…but here at the Gelwan household, half a mile from Fenway Park, it’s a different matter altogether! Those of you who have gotten to know me from my weblog might puzzle over the idea of my being a baseball fan — or a sports fan of any sort — never having seen any sports references in five years’ worth of FmH posts. And you would be largely correct. But — and it is probably difficult for those of you outside of New England to grasp this — it has been almost impossible to avoid getting swept up in the fever for the past two weeks here in Red Sox nation. Watching eleven ball games in a row has been more than I have seen in the past ten years (as someone who never watches baseball on television during the regular season and goes to, at most, one or two games at Fenway some years). There has been a certain ease and relief, especially in what otherwise seems such a contentious divided society, of being part of a ubiquitous shared experience of tension and release, hope and ultimately jubilation for a change. And of sleep deprivation. It may have been my imagination, but the bleary-eyed glances of passersby on the streets, the caffeine-craving impatience of those waiting on the lengthened lines at my favorite café, and the yawns of drivers stopped next to me at the traffic lights seemed to be ties that bind.

Sharing in the Red Sox’ drama and triumph was even a resonance between me and my patients at the psychiatric unit. Normal bedtimes on the unit were suspended so that the patients could stay up and watch the games, and bonds grew even among patients who would otherwise be utterly withdrawn, struggling with the inner demons that had brought them in for admission. A patient who had known me for a long time, through a number of admissions, and had never known me to be interested in spectator sports, would ask me each morning in the psychotherapy group whether I had stayed up to watch the game the night before and, when I indicated each morning that I had, tease me for being a “fair-weather fan.” I actually think a number of my psychotic patients have been recovering more quickly from their episodes this time knowing that they share the experience of rooting for the Sox with one another and with their treatment team members.

The fact that this pennant season was a suspension of my usual disbelief will give me some distance from which to observe something I suspect will happen in the months to come to many for whom being a Red Sox fan is a way of life . Momentous events are stressors, even if they are happy events. The end of the curse will change everything for some Sox fans. No longer will they have easy recourse to the reflexive, philosophical “wait ’til next year” as a template for dealing with disappointed hopes. Perhaps losing will no longer come as easy. There is already alot of caution in the wind lest we become what we detest — like Yankees fans, thinking that we are entitled to win. Not likely, given the indications that the Red Sox management is going to exercise some fiscal restraint and that their salary budget is not the bottomless well Steinbrenner’s is. And also not likely because this Red Sox team is not by any stretch the debut of a dynasty but a snapshot in time, the chemistry not likely to repeat itself even as soon as next year given the number of pivotal players becoming free agents and not likely to be signed to new Red Sox contracts despite the fans’ magical wish to freeze the action. Come to think of it, that might be a good thing for the psychological health of the Red Sox fans. Commentators are already predicting that the fans will have none of the usual preoccupations to talk about through the winter. But they will probably be replaced by ample opportuinities to obsess about the future configuration of the team and — as always — how the rivalry with the Yankees will go next year. The one thing I dread, which might be too painful to bear (especially after Roger Clemens), is if the Red Sox face Pedro Martinez on the mound in pinstripes next season.

The radio dial today, savoring the victory, nevertheless had room for the bittersweet. Time and again, I tuned in to someone talking about how sad they were not to have been able to share their victory celebration with a departed parent who had instilled their love of the sport and the team but had not lived long enough to see this culmination. There’s that Nike ad they kept showing in which we view a Sox fan in the stands as the decades tick away from 1918 to 2004 and he ages from a little boy to an old man, with the loved ones with whom he takes in the games. Cheap sentimentality, perhaps, although still poignant. But for me the poignancy of the moment is abit different. My father, who died in 1991, was a lifelong baseball fan whose two sons, neither of whom was a passionate sports fan, never connected with him on that level. He would have been delighted to see my family pouring ourselves unabashedly into the postseason fever this year. In a sense, I feel cheated that I never let myself get into it while he was around to share it with. In another sense, I feel more complete in a way, connecting with something I was denying in myself, something of him in me, a coming home. And, in turn, grateful for the last two weeks of my wife and I sitting in front of the games with our son and daughter in a way whose memory they may cherish long after we are gone, whenever something the Red Sox do recalls this magical season.

Probably, no one has been able to access FmH since sometime Tuesday. Several city blocks here in Brookline, including that housing The World (Software Tool & Die), the web server hosting this weblog, were hit with a power failure sometime on Tuesday. Attempts to power up with a generator resulted in a power surge, according to the tech support folks at The World with whom I finally spoke this evening, which bagged some of The World’s hardware.

Back up now, I hope for good. Sorry for the prevention of timely access. I hope it isn’t just from reading about it here that you learned of the lunar eclipse this evening (see below), because by the time the page was back up you would have already missed it…