I fear that the friendship between myself and good Mr. Soames may be running into rough waters, at least for the next two weeks.

First, he scolded my dear Boston Red Sox for lack of personal hygiene and overall cleanliness, of which I happen to agree (Bronson Arroyo's cornrows make one wince -- I'd rather see him bald as a melon). Second, he reminded his devoted readers of the 1946 World Series between Boston and St. Louis, a seven game marathon won by the Cardinals. Third, he posted yet another reminder of the 1967 World Series between the same, also a seven game thriller won by the Red Birds.

As a bred and buttered New Englander and a lifelong member of Red Sox Nation, I cannot let these gratuitous taunts stand. Enos Slaughter is dead, and Musial and Gibson retired years ago. While the past can be illustrative, it acts only as a soft guide and not a strait-jacket. Whatever we seek to do, a dead man's icy hand obstructs us, wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne in House of the Seven Gables. What slaves we are to bygone times. So impressed by repeated failure, and trapped within our fears, we slip into nonsensical talk of curses and jinxes. If it is true that those who ignore the past are condemned to repeat it, those who live only in the past are condemned to miss the slow changes (not all of them bad -- is revelation a bad thing?) that occur within time, history itself.

Thus, while St. Louis beat the Red Sox in two great Series in '46 and '67, that is no guide to what will necessarily happen in '04. I remain optimistic, hopeful, and anxious for a better fate. A true fan can do nothing else. Change, in this case a Red Sox Series victory, need not be an awful thing. I quote the French Roman Catholic philosopher Gustave Thibon:

There are -- and this can hardly be overemphasized -- two very distinct types of the conservative mentality. One is that of the impotent and the satisfied, and this kind of conservatism, due to inertia, is far more the more widespread of the two; people hold onto what is because they have lost all ability to renew and build; lacking in the slightest motive virtue, they deify acquired momentum. But the other kind of conservatism is conservative wisdom -- that of Pascal, for example. It does not close its eyes to the defects of tradition and the established order; it well realizes that many things ought to be changed; it is merely skeptical as to man's creative capacities in general.

The Boston Red Sox are one of the grand old teams of baseball, the embodiment of the game's traditions, playing in America's greatest old ballpark, filled with the memories (good and bad) of thrilling games and storied ballplayers. Yet they have not won the title since Woodrow Wilson was president, doughboys fought the Hun, and spats and tails were all the rage (perhaps if they win, spats will come back? Hopefully not Wilson, though). This ought not to be. It will be a difficult task, against a formidible Cardinals team, but it can be done. If the Red Sox-Yankees series proved anything, it showed that Boston has remarkably resilient "creative capacities" for good.

No Series win since 1918. This defect in our "tradition and established order" ought to be changed. Embrace conservative wisdom rather than conservative inertia.

Root for the Red Sox.