‘Mighty Casey’ and ‘Sisyphus’ Go to Bat For Red Sox Rooters

Tears erode the rocky shores of New England. Old Ironsides is draped in black. Kenmore Square is haunted. The lobster is not as sweet.

This is what baseball can do.

Baseball is hope and baseball is heartbreak. Except in Boston. Skip the hope.

Thayer had Boston in mind when he invented Mudville. Red Sox fans should remember Casey when they work themselves into a frenzy. It would remind them that it always turns out the same way for them, just as it does for Casey.

After all, fiction is no stranger than truth.

Here in San Diego, in the opposite corner of the continent, the Red Sox also have fans. We have one here in the office, though I cannot imagine the source of his allegiance. Perhaps he had a great-uncle who sorted tomatoes in the produce district.

Nearly two weeks after the World Series, this fellow still wears his Red Sox shirt. Not every day, mind you, because I think he owns one or two other shirts, but often enough to remind me of Japanese soldiers who came out of the jungles 20 years after the war and didn’t realize it was over.

Somehow, I suspect this fellow expects to wake up one morning and discover it is only Oct. 25 and the sixth game has yet to be played. That would explain this look he has had in his eyes, an anguished look as if he were walking through a nightmare.

That’s the way it is with Red Sox fans.

I was thinking of this as I was driving though Mission Valley on Interstate-8 this week and noticed the marquee in front of the United Methodist Church. It listed a coming attraction.

Sunday’s sermon.

The title? “Should the Red Sox give up?”

This caught my attention. It brought to mind the dumbfounded look on Bill Buckner’s face as the ground ball trickled through his legs, the torment of Calvin Schiraldi, the tears in Wade Boggs’ eyes and, of course, my colleague’s forlorn insistence on wearing that badge of hopelessness . . . a Red Sox shirt. I bet Bob Stanley wouldn’t go out in public wearing a Red Sox shirt.

Really, though, should the Red Sox give up?

I was curious exactly what direction such a sermon would take. The minister could, after all, be a Met fan or maybe a Yankee fan. However, that would be much too sinister for a minister.

As it turned out, the Rev. Mark Trotter went to a seminary in Boston. This gave him a taste of Fenway Park, and gave me a hint at what he might have to say.

“I went to Red Sox games in the early 50s,” he said. “In the days of Ted Williams. It was wonderful to cut class and go to Fenway Park. It fulfilled all the legends I had heard about it.”

The early 50s were frustrating times for Red Sox fans, as if it is fair to suggest that there are any other than frustrating times for Red Sox fans.

Boston never played in a World Series while Trotter was in the seminary.

“That didn’t matter,” he said. “It was still exciting, especially when Williams came up. He walked up to the plate like an actor making an entrance. The crowd always went wild.”

I got the impression Trotter has fond remembrances of those years, but did not come away from Boston obsessed with the Red Sox. He struck me as a man who appreciates sports without being fanatical. I don’t think, for example, he would be interested in borrowing my colleague’s Red Sox shirt for his sermon Sunday.

Indeed, now that his mission in life has brought him to San Diego, Trotter is a Padre fan. This too is an exercise in patience and frustration.

“What the Padres are going through is part of the evolution of a team,” he said. “Everyone goes through it.”

His message was that the Padres--and their fans--should not give up.

I suspect Red Sox fans will get the same encouragement.

“My sermon,” he said, “will be sort of a takeoff on an interview from the MacNeil-Lehrer Report the day after the series. They were interviewing people from Boston, and it was a marvelous interview. I was only listening with one ear, but I remembered later that someone made the analogy between the Boston Red Sox and Greek tragedy. They pictured the Red Sox as Sisyphus.”

The Red Sox might perceive the story of Sisyphus to be an encouraging parable on persistence, since this mythological character’s lot in life was to push a stone to a mountain peak, only to have it continually roll back down the hill. Maybe no one should tell them that Sisyphus was condemned to forever push that rock, and has undoubtedly endured that frustration for far longer than the 68 years the Red Sox have waited for a World Series championship.

Honestly, I don’t know exactly how the Rev. Trotter is going to interpret the parallel between the Red Sox and our friend Sis. I don’t think he had finalized his “game plan” at the time I talked with him, because I don’t think he suspected that a sportswriter would notice the marquee and take the question seriously.

“I have to put something on the blasted board,” he mused. “I guess it might be called a teaser, something that will catch people’s eyes and maybe encourage them to come to the service. Sometimes the sermon itself has little or nothing to do with what’s on the sign.”

I know Rev. Trotter must deal in questions and answers much more profound than I encounter in the world of sports, but I hope Sunday’s sermon has at least a little to do with what’s on the marquee.

In fact, I wish he would tell the Red Sox to go ahead and give up. It might be the most merciful thing to do.

Then my colleague might break down and wash that darned shirt.