Father knows best

For me the greatest thing about the Red Sox winning the World Series is that my son has fallen in love with baseball.

I tried to get him into T-ball when he was five-years-old by offering to coach the T-ball team. T-Ball precedes little league in that it is for 4 to 6-year-old children.

Trying to coach T-ball was like trying to herd cats.

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He got discouraged after watching 12 other 5-year-old kids attack the ball and each other every time the ball was hit. After just two games he quit the team.

My wife said he had problems with the coach.

Being the responsible adult I had to continue coaching. So there I am on Saturday mornings in June trying to teach other people’s children how to hit a baseball, while my wife Catherine and son Seamus were either home on the couch watching cartoons or at the beach.

For two more years he had no interest in baseball until the 2004 playoffs and the series with the Yankees.

Because his teachers and friends at school were talking about every game, he got the bug and started asking me if he could stay up and watch the Red Sox try to win the pennant.

I was thrilled! My 7-year-old boy wants to watch a baseball game with me.

This is what fatherhood is supposed to be about.

Of course, I never let on that even if they did win the pennant it was highly unlikely the Boston Red Sox could actually win a World Series.

When they were down 3 games to none against New York, my middle age sensibilities kicked in and I decided it was time for some life lessons and proceeded to give my boy some fatherly advice as to why the Sox could not possibly beat the Yankees.

“Son, you know appearance is very important in life and especially in sports. It’s very difficult to be taken seriously as an athlete, with long unruly hair.”
It’s good thing he didn’t have any pictures of me in the 1970’s.

“Look at Bronson Arroyo’s dread locks, and Manny and Pedro’s Jeri Curls and Johnny Damon with shoulder length hair and a beard. Appearance says a lot about a person son. You can’t win a World Series if the team looks like a reggae Band.”

“Now look at Derrick Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, and all the other well groomed athletes from New York. Neat, clean cut, all American. They look like world champions.”

All of a sudden like Sampson the Red Sox seem to draw strength from their hair.

Arroyo stops the Yankees in the late innings to win a game. 

Manny Ramirez hits in the winning runs to take another.

Johnny Damon, of ZZ Top fame, is out of his slump and homers to beat the Yankees again.

All of a sudden who cares about hair?

I put on the Bob Marley on the stereo. My wife breaks out her bong. My son wants to become a Rastafarian. I offer to coach.

When the Sox actually won the fourth game to sweep the World Series my wife and son had gone to bed. I was sitting alone in my living room.

I couldn’t believe how much my life had changed. The Boston Red Sox just won the World Series and I’m sitting alone in my living room like the 21st Century version of Robert Young from “Father Knows Best.”

I couldn’t stand it. The Red Sox just won the World Series, I needed to party.

I got into my 96 Ford Taurus wagon and started driving around Cambridge and Somerville blowing my horn and yelling out the window with my index finger pointed at the full Moon: “We’re number one!”

Beep! Beep! “We’re number one!”

Beep! Beep! “Get out of my way, I’m on herbal tea!”

“We’re number one!” Be-e-e-e-e-e-p!