Le folie

There I was, driving through the outskirts of Québec City, Canada, when, on a whim, I decided to turn on the car radio, and was greeted by two familiar voices:

"Ball one to Coco, down and in..."

Somehow, gloriously, the Red Sox radio guys had wafted all the way from their outpost in Maine or New Hampshire and into my car, here in the heart of French Canada. Not only that, but I soon learned that, in a game in which their starting pitcher was making his major-league debut, the Sox were winning 10-2, with David Ortiz having hammered two three-run homers in the first inning.

"What a night!" I said to myself. "Quelle merveilleux! Baseball sure is grand! Here I am, eating crepes and enjoying the sunset over the St. Lawrence while listening to my team wallop the Texas Rangers from hundreds of miles away. What a world we live in! What a time to be a Bostonian--nay, an American--nay, a human being!"

How young I was, how tragically naive. Two hours later, my team has now blown its 10-run first-inning lead and is actually losing, 16-14. And here I sit, in a hotel room in Lévis, helplessly watching the mlb.com scoreboard light up with "in play, run(s)" for the Rangers, over and over, ad nauseam. "In play, run(s)" never seems to mean just one run when you really want it to, have you ever noticed that?

Anyway, I will sign off for now, as the French-Canadian torture continues. The Red Sox have two on with nobody out in the seventh. Dare I hope? Dare I dream it? Only time will tell...