(HOST) It’s baseball season, and commentator Deborah Luskin wonders if becoming a Red Sox fan is a matter of geography, genetics, or faith.
(LUSKIN) Even though my brother’s been married to the same woman for thirty-six years, theirs is a mixed marriage, and certain tensions persist. My brother was raised in the New York suburbs and is a die-hard Yankees fan. My sister-in-law is from Massachusetts and roots Red Sox all the way. They have two children, one Sox fan and one Yankees….
Marrying out of the faith, so to speak, has continued in this next generation: their older daughter, my niece, married a Mets fan. They just had their first child – and I’m watching carefully to see how she grows.
I know: you’d think that, like my brother, I’d be a Yankees fan, too. But I didn’t like baseball as a child. I didn’t catch the spirit until 1978, when my brother took me to Yankee Stadium to see my first-ever professional game. I think it was the World Series, but I don’t remember any of those statistics baseball fans always spout. I don’t even remember who the Yankees played or if they won. What I do remember is watching the defensive players shift their positions with each pitch. It was the first time I saw the big picture, and a game that I’d previously thought was deadly boring reeled me in. I was hooked. So I did what I always do when I want to learn more: I read books. Baseball has inspired volumes of good literature, like A. Bartlett Giamatti’s Take Time for Paradise.
It wasn’t until 1985, when I was renovating our old house, that I found my real faith. The carpenter I worked with was a canny Vermonter whose advice about insulation and baseball I took as Gospel. So when he said, "Deb, if you’re going to live in New England, you have root for the Red Sox," I was saved. When I subsequently learned my new team was cursed, I felt blessed. This was familiar turf.
My fervor peaked in ’86 – during the World Series that broke hearts but not the curse. When the Sox did win the Series in ’04, I lapsed. For the last few years, I haven’t tuned in until post-season play. But with the birth of my grandniece, all that’s about to change.
You see, Clara was born in Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess, the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox. This confers on her immediate citizenship in Red Sox Nation, complete with a certificate good for a free tour of Fenway when she turns five. She’s allowed to bring two adults with her. My sister-in-law (the child’s grandmother) is a shoo-in. But me? It’s a long shot; but starting now I’m going to change my ways. I’m going to learn the roster, study the box scores, and attend the service of the nine-inning game. I’m going to worship at the site of the Green Monster, and in just four and half years I’m hoping to be holding Clara’s hand as we pass through the gates to that heaven on Yawkey Way.