As all of the more enlightened members of the readership of this web log will know, the Boston Red Sox vanquished their arch-enemies, the New York Yankees, and are now playing in the World Series against the St Louis Cardinals. [To those of you who don’t know what I am talking about or don’t care — I don’t really blame you, you were just not brought up right.]
This victory, which was close to miraculous, was cause for intense jubilation for me and my family. You see, apart from the fact that the Sox are our home town team, the Sox are in a true sense part of our family. My wife’s great grandfather (my father-in-laws’ grandfather) was JJ Lannin, who owned the Red Sox from 1914 to 1916 and won two World Series, more than any other individual Red Sox owner.
JJ was the one who signed Babe Ruth for the Sox. In 1916, he sold the franchise to Harry Frazee, who eventually sold Ruth to the Damn Yankees. The rest is history, as they say: the Sox have been suffering from the Curse of the Bambino ever since. They have come excruciatingly close to winning the World Series a whole bunch of times but always fell short by some kind of freak accident.
As all Sox fans know, this is the year: the Curse has been reversed (or maybe, as some people suspect, it has been trumped by the Curse of A-Rod). Actually, I figure that the turning point was not, as most people might think, the hiring by the new ownership of young whizz kid Theo Epstein, who as the Sox’s general manager put together this year’s team. No, the true turning point was this year’s induction of JJ Lannin to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame (JJ was from Quebec but made his fortune in Boston). On the weekend of his induction, our cousin Chris Tunstall threw out the first pitch at Fenway in a game against the Minnesota Twins that the Red Sox proceeded to win 9-2.
Unfortunately, the Red Sox management seems to have forgotten the crucial role our family played in getting the team to the World Series — we have not (yet?) been invited to the games. But no matter, these are exciting times.
Go Sox!
Congratulations for the victory of your team.
As far as I understand, the matches between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees are classic in baseball, just like a Rio Flamengo versus Fluminense match is a classic in football. The Yankees fans used to claim that their team often defeated the Red Sox. I do not know whether this is true or not, but if it is true today is one exception, which makes this victory even more important to demolish some myths and taboos.
Thus, I wish the Red Sox good luck.
Professional baseball is not very popular in Portuguese Speaking countries, except among members of the Japanese-Brazilian community in few Cities. Nevertheless, kids in Brazil do informally play a variation of baseball and cricket, which is called bat. The emotion seems to be the same in either case.
October 23rd, 2004, at 12:40 am #A personal reason to root for the Sox
Kai has family ties: … My wife’s great grandfather (my father-in-laws’ grandfather) was JJ Lannin, who owned the Red Sox from 1914 to 1916 and won two World Series, more than any other individual Red Sox owner.JJ was the one…
October 23rd, 2004, at 11:28 am #Kai,
I share your enthusiasm for the Red Sox and am always pleased to learn more about their history. As a DC area fan, I often miss out on much of the fanfare, but in attending the Sox’ last regular season game in Baltimore, I got a good taste of Red Sox Nation. I like them in six if they lose game 3, five if they win it.
Go Sox!
Chan Van Horn
October 25th, 2004, at 4:43 pm #Graduate Student
George Mason University