Why baseball can be more than a game

Throughout the rest of the country, baseball is a pretty simple sport. See the ball, hit the ball, run the bases, and score more runs than your opponent. The game's been played like that for nearly 200 years now and, except for some minor equipment modifications, has remained virtually unchanged.

But there's something different about baseball in New England. It's something that goes beyond the game, the ball, the bases, and the runs. There's something that connects us with the game and, in turn, with each other. It's almost like the game becomes part of the family.

In the fall of 2003, I was attending a Bible college in the Adirondaks of upstate New York, about an hour north of Albany. It was my first time away from home and my homesickness was visible to anyone who made contact with me. My friends and family were hours away and I was left by myself at a place that I really never wanted to be. My new world was completely new and unrecognizable. All I could do was cling to the only thing that made any sense to me at that time and place: baseball.

When I got to New York, the Boston Red Sox were prepared to clinch their first postseason berth in four years and the "curse" continued to be in full effect. My family and friends would call me on a daily basis to update me on scores from the previous night's game, the new Wild Card standings, and magic numbers. My mom taped every game that I had missed while I was away so that I could watch them in their entirety when I returned home. My grandmother and youth pastor sent me pictures and newspaper clippings that captured the journey that the Sox were taking all of us on. I shared those clippings and pictures with other Sox fans at school, allowing me to build more and more connections that I had missed since leaving home.

We all watched and celebrated as the Red Sox came back from an 2-game deficit in the Divisional Series against Oakland to win the series in five games. I received phone call after phone call, instant message after instant message, telling me how this had to be their year. We watched game after game of the ALCS against the Yankees, hanging on every Pedro Martinez fastball and every swing of the bat by Nomar, Manny, and Ortiz. We watched as they were able to force the series to a decisive seventh game.

We watched as they took the early lead in that game seven, thinking that this "curse" would finally be swept away and never heard from again. We watched as Grady Little left Pedro in a little too long. We watched as the lead vanished and the "curse" reappeared. We watched as Aaron Boone jogged around the bases after his 11th inning walk-off home run gave the Yankees another pennant and gave the Red Sox, and all of us, quite possibly the toughest pill to swallow since 1918.

Just like that, it was all over. My Red Sox were gone. I only received one phone call that night. My mom left me a voicemail, her voice choked up with tears, telling me that it was all over. In that short period of time, that team had become an extension of my family and with one swing of the bat that family would be forced to disappear for six months. The only thing that could help me through such a difficult time was baseball, and it wasn't there for me this time.

But that month made me realize what something so simple can do and how we take it for granted. Whenever I watched those games, I knew there were people who loved me that were watching the same thing back home. For those three hours every night, I was able to connect with my friends and family in a way that I couldn't when I was home. Even when they suffered their heartbreaking loss in Game 7, I knew that I was going through the same feelings and emotions as everyone else back home. During that time, I was exactly where I wanted to be.

Without baseball, without that team, I know I wouldn't have made it through that semester.