Why the Red Sox are in first place

Unlike many members of Red Sox Nation, I don’t wear it on my sleeve.

But my infatuation with the Olde Town Team goes back to my days as a BU student living in Kenmore Square, watching the ’75 World Series on TV with the sound turned down and the windows open in Myles Standish where we could hear the crowd a second or two before we saw the play on TV. With my eyes open, I can still see the ’86 series running away through Bill Buckner’s legs.

After college, I put up with the detritus of the Nation when I lived on Park Drive in the days before Fenway Park prohibited beer sales after the 7th inning. Lemme tell ya, if you can still love the Red Sox after what I put up with from the Nation — from vomit on my door step and on my car to guys from Southie terrorizing my girlfriend — you’ve got a lifetime, paid-up membership in the Nation.

So, there’s no need to explain how I felt in 2004.

But I couldn’t understand it…I just couldn’t grok it. C’mon, we all know the curse couldn’t just disappear like that. And what about 2007? As I write this, the Red Sox are 11 and a half ahead of the Orioles and are playing .700 baseball. The Yankees are in a last place tie in the AL East. Something had to have happend to the curse. It had to be lying in wait for what I feared would be a reappearance that would damn the team for all eternity.

But I couldn’t explain why the curse was dormant until today, when I read in the Wall Street Journal that John Henry’s investment business is on the rocks. Some of his investment funds are down as much as 38%. Merrill Lynch just pulled $600M from his firm.

I’ve always liked John Henry for what he’s done for the team. But I had no idea how selfless he really was: he’s absorbed the curse for all of us. He’s going to be penniless soon…well, not completely broke…courtesy of the curse, which has apparently left the team and infected the owner.

Hey, John! Thanks 600 million times over! BTW, if I were you, I’d get outta the investment biz right away. That curse is the real thing. 87 years is a long, long time to under perform the market. Still, the quicker you go broke, the faster Red Sox Nation will be celebrating the Red Sox replacing the Yankees as the new dynasty in the AL East.