkilis et al lit a fire under them and they realized they don't want to go down without a fight. Or maybe it's that they want Jerry Remy to have a team to be proud to return to. That'd certainly work for me. I can't think of a better reason.
So please, Remy, come back soon for good. The Red Sox obviously need you.
