Dare to dream (continued)

Still, for a fan who had stuck with the Mets through their miserable years, it was satisfying when, incredibly — and painfully, of course, for Sox partisans — they beat Boston a year later in the 1986 World Series. (Later, I heard how Boston mounted cops took nightsticks to the crowd of BU students — many of them from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut — who exulted in Kenmore Square).

Somehow, though, as I moved into adulthood and settled in Boston, my passion for baseball became a thing of the past, an emblem of childhood. The national pastime seemed spoiled by free agency and excessive salaries, and my attention turned elsewhere. Although still capable of reeling off obscure stats and arcane bits of trivia dating to the early 20th-century, my knowledge of the contemporary game abruptly ended in the late ’80s. Sure, as an adopted New Englander, my allegiance shifted to the hometown Sox (I had always disliked the Yankees), but — these words now strike me as incredible and sacrilegious — I didn’t follow the team or the sport with any real interest.

This changed last spring. Spotting a notice for the formation of a softball team at the Wild Colonial in Providence, I signed up and was soon re-experiencing the unbridled joy I had felt while playing first base in Little League. Although our team went on to compile a less-than-stellar record (and I broke my left ring finger, requiring surgery, while gathering a mid-season warm-up throw, of all things), this physical reconnection with the game made me curious about the Sox. Televised games and the local sports page, strangers for so long, were back in my life. Although it was early enough in the season to avoid cries of being a bandwagon-jumper, I recognized something special in the gutsiness and personality of the 2003 Sox. Within a few weeks, Johnny, Trot, Tek, Manny, Pedro, David, and the rest of the bunch were easily recognizable, newfound friends for summer.

Beno, a disaffected longtime Sox fan, warned me about how Boston would break my heart, but I paid no mind. It was as if someone had suddenly flicked a switch — being anything other than a Red Sox enthusiast was unfathomable to me — and this year could be, would be different. My long estrangement from baseball was replaced by unconditional love, the peccadilloes of pro sports be damned.

These feelings only intensified when my sole game at Fenway last year was one of Boston’s best. With the Sox down 5-2 against the Orioles on September 23, Todd Walker slammed a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth, setting the stage for Ortiz to win it with a walk-off blast in the 10th.

On the morning of Game Seven in the championship series against the Yankees, I briefly debated whether to buy a "Reverse the Curse" T-shirt. Settling the matter, I asked myself, what kind of fan would wait for the Sox to win before getting the damn shirt? Later, I could only watch in blinkered disbelief in the jam-packed Colonial, my spirits sinking with a dark sense of foreboding when Grady left Pedro in to pitch against Bernie Williams. Too stunned to react with anything other than downcast emotions at the time, I can no longer watch the videotape without breaking into tears.

FOR THOSE who want to find fault in baseball, there is plenty: steroids; the average $2.5 million Major League salary; Fenway’s highest-priced tickets in the game; the domination by the teams, the Yankees and Boston, with the two highest payrolls; and perhaps most inexcusably, the exploitation of the Costa Ricans who stitch the very baseballs that make the sport possible. For all its flaws, though, baseball remains a beautiful and dramatic thing, something that you can appreciate all your life or delightfully rediscover at an unexpected point in time.

To me, football is just another sign that spring training is getting closer, and for all the heroics of the Patriots, Grapefruit League action couldn’t come soon enough for me this year.

There’s the old-fashioned hustle of Varitek, the defensive grace of Pokey Reese; the soap opera dynamics of Manny and Pedro, the guilelessness of Bill Mueller and David Ortiz; and the pins-and-needles quality of watching the Sox in extra innings. There’s the personal drama of striving players, nicely etched by the Boston Globe’s Bob Hohler, like Adam Hyzdu, who’s been trying to make the bigs for many years, and Bronson Arroyo, whose Cuban immigrant father sacrificed to help him find his way. There’s the pleasure of a trip to Fenway, the astute insight of Jerry Remy, and the reassuring kinship of finding like-minded Sox obsessives at www.bostondirtdogs.com.

Being a Sox fan is a source of certainty in an uncertain world. It’s a connection to a long tradition that builds character and steels resolve. It’s the kind of thing that can cause strain in a romance if one’s significant other isn’t similarly zealous (thanks for understanding, Kathy), and turn a stranger at a tavern into a friend. In Rhode Island, there’s the added intrigue of having enemies in our midst in the form of Italian-Americans instilled with loyalty to the Yankees.

Meanwhile, the attention of the baseball world remains riveted on the AL East.

Some Sox fans remain relentlessly worried, like the fan who writes under the penname "Hench’s Hardball" at the Dirt Dogs site. As Hench put it on April 7, citing the early spate of injuries and how many Sox players had career years in 2003: "As anyone who knows me can attest, I am prone to irrational overreaction immediately after Opening Day losses. Which is why I waited two full days — and for a victory — before writing off this season." Hench, while reserving the right to be wrong, pronounced the Sox "a flawed, fragile, petulant team that can’t hang with either the Yankees or the Angels."

Others are more optimistic. Although Murray Chass in the New York Times picks the Yankees to outpace the Sox in the AL East, the ProJo’s Sean McAdam and Steven Krasner predict the reverse (with sports editor Art Martone pegging the Sox to go all the way). At the Boston Globe, three of four sportswriters — Hohler, Dan Shaughnessy, and Bob Ryan — are similarly sanguine.

As a reborn convert to the cause, I know enough to know that nothing is certain. Boston might fade after suffering too many injuries. They could win it all. There’s one thing, however, about which I’m sure: The Sox are my team, and that’s enough to make me happy.

Ian Donnis, who bats and throws left, can be reached at idonnis@phx.com.