Buckner for Eckersley in 1984: A Good Trade for the Sox

Being a Red Sox fan means collecting a lifetime worth of painful memories. In the far northeastern corner of the nation, we baseball fans learn at an early age about things like disappointment and frustration. For those of us in our late 30's and early 40's, the initial kick in the teeth came when we were still playing tee-ball and little league: It's the final day of the 1978 season, the Sox and the hated Yankees are locked in a tie atop the American League East, playing a one-game play-off, and just when it looks like the game is in hand, that the Red Sox are going to make good-Wham! Light-hitting Yankee shortstop Bucky (I'll omit the obscenity that New Englanders inevitably insert here; but know, we always insert it) Dent swats a cheap pop-fly that just barely clears the Green Monster in left. A three run home run. The Yankees go on to win the game, they go on to win the World Series. Our fathers, our older brothers or cousins-they're all as disappointed, as frustrated and angry, as we are. But not as surprised. Not really surprised at all, in fact. "It's what happens," they tell us with a sad shrug and a wistful look in their eyes. "The Red Sox always blow it in the end, one way or another."

Of course the Bean-town nine finally reached the promised land in 2004, and it was as sweet a moment as any sports fans ever experienced. But the fact remains: If you are a life-long Red Sox fan, you've had a life-time of the Red Sox breaking your heart. Some years it's the chilling late summer fade, an August implosion that finds you waking up on September 1st, picking up the sports page and looking at it in something like a stunned disbelief: "My God," you mutter to yourself. "Weren't we just toasting the first place Red Sox at a July 4th cookout? Wasn't this going to be the year?" Other years, they string you along all season long, until the very end, or close to it, only to slam you to earth suddenly, with the impact of an emotional car-crash.