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Can’t Wait Until Next Year, Again!

By Lee Ostaszewski

Can you believe it?

That has become Red Sox radio voice god Joe Castiglione’s signature call every time the Red Sox win a World Series. It implies that we probably can’t believe it, or maybe shouldn’t.

As if what has taken place the past four years could only be explained by magic, voodoo, or a ripple in the time-space continuum that occurred immediately following the 2003 ALCS, which ended abruptly with the Red Sox losing on Aaron Boone’s 11th inning home run. (OK, take a deep breath, cleansing swear word, good.)

That was the moment, and a low moment it was, when Red Sox Nation slipped from the universe where the Yankees always win, into a bizzaro parallel universe where the Yankees can’t seem to get out of their own way. It is a universe where the Red Sox don’t choke when it counts most.

The Yankees, we all recall, went on that year to lose the World Series to the Florida Marlins, which only became an expansion team like three months earlier but did have a hard-throwing young pitcher by the name of Josh Beckett.

But back to Joe C’s question. Do I believe it? No. But it happened. I know it did because I watched the final strikeout and immediately leapt off the sofa as if expecting Jason Varitek to fly through my television screen and jump into my arms instead of the arms of Jonathan Papelbon.

Luckily, Varitek didn’t come through my screen because catching him when he’s sprinting from behind home plate must be like to trying to catch a Cadillac Escalade as it careens down a steep hill, with a cut break line and a stuck accelerator.

In fact, the trainers could turn this into a strength drill for the pitchers next spring. Call it the Varitek Victory Leap, or simply the VictoryTek. “Please translate to Dice-K that we want him to throw a pitch to Jason, run off the front of the mound, hold his arms out wide, and Jason is going to run and leap at him at full speed. We will be doing three reps of eight of these. Dice-K stretched already, didn’t he?”

But whether you believe it or not, the Red Sox did win

the World Series again. This time there wasn’t 86 years in between, either. That means we can’t compile a long list comparing life in the two different eras the way we did before.

For example, we can’t state that the previous time the Red Sox won the World Series not all women had the right to vote, broadcast radio hadn’t existed, bread was 10 cents a loaf, and there was no word yet in the English language for Frappuccino.

This year the best we can come up with is that the previous time the Red Sox won it all the iPhone hadn’t been invented yet and no one knew who Dane Cook was.

If you think you still don’t know who Dane Cook is here’s a hint: Between innings a commercial would come on advertising the baseball playoffs on FOX and TBS. In the ad, a guy with spiky hair and enough enthusiasm to power the International Space Station would yell, “There’s only ONE post season! There’s only ONE October!” I imagine viewers yelling back, “There’s only ONE reason I sit through these annoying spots, because I didn’t TIVO the game first!” That’s who Dane Cook is.

As has also become a tradition whenever the Red Sox win the World Series, at least the ones during the automobile age, a parade is held in Boston with the team riding the Duck Boats.

The differences in the World Series victory parades between Boston and New York typify the differences in the cities. It’s been a while, but I think when the Yankees win the team rides in convertibles through a part of downtown New York known as the Canyon of Really Tall, Grey Buildings. Fans in office building windows lining the route toss confetti and shredded subpoenaed evidence onto the players. It’s quite touching.

But what possible better mode of transportation to represent frugal New Englanders could there be than to have the team ride in World War II army surplus amphibious vehicles? The Duck Boats sum up a region and a philosophy of life that if we had to put succinctly into words would be, “Hey, they still run OK, and besides we got a good deal on them.”

Meanwhile, I still can’t believe it, but the Red Sox won. Again. My only question is how many days until spring training? ■