No Longer Underdogs

From Phoenix to Fort Meyers we've begun to hear the crack

Of ash a' hammrin' horsehide and - God help me, let's go back... I

can't talk baseball that way now, although it is the season.

The old cliches won't serve us for a new and chilling reason.

Last fall, against the odds, against past history and fate,

The Boston Red Sox rose and smote the Yankees in four straight;

Not only that, the Sox went on to beat the Cards as well,

And what they did by doing that perhaps we still can't tell,

Except to say the Red Sox now are champs - a lofty perch,

From which the team, its fans, and those below must start to search

For reasons to continue with the hallowed rites of spring,

And with the grind of summer and with playing out the string,

Despite the absence of the plot that's carried us these years

Through false hopes, wispy dreams and, often, unrequited tears.

The Red Sox are no longer underdogs or woeful mutts.

Their triumph in '04, like some great arctic breeze, just shuts

The door upon the fantasy that when the Bostons win

A new age fraught with happiness and glory must begin.

How can there be a season when the question doesn't stand?

When Boston's won already? What can save us from a bland,

Dull summer heavy with the feel of disappointment when

If Boston wins in '05, they'll have only won again?

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't change last fall's result a whit.

It's only that i wonder how this year we'll give a darn.

Now Boston is the champ, the coming spring blooms without reason...

I fail to understand why they should play the '05 season.