Fallen Angels

Dear me, Suzzie.

Nope. Don't know what that means, but I remember my Great Aunt Faye used to say it all the time - or at least I seem to remember her saying it all the time.

I thought of Aunt Faye today as I watched the Boston Red Sox playing the baseball playoffs. Aunt Faye was the sister of my mother's mother, and she became a favorite aunt first to my mother and then later to me. Having no children of her own, she did the things most adults would never dream of doing with a great nephew, things like spending massive times playing games with me and making sure my favorite food was always served.

I thought of her today because Aunt Faye was a Red Sox addict. Even in her last years, she would sit in her bedroom with an earplug from her transistor radio listening to the Sox, who were most likely struggling in vain back then. "Dear me, Suzzie," was a pretty good indicator that something had just happened to the team's fortunes.

Three years ago the Red Sox became famous even to non-baseball fans when they won the World Series for the first time since dinosaurs roamed New England. Here in Sydney I joined with what turned out to be hundreds of thousands transplanted New Englanders in every corner of the world in celebrating the end of the curse that had stopped our team from becoming champions for so many decades.

Then two years later, they were again World Series champions. And today they just beat the Los Angeles Angels, the best team in baseball this year to advance to the league championships. If they win that, they play in the World Series again.

They have gone from being the team that never could win it all to the team that expects to win it all. Their lifelong fans - and that is just about all of us who has ever lived in New England - still can't quite believe it. But we're not complaining, believe me. It's as if, having our wildest dreams come true, whatever baseball gods smiled on us that first time so enjoyed our delight that they decided to give it to us again and again.

Aunt Faye passed away long before the Sox reached their glory, but their failure to become champions never stopped her from listening to every game and cheering for them. As I said, I thought of her today.

I watched the game. The Angels trailed the whole game, and then tied it in the next-to-last inning.

I couldn't stand it. The thought of watching Boston come so close and then just let it slip away was too much. I put on my cap and went for my walk rather than watch the end of the game and the possibility of a Sox collapse.

As soon as I came in, I clicked on ESPN.com. There was a picture of the Red Sox piling on one of those happy-man-hug-piles that winning teams seem prone to make. They'd come through in the ninth inning and won. The Angels had fallen, and this Doubting Thomas had but one thought.

"Dear me, Suzzie," I said out loud in an empty room.