The New York Times asks: Are the Red Sox Ready to Become the New Yankees?“. In a bit of sports writing that sounds, in places, like those articles we see so often in which Republicans like David Brooks give “well meant” advice to Democrats, William Rhoden of the Times warns of the dangers to the Red Sox should they supplant the Yankees as the perennial champs in the AL:
The best way for Boston to vanquish the Yankees is to become more like the Yankees. For the first time in a long time, the Red Sox are in position to make the transformation. Boston can become the new New York.
The door is open for the Red Sox, with a rich baseball tradition and a high payroll, to replace the Yankees as the team the nation loves to hate. The question is whether the Red Sox, after years of being the object of sympathy and even pity, can adjust to being despised.
With the Yankees’ empire in decline, the implications for Boston are significant and perhaps terrifying. The Red Sox could sign Alex Rodriguez, and he and pitcher Josh Beckett could be anchors of a Boston dynasty.
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Look around. The pursuit of winning has tempted some of us to break rules, tear moral fiber, take performance-enhancing drugs and jettison a manager who failed to lead his team past the first playoff round for three consecutive years.
I would ask Boston fans whether they really want to see their team do this. Do they want a franchise whose ethos is that winning titles is the only thing?
We Red Sox fans appreciate the concern New York is showing for the corrosive effect that winning may have on our characters, a concern that appears to have been wholly lacking for their own characters lo these many years. We never knew they were suffering so much through all those winning seasons.
Still, there is a kernel of truth in what the Times has to say. All these years the Red Sox have tried hard, played hard, and played fair only to find that in the end the guy with the most money wins. This lesson, reinforced through many dark years, has sunk in well enough that we here in New England have extended it from the world of sports to the world of…well-the world. It is no surprise to us, for instance, that the unqualified George Bush, the candidate of the monied interests, has twice managed to steal the presidency despite the best but often bumbling efforts of the Red Sox of our political system- the Democrats. As in baseball, so in life-money rules.
But we New Englanders have refused to accept this harsh reality. As the Democrats turned into perennial also-rans, they, like the Red Sox, became ever more popular here in New England. Now, with ultimate success staring both the team and the party straight in the face; with their hated rivals at least temporarily on the ropes, both the Red Sox and the Democrats face similar challenges: Can they stay winners yet remain true to the inner loser in their souls? Or does winning, like power, always corrupt?
Unfortunately, recent events don’t bode well for the Democrats. They appear to await only a Democratic president to become almost as corrupt as the pinstriped Republicans and lobbyists they supplanted. As for the Red Sox I still have faith. As I write this they are about to start game seven of the playoff series with Cleveland. By all measures, the odds should be with them. Yet is there a soul in New England that has that arrogant confidence that was the hallmark of Satan’s team for so many years? No, we hold our breaths, expect the worst and pray for the best. It will take more than one pennant to quell the inner loser in our breasts, for we dwell in the real world, not that fantasy beltway world in which the past is never forgotten and the future is never anticipated.
By the way, I must say here that if Cleveland triumphs tonight, I shall root for them to beat the team from Colorado. I always favor the AL team, except, of course, when that team is from New York.
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