Thank God it's over.
Midterms are hard enough and studying is already unpleasant, but the drama of the New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox series might be enough to deflate grades well beyond Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel's wildest dreams. For the first few games, Bosox fans' agony was quick. The Yankees went up 3-0 by big margins, outscoring outscoring Boston by 16 runs.
But it wasn't over.
No, that would have been too simple. If it had ended, we would have all gone back to our studies. O.K., some of us would have stuck around for the other series — that one with the teams in the middle of the country. But let's face it: When your friend asked you yesterday if you saw the game, you didn't even think Astros-Cardinals. If the Yanks had finished it off in game four — or five or six — then midterms would have been a cinch for most of us.
On it went. As the series got longer, the games got longer, and as the games got longer, the nights got longer. Even if you wanted to go study after the Beantown's David Ortiz poked a single into center field in the bottom of the 14th of game five to score the winning run, you couldn't. Red Sox partisans were elated; Yankees' fans were in disbelief. Campus buzzed with excitement.
Maybe the cynics are right. Maybe all this fuss over a game is too much. Most of us would feel a lot better if God were as effective in stopping more serious problems as much as Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling thinks God was in helping him pitch a masterful game six.
But more likely this misses the point.
Baseball won't save the world, but it allows our passions to run free. It's a case where it really is black and white, whether it's the Yankees who are the evil empire or the Red Sox. And it's this simplicity, this passion that makes such a great series so addictive.
If only it had been last week.
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