Red Sox, Comics and True Tales of Terror
-By Victor D.Infante


It's the last, dwindling days of October, with Halloween and an
election looming like the Hunter's Moon that shined down—I kid you
not—blood red over Busch Stadium as the Boston Red Sox swept the St.
Louis Cardinals in game four of the World Series.

How can anyone not feel magic in the air when factors like this
converge in less than a week? Perhaps, if you live in Southern
California, you're having trouble relating— L.A.'s not much of a
baseball town, after all. Even the Angels play in Anaheim, at a
stadium named for a power company where you can buy expensive beer
and sushi, and watch impressive fireworks displays between innings.

No, baseball in Southern California's as vital and pulsing as
Disneyland, just down the street. A good time, certainly, if a bit
overpriced, and it's hard to say what it says about you-- or,
really, about anyone. And of course, it's all so much more family
friendly since they pushed the strip clubs out, isn't it?

Ah, but if you do have baseball in your soul, then perhaps no image
from this year's World Series is as evocative as pitcher Curt
Schilling, standing his ground on the mount with a bleeding ankle.
Now that's pathos. That's a little bit of sports legend for
posterity. Schilling, teeth grit in obvious pain, later hands
clenched tight in prayer on the sidelines—how can even the 86-year-
old Curse of the Bambino hold up against imagery like that?

Again, L.A.'s not a baseball town, but it does know a good story
when it sees one, and this year's Red Sox win is the stuff of
mythology—American as apple pie and laden with superstition and
superheroes, transcendent of the election-year, war-ravaged world
outside. Well, until Schilling endorsed President Bush on TV and
wrecked the whole damn moment. Remember, kids! When Massachusetts
liberals are throwing the party? Don't spit in the drinks.

But the Sox being the local heroes they are, everything was forgiven
once Schilling begged off campaigning for the President, so that's
all right. Let all our post-game riots be joyous affairs. Pass the
bottle and burn something down.

Of course, it's utterly absurd to deny Schilling his politics—
different as they may be from most in Boston's. Baseball players are
shipped around the country like prefab furniture. He's from the
Bible belt somewhere—where his conservative politics are more the
norm. But that's the funny thing about being a superhero—people want
you to be something more than human, something more than this ugly
mire the rest of us are soaking in. We don't want them to be like us—
we know what we're like, and for most of us, there's not enough
Miller time in the world to drown it out. We want them to be better.

For rest of op-ed piece go to: http://www.writemovies.com/oped1.htm

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