Heroes and History

Somewhere
in America a young mother without a job waits in line six hours to get
a flu shot for her undernourished baby. Somewhere in Africa a nurse with
AIDS works taking care of others until the day she is too weak to get
our of bed, and then dies in the same hospital where she worked. Somewhere
in Iraq a scared 19-year-old kid from a small town in Ohio can’t sleep
because he knows that in a few short hours he will have to go out on
a patrol where very dangerous people will try their best to kill him.
These people are heroes.

Somewhere in a university a young medical student is getting an idea which
will lead to a cure to AIDS, or Parkinson’s, or even cancer. Somewhere
a campaign is being put together which will for the first time harness
the
power and potential of the Internet for a higher cause, and transform the
political status quo in America forever. Somewhere in an anonymous room
a group of capable and credible people are plotting to detonate a thermonuclear
device in an American city. These people will make history.

But the eyes of America are on none of these people. The eyes of America
are on the only heroes we are allowed to have. The Boston Red Sox did not
make history, in a wider sense, tonight, but what they did exorcised demons
haunting the hearts of thousands of fans and will serve to inspire millions
mired in devotion to hopeless causes forevermore.

We can hear raw primal screams of triumph coming from the streets, manic
horn honking, and we live in a relatively restrained neighborhood. Things
in the student ghettos must be getting out of hand. When you let out a
wild animal that’s been caged up as long as the Red Sox resentment of the
Yankees, there’ll be hell to pay. Just ask Roy Horn.

We warned our students to stay away from Kenmore Sq. after the game, win
or lose. A drunk fan after either a catastrophic loss or a cathartic win
can revert to deeply instinctual behavior, and a lot of them instinctually
don’t like foreigners. But we hope they are celebrating in their own quiet
ways.

In a way, it doesn’t even matter now who wins the World Series. The Demons
have been vanquished. Perhaps it would be better if we lost the Series
and kept alive the agonizing ecstasy, that eternal unrequited striving,
that is the essence of being a Red Sox fan...

story from the New York Times