Reveling in My Obsession

The first major league baseball game I ever saw was in Boston at storied Fenway Park. It was May 25, 1946. I was nine years old.

I vividly remember walking through the bowels of that wonderful old ballpark, down a concrete ramp, looking up at a maze of steel girders overhead. Then came the magical moment: walking up a ramp and seeing that baseball diamond: green grass, immaculately groomed, and dazzling in the sunlight of a perfect spring day.

The Boston Red Sox were playing the New York Yankees that day. They won, 7 to 4, and ever since I have been a passionate fan. I even manage to travel to Boston almost every year to see them play.

But while the Red Sox grew to be my passion from that experience, it also turned the Yankees into an obsession.

I loath them.

I will not see them play in person and I cannot watch them play on television. They often win and I often hear myself screeching obscenities at the screen. It's just too upsetting.

And so, this morning, I am reveling in the news that the Yankees lost the first game of the World Series to the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-1. And, adding luster to this glorious news, a local Maui boy, Shane Victorino, played center field for the Phillies, got a hit, scored a run and drive in a run. And it all happened in the new BILLION-AND-A-HALF DOLLAR Yankee Stadium in front of all those Yankee fans.

I am still pessimistic about the final outcome of the series -- being a Yankee-hater breeds pessimism -- but today, at least, I rejoice.

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