Wow, what a great story.

Face it everyone, you're all like the Red Sox. Unless you are one of those extraordinary human beings who is first in their class at Harvard and marries their high school sweetheart, chances are, you've had quite a few disappointments in your life. Sometimes things never seem to go right, they seem headed in the correct direction but little things derail you. Sometimes you sit up wondering "what if?" and imagining things as they might have been. Sometimes you look jealously at the guy who got the girl (or the guy that got the guy) and wonder why that is never you. Things can get hopeless, life knocks us all around, and some days it's a struggle getting up in the morning, and you wonder why you go on.

That was the story of the Red Sox and their fans for 86 long years. There were so many promising moments, so many stars who lit up the sky with their talent and their spectacular play. There was Ted Williams, who mastered the art of hitting and brashly told reporters that he wanted to be "the best there ever was." There was Tony Conigliaro, the wunderkind from Massachusetts who hit a home run in his first at bat at Fenway Park and was one of the best young hitters in the game. There was Luis Tiant, Roger Clemens, and Jim Longborg who mowed down opposing batters at a fearsome rate. But all of them eventually and tragically failed to accomplish what they all set out for, Williams ended his career brilliantly and bitterly, hitting a home run in his final at bat, but not tipping his cap to the fans. Tony Conigliaro's career was cut short by a fastball to his eye that ended his prowess with a baseball bat. Tiant, Clemens, and Longborg had their moments, but on baseball's biggest stage, the World Series, they were known for their bad final outings when the team needed them the most.

Their final failings tainted their most precious moments, just as our memories are tainted by the specter of what would later come. We may all remember our first kiss that really meant something, but many remember how that person would break our heart. We may remember great moments with our friends, but many of us also remember how some of them would later fail us.

The Yankees, for all their greatness, could never capture this part of us. The Yankees were the United States of America at its best: strong, hardworking, and successful. Presidents and politicians rush to associate themselves with the Yankees. Everybody likes winners and everybody sees the Yankees( at least when they were at their best) as the image of what we ought to be, but the Red Sox are who we are. The Red Sox are the team of the marginalized, the people that never fit in, all of us losers who keep going at our lives not happy with how things are right now, but hopeful that the future holds something better. Yes, I'm sure it's nice for Yankee fans when their team wins the World Series, but they are expected to do so. They are the valedictorian with the polished record, the perfect hair, and the girlfriend who everybody else wanted. The Red Sox winning the World Series shows us that yes, happy endings do happen, even for the rest of us. And that is fucking amazing.