Thursday, June 07, 2018

The Red Winning

All over the greater DMV today, giddy, nervous, white-knuckled Washington Capitals fans are dealing with personal maelstroms of conflicting emotions. The long-choking Caps are a mere single victory from clinching the club's first Stanley Cup title, and the city's first major sports championship since 1992. (DC United says hello, several times, but nobody listens to them.)

As someone with a great deal of relevant experience in such matters, I come here to offer advice to Caps fans, many of whom I hold in great esteem. I'm not one of them myself, but in the same way Mets fan Whitney jumped on the Red Sox bandwagon to support me in 2004, I'll be pulling for the team in red this evening.

After Game 3 of the 2004 World Series, with the Red Sox one game away from snapping their legendary losing streak, and from changing forever my relationship with sports, I wrote this*:

"The Red Sox are 1 win from capturing a World Series championship so elusive that 3 generations of Sox fans have never seen one. They find themselves on this precipice because they believe in themselves and each other to the exclusion of all distractions, and I and people like me find ourselves silently mouthing, "Believe" as games draw to a close. Though the karmic cruelty supposed by a Cardinal comeback in this series would be legendary in its devastating impact, we still hold on. "Believe," I tell my family. "Believe," I implore as Pedro Martinez faces a 0-out, 2nd and 3rd situation in the 3rd inning of a 1-run game. "Believe," as Pedro retired the next 14 Cardinals, and then watched Mike Timlin and Keith Foulke shut the door. 

It's a new thing for us, this believing. We're all still dipping our toes in it, hoping that it's real. We know the facts, and the stats, and we understand that the Cardinals team, while terrific, really isn't set up well for postseason baseball, especially with so many control pitchers who don't make many batters swing and miss. Pitchers that throw a lot of strikes against these Red Sox tend to get battered - no change in this series thus far. We also understand that the Sox have gotten all the breaks thus far - that the Cardinals, the league's best fundamental team, essentially gift-wrapped Game 3 with 2 colossal base-running errors in the game's first 3 innings. We see the Sox rap 2-out hit after 2-out hit, and belief comes a little easier. We know that the bullpen is rested, that Derek Lowe is confident, that the offense is on fire, and that the Sox players are looser than the intestines of a dysentery patient. (Did he just introduce dysentery into this paragraph? Forget it, he's rolling.) 

We know all these things, and we're so ready to really, truly believe. And yet, we're Red Sox fans, so the exhale won't truly come until Keith Foulke induces the last Cardinal batter to fly softly to center, until the last out of the last inning of the last game of the World Series is recorded, and the Red Sox have more runs than the Cardinals. And if that happens, well...my God...I can't even imagine."

Honestly, it was even better than I could...even imagine. The Sox' Game 4 victory ranks in the top five most joyous moments of my life. I cried like a baby.

I really hope the many fervent Caps fans get to experience that.

And so my advice to them, like Curtis Armstrong's Miles to Tom Cruise's Joel, is: say fuck it. If you can't say it, you can't do it. Or, more directly, if you grip too hard on your hopes, you won't enjoy the moment. And goddamn is it a moment to savor.

Fuck it, Caps. And Godspeed.

* If you think I used the occasion of the Capitals potentially winning the Stanley Cup to talk about the Red Sox and highlight my own writing, well, you nailed it. Congrats for your grasp of the obvious.

24 comments:

Whitney said...

Who cares about your motives, Rob, those fucking cats had to be displaced. Good job.

This series isn't over. But the Caps, only mentioned in all-time fashion for their 8-67-5 1974-75 season, have had a great run, defying doubters like me all the way. Hopefully they finish it off tonight. It'd be even more fun to do so back in DC in Game 6, but that's tempting fate.


rob said...

it was only one cat, man

Marls said...

I’m torn because I hate the Caps but I’m rooting for Ovi. He seems pretty Gheorghie.

TR said...

We need more Curtis Armstrong references ‘round these parts. The supporting cast of that movie is tremendous.

I think a Caps win is better for the karmic order of things in the NHL. The “Ovi parting

Whitney said...

All of our comments should be like TR's and leave it as if

TR said...

My Netscape browser glitched up on me.

What i meant to say was the “Ovi partying in Russia” pics this summer will be even more tremendous if he wins the Cup. And everybody wins if that happens.

Whitney said...

Agreed

rob said...

manon rheaume could still get it

zman said...

Do you mean catch it? It being the puck?

TR said...

I think he means his phallus.

rob said...

this is an entertaining hockey contest

rob said...

squeaky bum time for caps fans

TR said...

More exciting for the masses if it goes to 6 and the Caps play at home. Sports fans will need it b/c NBA Finals will go out w/ a whimper on Fri night.

TR said...

Well that was a helluva goal

TR said...

That’s that. Ovechkin, one of the best few players we have ever seen play in the NHL, just cemented his legacy. Similar to Dirk winning one in Dallas. Always cool when the great ones check that box.

Congrats, Caps fans.

rob said...

that was pretty cool

Whitney said...

Not bad. Caps.

TR said...

For those Caps fans that traveled, how much goddamn fun is their night gonna be?

rob said...

is there a better road city in which to win a championship? in north america, there's nothing even close.

mayhugh said...

Wow. I’m not what you would call a big time hockey fan but Ovi lifting the Cup was special.

zman said...

He said check that box.

rob said...

anthony bourdain killed himself. awful. if you find yourself in the dark, talk to someone, friends.

TR said...

I didn’t watch Bourdain’s show as much as I watched Andrew Zimmern’s, but I enjoyed, respected and envied the shit out of those guys for being able to travel the world, try exotic cuisine and educate me on culture on somebody’s dime. Such sad news.

Squeaky said...

Bourdain's news is very sad but the Caps game was awesome.