"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Higher up, the Llama Butchers have a John Williams crescendo cued and the Evil Empire Death Star in their sites.
And for a friend whose Sox viewing tonight will be delayed by a night-school Shakespeare midterm: Kenneth Branagh as Henry V, with an extended clip here of the St. Crispin's Day oration.
In a way it would be sad if they won it all. The Red Sox would become like any other team. Boston combines excellence and tragedy in a way Chicago never has - the Cubs are damned, the Red Sox are being purged into Pulchritude. Sox fans are the adults of the baseball world: they know tragedy but never lose heart. They are the Christians, the long-sufferers who know that at any given moment their patience will be rewarded. They live the Beatitudes, year after year, having faith that past results do not guarantee future performance.
Far from the harbor where the whaling ships sail you can smell the brine scent of mystery churning in the Atlantic, in the waves that rise and fall breathing out Fenway's fortunes. A series win would erode some of the mythology of the Nantucket team; their great whale slain, the fans would lose their hunger, their ardor, their maniacal devotion, their sweet humility and piety. In the City of Man winning corrupts and absolute winning corrupts absolutely.
Easy for the non-suffering to say. And could there be a better time, now, matched against the haughty, gouty, payroll-engorged Yankees?
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