8802030503
DETROIT FREE PRESS
880804
Thursday, August 04, 1988
METRO EDITION
1D
MITCH ALBOM
SEE ALSO METRO FINAL 1D
Copyright (c) 1988, Detroit Free Press
POP GOES YOUR BUBBLE, RED SOX
I have a friend in Boston. He is very successful. Whenever I visit him, he
picks me up at the Boston airport and it is always crowded and we drive on the
Boston expressway which is always crowded and we go to a Boston restaurant
and wait for a table because it, too, is crowded, and he talks about the new
hotels and the new office buildings and theater and concerts and blah, blah,
blah, and so I take the ketchup and dump it in his lap. Because the point is
this: Boston is getting too big for its own good.
Which is where Detroit comes in.
"That's right, Beantown," I say, opening the door to the Red Sox team
bus, "welcome to the City of Humility. You have a problem. We are here to
help. Your problem is you want to be this cute little college town and you
want to be New York City, too. You can't be both. Sorry."
We will teach you why. We will begin with baseball. For years the Red Sox
were a team which always blew it, a team which lost a World Series with a ball
through the legs, a team to which the average slob could relate.
A good team for Boston.
But now? Whoa. Look at them. They want to win everything, right now, New
York style. They want the pennant wrapped for take-out, with a pickle on the
side. They have captured 18 of 19 games since the All-Star break and today
they zoom into Motor City for a five-game series as if it's one more stop on
the gravy train. To which we say: Ha.
This is Detroit, fellas.
Pop goes your bubble.
Remember who you are, Red Sox," I say, as they barrel into the clubhouse
and begin ripping off their clothes. "You are a baseball team with more than
50 games left. Pace yourselves. This is not the Lightning Round. Or, as Sparky
Anderson would say, "I ain't never seen no pennant given out in August.' "
Sparky has been around a long time. So has his team. Look at those faces.
Darrell Evans. Doyle Alexander. Pat Sheridan. These are not faces on the way
to the prom. These are wizened faces, nothing rattles them, you could throw a
cherry bomb in their locker and they'd just move over to the next one.
Veterans? Check out Guillermo Hernandez. He has been around so long, he's on
his second name. The Tigers are in no rush. They know the only day that
counts in a major league season is the day after it is all over. Unlike you,
Red Sox, who are charging through this second half the way John Belushi went
through the cafeteria in "Animal House", stuffing submarine sandwiches into
his mouth with the wrapping still on. Hey. fellas. Slow down before you burp
yourselves to death.
Mike Greenwell. Ellis Burks. Roger Clemens. Didn't you ever read the
Tortoise and the Hare? Aren't we setting up the exact same scenario? On the
one hand, we have this incredibly hot baseball team that cannot stop pounding
the ball over the fences and pitching 100 miles per hour and scoring 11 runs
when the other team scores 2 . And on the other hand, we have a team who looks
at the scoreboard and says "Well, they haven't scored yet. Why should we?"
You ahead. Laugh. You know what I see? I see a weary Red Sox team in late
September.
Which is where Detroit comes in.
Pop goes your bubble.
Listen to me," I say, as the Red Sox go scrambling toward the field like
mice, "Don't you recognize this city? This is where the Boston Celtics died.
They came in like jolly green giants waving championship banners. They would
beat the Pistons, they said, simply because they were the Celtics."
Ooops.
Did we mess that up for you? Gosh. Are we sorry. Nah. I lied. We're not
sorry. We'd do it again. In four games. Because your team came in with the
wrong attitude. They learned their lesson.
By the way, you can pick up their bodies on your way out. They're starting
to smell.
Know where you are, Boston. This is not your waterfront, where the
70-story office buildings go up next to the 70-story convention centers. This
is not your downtown, where traffic is so crazy that one day the expressways
will tighten like a pretzel and choke the whole city to death. This is not
Harvard Square, where high-tech yuppies and back-packing graduate students
crowd into vegetarian restaurants to pay $14 for a plate of beets.
No. This is Detroit, a working man's town, where folks know the meaning of
tradition, the value of hard labor, and the joy of steak and potatoes at the
end of the day. We win baseball games the old fashioned way:
By a run.
And a run will be enough. You will find that out, when all those homers
and .300 averages begin to drag you down. Oh, maybe not this series. Maybe
not next weekend in Fenway. But by the end. Which, as Jack Morris and Alan
Trammell and Lou Whitaker can tell you, is when it counts. They actually won
one of those World Series, you know.
And it wasn't in 1918.
Personally, I don't know why the Red Sox had to change. I kind of liked
the old lovable, meandering group that broke their fans heart year after year.
Hey. Guys. You should have stuck with it. You were due.
Instead, we get this New York Power Drive imitation. Why? Shakespeare
said: "To thine own self be true." You'd think you'd have read that, Boston,
what with all those libraries around.
No problem. We will rephrase it. In Sparky talk:
"Ain't nobody won nuthin yet."
Pop goes your bubble.
One day you'll thank us for this.