September in Boston is the Ultimate Balancing Act
True, it's not the first time the Sox' and Pats' seasons have overlapped. But the heightened anticipation this year for the Patriots' season combined with the often frustrating and schizophrenic play of the Red Sox has changed the dynamic a bit.
I've always firmly believed that it is baseball season until baseball is over for the Sox (that being either elimination from contention, the playoffs or, more delightfully, a World Series win), but this year I feel more of a pull from Foxborough and those men in tights down 95. My curiosity about Tom Brady's surgically-repaired knee and Randy Moss's staying power often threatens to eclipse my happiness at seeing Alex Gonzalez back in a Red Sox uniform or the relief I feel whenever Tim Wakefield takes the mound. I feel like a bad parent — like I'm covertly checking the scores of my daughter's soccer game during my son's piano recital. My attention is spread very thin, and there often doesn't feel like there's enough time in the day.
This is an embarrassment of riches, of course. Fans don't have to worry about this kind of thing in Pittsburgh because, let's face it, there's no actual baseball season. There's just downtime between football seasons. Very few Yinzers, I would imagine, spend their time agonizing over whether they should watch every second of the Pirates' last-place finish in lieu of the Steelers’ attempted title defense. It's entirely possible, and actually quite probable, that were the Pirates to start playing solid baseball, their loyal fans would return and this problem would develop, but at this point, it's a pigskin town. It's not quite so simple here in New England.
Of course, you hear the adage ad nauseum every season that baseball must be taken one game at a time, that no one win is more important than any other. Until, that is, you get to September and your team’s involved in a division or wild-card race. Suddenly, every win or loss seems magnified.
It might not count extra in the standings, but a September loss to the Yankees always seems much, much bigger than one in June. In the same way, a win lifts you twice as high. But because of the often glacial pace of the baseball season, we learn to distract ourselves with other things. We flip channels during commercials or talk on the phone or catch up on e-mails. We read three newspapers online, two in print and idly flip through Sports Illustrated, all while the game is on. The rhythms of baseball lend themselves to doing other things. Football is completely different.
Football does not want you to look away. Even with the seemingly endless replays and analysis and overanalysis from the booth (much of it bordering on complete nonsense), the NFL does not want to lose your attention for a single second. Add in the fact that Patriots fans are going to be dissecting each replay of a Brady throw as though it's the Zapruder film, and distracting us from a Patriots game is going to be a hard sell. With only 16 regular-season games, each NFL game carries more weight and importance than a regular-season baseball game.
So what do we do? I've always claimed that if forced to choose between Tom Brady and David Ortiz, I'd drive myself crazy trying to pick one. I've nearly worn out the "last channel" button on the TV remote. I've wondered if I should limit myself to baseball until the season is truly over, or if I'm allowed a weekly reprieve for football since, after all, it only happens once a week.
But it's not just the games that take up our time. It's also the media, the constant ink dedicated to each team and the task of trying to keep up with everything. There's the postgame news conferences with Terry Francona detailing Jonathan Papelbon's level of crazy that we have to watch. There are the hours we can spend parsing Bill Belichick's injury reports and trying to determine if "questionable with a head" means a player simply has a migraine or has been concussed and now thinks he's Batman. It takes a lot to keep up. (And then, there’s the issue of trying to hold down a real job.)
I am fully aware that these kind of complaints are akin to whining that my diamond shoes are too tight, but as parents do with their children, we certainly don't want anyone to feel ignored or as though we don't love them just the same. Perhaps the best thing to do is to assure both teams that we love them equally and will support them in the best way we are able … while maintaining a normal sleep schedule.
When the moment comes that Tom Brady throws an overtime touchdown pass at the exact moment that David Ortiz hits a walk-off to right, we'll realize this is why TiVo was invented — and that it's not really a problem at all, but rather a blessing.
