The Best American Sports Writing 2004

Episode 2: Misery Has More Company

By: Bob Ryan

” Would it spoil some vast eternal plan if the Red Sox could win one?”   This is the last sentence of the story.   You can only imagine what this story is about.   The only way you did not hear about this story is if you were living under a rock in the early 2000’s.

Yes, i am talking about the Boston Red Sox victory over the New York Yankees in the World Series.   I did have to figure this out considering that the author never did specify throughout the whole story.   It was an easy task to do but if you were living under a rock than sorry you will not understand what is being said in this story.

The mood of the story was very nastalgic.   I could tell that Bob Ryan is a big baseball fan and an even bigger Red Sox fan.   His note taking during the last game of the series was very thorough.  The game he was describing was an extremely exciting game.   The winner of this game was to go to the World Series.   Bob Ryan was sure that if the Red Sox did win that they would surely win the whole thing.

In actuality that is what happened.   I enjoyed the sense of disappointment in all Red Sox fans.   He did a good job painting a picture of failure in big games in Boston.   He said they were always in the big games but they were never drinking champagne.   However, in the game he wrote about they did.

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