Dear Members and Friends,
The 1963 World Series became my initial experience of bonding with and rooting for a particular baseball team. The Los Angeles Dodgers were facing the New York Yankees and I think because Sandy Koufax was a lefty, I felt an immediate affinity for his team. Not to mention the fact that I loved the Dodger uniforms.
As it happened, by choosing the Los Angeles nine I set myself up for quite a bit of heat from others in my family who still hadn’t gotten over the fact that they’d moved out of Brooklyn. For this gross indiscretion of going west, it was said this was an accursed team – definitely one that would not be able to withstand the pinstriped greats of Mantle, Maris and Moose Skowron. Be that as it may, the Dodgers won in four straight, and I can still hear my mother screaming, “Drop it!” as Ron Fairly caught the final out.
As the years passed, I became a free agent and moved my loyalties to the Oakland A’s and then to the once despised Yankees, not for any real admiration of the Bronx Bombers, but mainly because I liked Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter. Plus, the Yankee offer of six million dollars over three seasons was something I just couldn’t turn down!
Today we are in the midst of a new World Championship wherein the Boston Red Sox are up against the St. Louis Cardinals. I like the St. Louis uniforms better, but this time around I am pulling for Boston because it is said they are accursed, something I am sure cannot be.
While I do think bad breaks and golden opportunities come and go, often unexpectedly, I truly believe that our fate lies more in persevering through the tough times and being prepared for the good times. To me, it’s far more about facing the facts and responding to the truth, than it is about relying on the vagaries of silly superstition.
Yet, there is one great beauty of saying we are accursed and that is it provides us all with a phenomenal excuse! We should have won, we might have succeeded, but for the fickle hand of fate for which we cannot take responsibility. Yet, as we look, we will see not ghosts or goblins prancing around Fenway Park or Busch Stadium, but real life ballplayers who will play their best and fully deserve the fruits of their labor.
Only one team can be victorious, but neither will be cursed. In this last great contest of the season, both teams can be winners in that they are each in a situation where finishing second means they had to be bested by those who earned the honor of being on top. Losing to the champion is sad, but it is never the proof of a supernatural blight. It is merely the evidence that in the final test of excellence, the runners up were the ultimate criteria, the last hurdle. This is no shame, for indeed it is far better to say we that lost the game to the very best, than to believe we never had a chance at all.
From Reverend William J. Keane,
Senior Minister of First Baptist Church of Branford
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