Spotlight: The Sox Bet

Spotlight and Digression (Warning: Possible Spoilers)

This is not my normal run of the mill short story.

First, it's shorter than most. Much shorter. This spotlight may be longer (but less sexier).

Second, I don't think it has a shitty ending. [smile]

I am up in New England today [June 26, 2004], being that the rest of my family is in the Great White North at the summer house. I was watching the inter-league game, with the Phillies against the Red Sox. The Sox lost, nine to two. I would have been more interested in the White Sox/Cubs game, since some of the stories I write take place in Chicago, but that game wasn't until later and I was drinking earlier. OK? It was a late lunch, and the bar wasn't crowded (when I got there).

You'd think that with the loss against Philadelphia, the world ended in the bar where I was sitting, and this was in New Hampshire... not Boston! This wasn't the place where everybody knows your name. I mean, come on... the Sox are already five games behind New York. How would this make a big difference?

Luckily, it wasn't a Yankees/Sox game, but there were people going over old games against New York, comparing the drubbing they just got against Philly against typical games against the Bronx team. Some people brought up good times: "We beat them four out of four earlier this year!" but most bemoaned the losses.

Of course, in bars in New England, when talking about baseball, the name of Satan invariably arises... the ghost of Bill Buckner in 1986's game six poked its ugly head. It was not pretty, folks. These people remember the exact time of day to the fucking second and the relative alignment of celestial bodies when it happened!

I think the New England baseball fans are a bit... eccentric. I mean, the Mets/Sox World Series was eighteen fucking years ago! Get a life!

Anyway, as I was listening to all this conversation (and keeping my big mouth shut!) I got an idea for a story, so, while I was listening to the people in this bar decry the errors that Johnny Damon made and how a particular call may not have been fair, I wrote "The Sox Bet" on my iPAQ.

Take it from me, an iPAQ is not the best instrument for writing a story. There were lots of typos (write-o's?). When I got back to where I am staying, I pulled the story from my expansion flash RAM, and tidied it up so it was more presentable. Wireless LAN connectivity and an iBook allowed me to connect to my home system and upload the story here.

This story is dedicated to an outspoken chick at the bar I was at whose name was Tina (I never got her last name) that was one of the most vociferous of the New England mourners this afternoon/evening.

(And this is the quickest I've ever gone from conception to posting... a matter of hours!)