Once Upon A Time

There have been 3 Game 1's of the World Series that I've truly been interested in. The first one, well, I was six. The second one, I feel asleep during. And tonight.

A quick note about the one I fell asleep during. It was in 2004. After the longest and most emotionally draining sports experience of my life. Those games were epic and fantastic. Everything after was almost a let down. Well not everything. Game 1 was actually exciting. I was just excited out.

I'm rested for tonight. Rested and ready. Game 1's mean little in the scope of things. No one's back is up against the wall. It's not a must win game. Out of all the game's in the Series, this one means the least. That's not to say we can't or won't win. Or shouldn't. I know very little about what the Red Sox need to do verse the Rockies. I know nothing about the Rockies. All I can say is the Red Sox have to hit the ball hard and well -- taking full advantage of Fenway.

As for The World Series itself, there's a lot that can be said. It's the greatest sporting event on the planet. Explained best here. If the regular season is a story, a good novel, the post-season a sort of commentary, literary criticism of that story, then World Series is a fairytale.

It has a plot. Hyperbolic characters: giants that need to be slayed; carriages that turn back into pumpkins because time and luck has run out; Prince Charmings and Sleeping Beauties that appear and awake. And most importantly the idea inherent in every fairytale's opening lines: Once Upon A Time. With the Series we're transported to the magic land above and beyond and to the right of that second star. Moments that keep us up past midnight and straight on till morning.

I'll be awake tonight. Curled up in the same chair I've been reading this season's book in all year. Hearing the rhymes of curveballs and sliders and fastballs in my head. Seeing beanstalks and magic beans, perhaps even a dwarf or a Manny. And it'll be no surprise that up, way up past my bedtime, after reading a good story and great criticisms, that I'll fall asleep to the timeless tale of the World Series. But not until those famous last words.

The End.