Subverting the Dominant Negative Paradigm

January, 2008

In 1994, when the ice hockey team from the city Boston fans hate to admit even exists won Lord Stanley’s Cup for the first time in 54 years, the celebration cameras lingered on a single fan in the upper deck holding a cardboard sign saying – “Now I Can Die Happy!” What an odd expression of delight that seemed until ‘04 when the Bambino’s Curse was reversed and our beloved Red Sox sent the dreaded Yankees and spoiler Cardinals packing to win the World Series for the 1st time in 86 years.

So here we sit, four weeks before pitchers report to Spring training and the question on everyone’s lips, even with essentially the same team coming back plus a few stellar rookies is: Can they do it again? Mixed in are early signs of Red Sox fatalism karma surfacing… “wasn’t ’07 great, but… it will be hard to repeat, we only won by a whisker in the LCS, we have to watch out for Cleveland, a lot of teams added great players, Schill is getting older and, and, and…”

Right up until Opening Day the news will be dominated by this can they repeat speculation madness that won’t be decided for another six months. Of course the Pats’ road to football’s Super Bowl and the sizzling hot Celtics will take some of the headlines but the: will they, won’t they, can they, negativity will dominate.

Last year they were lightning quick out of the box, 20 games above .500 by Memorial Day with the pinstripes in third, 11 games back. We were giddy with delight as the Yankees (a name said in New England with the same reverential fear as “Lord Voldemort” – gasp, the team that shall not be named) seemingly imploded. We giggled with glee at the demise and yet the collective, controlled, fear-based New England consciousness began to slowly take hold as they righted the ship and climbed back into the race.

I can certainly understand the roots, when you lose for 86 of 90 years… note the ’04 win was not even remembered in August when the slide was in full swing, nobody thought it just a natural swing of the pendulum back to centre or did they really think the Sox would win 130 games?!?! There is fatalism as dominant paradigm to being a Red Sox fan. It kicks in and takes over, creating a life of its own.

The collective consciousness no longer focused on how well we are doing, we have the best record in baseball, but gravitated instead to fear the dreaded “Y” team would steadily climb back into the race and catch us because no lead is ever safe if you are a Red Sox fan. The swing from aren’t the Sox doing well, to preparing oneself emotionally for the eventual crash became a disgusted… “yeah and they’ll probably blow it at the end” vs. the “We Believe” mantra of the ’04 comeback and win.

Folks, Red Sox Nation is global. I write this from Southern Wales where a group of expatriate fans watch the lads play on NASN (the North American Sports Network – a venture from Setanta in Ireland and part owned by ESPN) and UK Channel five. We get 261 regular season games from all teams but when it is a viewer’s choice game, Red Sox Nation always speaks so we get about 40 games plus the play-offs and WS. You want to see true fans, try holding your eyeballs open at 6:30 am when we won in ’04 or 4:30 am this past season. Even the Super Bowl kicks-off at midnight :30 so quit moaning about late starts, they affect us even more with BCS games beginning at 1:30 am!

So here’s my premise for the ’08 season. Your thoughts are things. They are real. What we think about we create in our reality. Now not wanting to sound too mystical or metaphysical (we’ll leave that to the Tuesdays with Morrie sportwriter), we create our reality in every minute. So if the entire Red Sox Nation goes orbital and runs to the dominant paradigm of fear if we aren’t 35-15 in May, we’re screwed.

This isn’t Monty Python where we need to whistle “Always look on the Bright Side of Life” whilst hanging from a cross, but we do need to keep it in perspective, shrug off a few losses and stop putting so much pressure on the lads, they have enough as it is. The one man whose shoes I would never like to walk a mile in is Terry Francona’s. I want the clubhouse Maalox concession for his office. I’ll retire a millionaire.

The American people spoke last night in Iowa for change in both parties. This ending could be a footnote in two weeks but by doing so they/we are subverting the nation’s dominant political paradigm. The least we can do is give it a try for the benefit of Red Sox nation, no matter where we live.


As appeared in January, 2008 Boston Red Sox Nation pages