A Beard Surreal

By Ryan O'Connell on 10/31/2013 • ( 9 )

Only a few hours later, waking up groggy and with nine hundred frogs in my throat, it still feels like a dream, like it didn’t really happen.

What exactly does surreal mean?

From Merriam-Webster: very strange or unusual : having the quality of a dream

Then yes, the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series last night feels surreal. That’s the best way to put it. A season birthed in low expectations and attempts to move on from a recent history steeped more in the likeness of a dumpster fire than any semblance of what looks like accomplishment and success and catapulted towards resonance and hope by the Boston Marathon bombings never really seemed as good as it actually was. The Sox, those bearded ninja warriors, never really lost their grip on the American League East. They fought off the Rays and they threw dirt on the high-priced graves of the Yankees and the Blue Jays and eventually, the Detroit Tigers. In life, the best good times aren’t acknowledged while they are happening because that would mean they’re over. The best good times are relished and lived in. Labeling is for the retrospective and with the 2013 Red Sox, there just wasn’t a time to stop and enjoy the view.

Until now.

Now we can sit back and appreciate what just happened: the Red Sox winning the World Series.

We can, as eager beaver youngsters, realize just how lucky we are as Sox fans who have witnessed not one, not two, but three World Series’ championships in ten years.

We can think about our grandfathers who might not have even seen one and pour one out for them.

We can think about the joy felt watching Jonny Gomes be Jonny Gomes.

We can appreciate the greatness of David Ortiz we witnessed throughout this post season run.

2004 was the bees knees and numero uno of the three Sox championships. No question. 2007 is the middle child and will be the one most overlooked as time moves on. 2013 will be the special one, the one that no one saw coming, the child born because Mom and Dad got a little drunk one night and…well you know. You love all your kids the same, right? But maybe you just think about each one a little differently when the light of truth shines brightly on you.

Football has made us soft. The NFL playoffs are once a week bursts of emotion. Baseball playoffs? Baseball playoffs are a grudge match that drags you through the mud, lifts you to the sky, rakes you over hot coals and spits you out either covered in your own feces or shining like a blood diamond. Baseball playoffs are not for the weak. The late nights and the tense innings when all your pitcher needs is one more effin’ out- it’s work, man. And not 9 to 5 work either. It’s 18 hr shifts in the hot sun kind of work. But it can be God-damning rewarding in the end.

This post season, I made vain attempts at rationalizing superstitions. Maturity will do that I suppose.

Does wearing a Red Sox t-shirt really matter?

Of course it does!

But it doesn’t impact the game.

But it might…

And does sitting in the same spot for every game and using the same Red Sox beer cozy really guarantee a win?

It can’t hurt.

Lucy should keep wearing that Red Sox t-shirt, even though it’s an outdated Papelon shirt, because the Sox haven’t lost when she’s worn it, right?

Hell yeah she should!

Having a dog who is cool with your antics is a god sent.

And so is having a baseball team so likeable and so much fun to rout for as the 2013 Boston Red Sox.

In the end, today is a good day. Sports don’t make everything right in the world and they don’t make everything wrong. They make everything OK enough to handle when things do go right and wrong. They are not a barometer of life, but they are a beautiful summer day or a snowstorm comprised solely of light, fluffy snow.

Sports is an accent on life.

So thank you, Red Sox.

Thank you for bringing baseball back into my life.

Thank you for reminding me why sitting on the edge of the couch, fingers tightly intertwined with one another, is a joyous occasion.

Thank you for just being fun. Plain and simple.

Now let’s go Patriots.

Both Red Sox photos: Rob Carr/Getty Images