As you read this, you probably have no idea of the agony I endured last week. I was watching both game six of the Cubs-Marlins series and game seven of the Yankees-Red Sox series on a 13-inch computer monitor. You see, here in London, until the World Series starts, they only carry games on Wednesday and Sunday nights, so I, along with three of my other diehard baseball fans, crowded around a computer monitor using one set of headphones as speakers to watch two of the ugliest collapses in baseball history.
The Curses live on.
I know I’m in London. I know I should be out enjoying all the cultural things and seeing plays. Well, I am. But I want to come home at one in the morning and watch baseball.
If I have to shell out $15 so I can watch the games live on a computer screen, then that’s what I’m gonna do.
I know many of you think I’m an idiot; I just think I’m an addict.
“Hi, I’m Andy and I’m a baseball addict.”
“Hi Andy!”
Now, this is the one time where it might actually be beneficial to be in a foreign country. I get the benefit of having a night out on the town, going to the theatre, or just strolling along the Thames. I then get ready to watch baseball when the rest of the country is going to bed.
It’s great fun, but let me tell you, it does not feel good getting up at nine in the morning for your first class after staying up till 5:30 the night before watching Boston blow a three-run lead.
Even my friends were getting on me by this time. While watching the game on one computer, I was talking on instant messenger on another. I was asked what I was doing up at five in the morning.
My response: “(expletive) extra innings.”
As a large Yankee hater, I tortured myself to watch all of the game, and when Aaron Boone hit that home run off of Tim Wakefield in the bottom of the 11th inning, all I could do was bow my head and concede that the Curse still lives.
It was 5:30 a.m., after all. I could swear at Boston manager Grady Little in the morning.
One thought did pop into my head, though. I just thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t a Cubs fan. Now there’s a life sentence of torture.