Book Review: Now I Can Die In Peace

In 1997, Bill Simmons launched a website called the "Boston Sports Guy." Unable to get a paying job as a sportswriter, Simmons tended bar instead and started writing for himself. Eventually, he found a following of fellow sports fanatics, and that led to his being hired by ESPN.com as a regular columnist.

Over the Christmas holidays, I picked up his new book, Now I Can Die in Peace, a collection of his blog entries and columns. It chronicles his life as a Red Sox fan, culminating with the World Series victory in 2004. I loved it!! There are so many spots in it when I found myself reaching for a pencil and underlining a line or passage. He knows what it's all about - he gets it! I actually had to get out the Kleenex as I read the last sections, about the WS and the indescribable joy we all felt as Foulkie grabbed that grounder and tossed it to Doug Can't-spell-his-last-name (Or as I often refer to him, "Doug the Ball Stealer.")

One column in particular struck a cord with me, from October 25, 2001, called "That Game." It's all about game six of the 1986 Red Sox-Mets World Series. That really was a defining moment for me as a Red Sox fan. I didn't even own a VCR then - they cost like $300 way back then! - so I had to tape it secretly in my library media center. I taped all of the games - because some day, I knew I'd want to relive the RS victory. After game six, I still had hope - even though that game pretty much crushed me.

For years, those seven tapes sat on my shelf, with all of my other tapes. Mocking me. I could never bring myself to watch any of them. Occasionally, I'd glance at them and think, Hey, I should watch one of those - not game six, of course but maybe game one. But I couldn't. Ten years later, my house was robbed. Among the items stolen: my entire collection of video tapes, including the '86 series. It was almost like divine intervention - I was relieved of the responsibility of ever having to sit through that again.

The other great part of Simmons' book is the perspective of time. When Faithful (another favorite recap of the season by O'Nan and King) was published last year, I was still in a hypnotic state. The victory was still fresh, still mind-numbing. Now, having survived (I guess) the 2005 season and this weird off-season, I have a different mind set - some distance from those incredible events. Simmons reminds us of how many times we wrote off the '04 Sox - how many times we screamed at Francona, moaned over the "Derek Lowe face," agonized over Nomar, and wept because we "missed out" on A-Rod. That was what made the victory so sweet - that we had resigned ourselves to another catastrophic loss to the Yankees, only to be pulled back by that team.

That team. Here's what Simmons writes (and quoting without permission!):

...I loved last year's team. I wanted to see those same players (as many as possible) defend their title. Isn't that part of being a champion? During the first six games of the season - all on the road, with a whopping 10 newcomers on the Opening Day roster - you couldn't help but feel a wee bit detached. These weren't the Champs. These were Most of the Champs. There's a difference.

And that's why I wonder about this year, 2006. The guys we'll see on the field won't even be Most of the Champs. They will be a Few of the Champs. Wake, Trot, Bronson, Tek, Schilling, Foulke, Youk, Big Papi, ?Manny. The rest are strangers. But deep down, there is that hope that next year at this time, we'll be saying they're the Champs. That these new guys - including Snow, Beckett, Lowell, and, yes, Manny - are the Defending Champs.

That's the essence of being a Sox fan. That never ending hope. We were ecstatic in '04, we were forgiving in '05 - but the free pass is gone now.