With the 2018 Sox getting ready for October baseball, there is at least one strong commonality with the last Sox WS champ: It feels like it just might be their year. Again. Sure, there are some warts and worry signs. Is the pen good enough? The record against AL playoff teams is pedestrian. We’re Sox fans so the last two games bother us more than they might affect another more measured fan base. But the win total and nature of many of those wins, as well as their loaded line-up, gives me the same optimistic feeling I had in 2013 (and 2007 for that matter; 2004 is the very definition of Sui Generis).
For me, any invocation of the 2013 Red Sox brings to mind a somewhat sore side topic. It’s become popular 5 years later to conclude that that team was somewhat lucky and caught “lightning in a bottle.”
The folks who say that point to:
- last place finishes in 2012 and 2014, and the 2011 collapse being all around it;
- the marathon juju;
- that they won anything with such a mediocre manager;
and
- that every move Cherington made seemed to work out in that one year, and that one year only.
None of that resonates much with me, and I point to:
- to me, “lightning in a bottle” means a generally mediocre team gets hot at the right time and rides the wave through the tourney; the 2006 82 win Cardinals are the best example I can think of, though I know there are others;
- this Sox team won 95 games and was very strong virtually wire to wire, and was great in October; and
- very few of the players, and I think none of them actually, enjoyed career years; maybe Koji is an exception.
There’s no denying that the Marathon affected and inspired them. At least, I have great trouble believing that it did not. But so what? That alone doesn’t make the team lucky etc. The 2003 Cowboy Up Sox and the 2004 Idiots were likely driven in part by the desire to be the first ones to break through. Said differently, having additional motivation doesn’t make a great team one who catches lightning somehow.
Anyway, I know this topic is a not given to hard boiled analysis and maybe it will not get much traction as a result. But how this team gets viewed by sox fans and media has fascinated me, so I thought I’d raise it here on a rainy NJ morning, as the countdown to, hopefully, two wins over Houston today continues.
For me, any invocation of the 2013 Red Sox brings to mind a somewhat sore side topic. It’s become popular 5 years later to conclude that that team was somewhat lucky and caught “lightning in a bottle.”
The folks who say that point to:
- last place finishes in 2012 and 2014, and the 2011 collapse being all around it;
- the marathon juju;
- that they won anything with such a mediocre manager;
and
- that every move Cherington made seemed to work out in that one year, and that one year only.
None of that resonates much with me, and I point to:
- to me, “lightning in a bottle” means a generally mediocre team gets hot at the right time and rides the wave through the tourney; the 2006 82 win Cardinals are the best example I can think of, though I know there are others;
- this Sox team won 95 games and was very strong virtually wire to wire, and was great in October; and
- very few of the players, and I think none of them actually, enjoyed career years; maybe Koji is an exception.
There’s no denying that the Marathon affected and inspired them. At least, I have great trouble believing that it did not. But so what? That alone doesn’t make the team lucky etc. The 2003 Cowboy Up Sox and the 2004 Idiots were likely driven in part by the desire to be the first ones to break through. Said differently, having additional motivation doesn’t make a great team one who catches lightning somehow.
Anyway, I know this topic is a not given to hard boiled analysis and maybe it will not get much traction as a result. But how this team gets viewed by sox fans and media has fascinated me, so I thought I’d raise it here on a rainy NJ morning, as the countdown to, hopefully, two wins over Houston today continues.