If the Red Sox Had Lost Would the Terrorists Have Won?

Kiss the Street, Kiss the Whip

A bit of food for thought with this segue into the world of sports where it intersects with politics in the aftermath of the Boston Red Sox World Series win last Wednesday night. The Beantown boppers had made no secret of their adoption of the “Boston Strong” motto after the heinously cruel pressure cooker bombing of the Boston Marathon finish line back in April by those evil little bastards the  Tsarnaev brothers. While the use by the baseball team of the tragedy as a motivating factor in their championship run was at the very least poor judgment and at worst poor taste and any criticism of such is a taboo so serious that it would merit a serious bludgeoning if invoked in the company of many Bostonians. The Red Sox played it off as though their season was a tribute rather than the co-opting of the victims of that gutless attack that left the street soaked with blood and dismembered limbs and altered the lives of hundreds but am I the only one who finds it all to be cynical?

By taking the city on their shoulders so to speak and providing an example of perseverance in their relentless crusade towards the October hardware did it not ever occur that such a mission could have gone badly awry? What would have happened had the St. Louis Cardinals managed to actually show up and what if the vanquished had instead been the victors? If the Cardinals had won the World Series and they were certainly a team that has had the luck of the devil himself in the postseason in recent years, would that have meant that the terrorists had won too?

Sports teams love gimmicks and the 2013 Red Sox are just the latest example despite outside of the serious political implications. In addition to the motivational ploy of using the bombing as fuel for fire a good number the members of the team for some bizarre reason also decided to collectively abandon shaving, growing beards that in a rather strange bit of irony made them appear much like the Islamist radicals that were the perpetrators. You could barely distinguish the difference between Johnny Gomes and Osama bin Laden, Mike Napoli and a Taliban commander by the time that the playoffs began. The hometown team also trotted out bombing survivors (given that there were only 3 deaths there was no short supply of them) for an onfield ceremony during game two, a contest that the Sox actually lost and were headed to the pitcher friendly Busch Stadium for the next three games. Seriously, if the Cards didn’t manage to completely implode, especially their pitching staff there would have been no victory parade in Boston and no propagandistic milking of the bombing tragedy with the pilgrimage to the site of the crime on the route. The Red Sox organization certainly would not have discouraged any of it, after all it was a member of the ownership group who allowed the CIA to use a private plane for extraordinary renditions aka torture during the Bush years.

In the immediate aftermath of the 6-1 finale revelers filled the streets of the city that became the testing ground only six months ago for a rollout of martial law in America. There were no paramilitary police goon squads patrolling the streets in armored vehicles and engaging in warrantless searches of the homes of cowardly citizens to chase down one teenage punk and the air was filled with triumph. There were many reports of fans (likely drunk if I know Boston at all) making pilgrimages to the marathon finish line and actually kissing the freaking street. It was a pure mob atmosphere and I would hope that any Muslim with a lick of common sense and an interest in self-preservation would have stayed inside, God only knows what the packs of celebrants roaming the streets were capable of. This satirical bit from The Onion entitled "Red Sox Fan Dedicates Garbage Can He’s Lighting On Fire To Marathon Victims" would be a hoot were it not so absurd as to resemble an actual feat by an overly stimulated fan. This all really should be a part of a larger conversation of the misplaced value system of this rotting empire where so many choose to live vicariously through the exploits of their sports teams. Let us not kid ourselves either, while the Red Sox adoption of the cause in taking it upon themselves of cleansing the city of shame and horror is hardly the worst exploitation of political memes to promote an imperialist warfare agenda. Just watch any NFL game with the militaristic jingoism, even worse around Veterans Day weekend games and the honor guard and military flyovers. As a departed associate of mine once mused - the reason that the NHL has never been able to reach the level of popularity in this country is because the games are all indoors and the fans unable to see the millions of taxpayer dollars squandered by directing six or so fighter jets to fly overhead for something as silly as a sporting event. But that again is part of a much larger topic that is for another time.

As for the Boston Red Sox, if you are going to claim credit as exorcists for a city’s emotional traumas then it is a legitimate question of what lasting damage would have resulted in the psyches of many of the locals had they not won. David Ortiz was a monster in the series, the idiocy of the Cardinals coaching staff to pitch to this guy rather than walk him was arrogance at its worst. Ortiz did the equivalent of brutally smashing in the skull of the living bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, lamented Rolling Stone cover boy with his bat. But what if he didn’t? What if the clueless Cardinals didn’t lob hittable pitch after hittable pitch to the eventual MVP?  This is where the social problem lies with multimillionaire professional athletes exploiting political causes. In this case of the Red Sox using the unconscionable maiming and killing of civilians as a rallying cry I will assume that it was an honest rather than just slimily glomming onto an event to provide that extra motivation that cashing seven figure pay checks just does not provide to a celebrity ballplayer.

This is not to trash the Red Sox, piss on their victory parade or drag their trophy through shit. They have tainted it themselves through their use of the bombings for maximum motivational effect.  They were a resilient, scrappy, clutch bunch that in no way resembled the smoking crater left at the heart of Red Sox nation after the Bobby Valentine disaster. They earned the title and beat the crap out of all who stood in their way, they were one hell of a baseball team but sports is a non-partisan, non-political exercise in escapism and entertainment. Professional athletes should just shut the hell up and play.