The Lazarus Effect

Col#292- 8/11/26
THE LAZARUS EFFECT
By
Richard Davis

Just when Red Sox fans were beginning to realize that this season was going to be a bad one for the home team something of a sports miracle happened. Their record before July was 37-48, meaning their win percentage was a depressing .434. Then something happened.

It all started in April when Red Sox manager Alex Cora and a bunch of other personnel were fired. Chad Tracy, the manager of the triple A Worcester Red Sox was hired and things didn’t change quickly as the Sox continued on their miserable slump.

Then in July the resurrection began as the Sox had a record of 21-4, the best in the franchise’s storied history. As I write today their record is 64-53, or .547 and they are only seven games behind the American League leading Tampa Rays.

The Boston fans have been energized to a level that is hard to describe. The Sox have become the hottest team in baseball and the next month will determine where they end up in relation to the post-season.

Anyone who has been a Red Sox fan for as long as I have knows that baseball, and especially the Red Sox, can be a fragile thing to pin your hopes on. The current team has a lot of solid players but no real super stars. They have been plugging away as almost everyone on the team has had a hand in making their recent rise happen.

The best thing about being a Red Sox fan in the world today is the ability of the team to create a diversion from the sad state of world affairs. Watching the team and reading and talking about them takes the place of the worn-out complaints about the direction our country is headed in.

Sports have always been a therapeutic refuge for millions of Americans. They give us the chance to dream and to explore a world that has the potential to replace hundreds of hours of expensive therapy.

As much as sport is a refuge, it is also a reflection of our society. Money drives professional and now “amateur” sports. Many professional players are multi-millionaires and salaries are obscene. In order to pay athletes too much money, ticket prices make it difficult for the average person to attend a game.

Cable bills are even a high priced way to watch sports but at least more people can afford cable than can afford to dish out a couple of hundred dollars for a ticket to one game. Our living rooms have become a sort of therapy chamber and, despite the inequality of the sports economy, we are still able to cast that fact aside and enjoy watching sport of any kind.

I am offering those of you who have not been sports fans to either become a Red Sox fan or pick a team to root for. It will be especially helpful for those of you who are immersed in daily news feeds about the latest scandal or bizarre actions of a severely mentally ill president.

Learn about a sport and its rules. There are also many sports we can engage in ourselves and that is a great way to escape from the crazy world. I am spending less time thinking about orange man and more time watching what happens to the Red Sox. I have saved myself a great deal of angst and I am sure my mental health would not be as good without following my favorite sports team.