that *pop* you just heard? the sound of my heart breaking
i was somehow hoping against hope that it couldn’t be true. first squeaky-clean alex rodriguez was implicated… but somehow that was okay, because he plays for the evil empire. then earlier this year, our previously beloved manny… but somehow even that was okay, because he no longer played for us.
and then this afternoon, the truth hit me squarely across the face in black and white:
Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, the sluggers who propelled the Boston Red Sox to end an 86-year World Series championship drought and to capture another title three years later, were among the roughly 100 Major League Baseball players to test positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, according to lawyers with knowledge of the results.
which means the one thing, the *one precious thing* that i was praying would remain untainted… is no more. that dear memory has been sullied, tarnished, and i can never look back on that moment of glory in the same way again.
someone took one of my greatest joys, and slapped a big, fat, ugly asterisk on top of it.
unless you know what my red sox have meant to me through the years, i’m not sure i can accurately convey just how disconsolate i am. i can’t say i’m surprised, because when some of the biggest and brightest names in the game have admitted to doping, nothing surprises anymore. i never wanted to be that cynical.
but i am surely saddened to the very depths of my fandom, which, out of naivete or just wishful thinking, has somehow remained pure and true.
until today.
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Comment by A Free Man
6.08.2009 @ 11:12 am
It’s crap. They’re all cheaters – all the ones with the big stats and the big paychecks. I heard about this one and actually wondered what you thought about it based on your comment on my baseball post. What do you think about ‘04 now? Is it legitimate.
Comment by Jen
7.08.2009 @ 20:12 pm
i still don’t know what to think. part of me just can’t dismiss it, and part of me wants to pretend i never read this. to stick my head in the sand and go back to just being excited to watch my boys play.
the only thing that’s made me feel even a little bit better (in a back-assward way) was that it was no *more* illegitimate than the champions of 2003, or 2002, or 2001…
sigh.