Among the many joys of reading the Wall Street Journal (A-hed, Arena, Weekend Edition) is columnist Jason Gay.
And among his many talents is an uncanny knack for capturing the Boston state of mind.
Two recent exhibits.
October 21 piece on the Boston Red Sox in the World’s Serious:
It’s Like 1946 All Over Again
Already, the 2013 Boston Red Sox have shown that anything is possible, if you assemble a group of dedicated individuals, provide them a fair wage, and ask them never to shave again.
On Saturday, Boston defeated Detroit in the American League Championship Series, four games to two, setting up a World Series appointment with the St. Louis Cardinals, NLCS conquerers of Los Angeles on Friday. Baseball observers will recognize this as a rematch of the 2004 World Series, in which the Red Sox swept the Cardinals for Boston’s first championship since the Cretaceous Period. This reprise, which begins Wednesday night at Fenway Park, does not offer the same history-squashing stakes. It is hard to feel empathy for the frustrated 10-year-olds in this country who have never seen Boston meet St. Louis in a World Series.
Photo caption: “Red Sox manager Joe Cronin and Cardinals manager Eddie Dyer at the 1946 World Series. St. Louis won that series in seven games.”
Historic.
Then there’s this piece of unfolding history from Thursday’s WSJ:
New York Handles the Truth
Paul Pierce is living and working in New York City, and this is weird. It’s been weird from the get-go, since it happened, since
that startling early summer trade that brought Pierce and his Boston teammates Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry from the Celtics to Brooklyn. There’s no need to pretend that it’s not weird now. It’s going to be weird for a while. It’s possible that Paul Pierce in New York City will never stop being weird, because there’s something surreal and unimaginable about the whole thing, no matter how sensible and civilized it looks, no matter how much basketball, like any other professional sport, is a cold business. Totally get that. Totally sounds reasonable. Still: weird.
Read these two pieces and you’ll understand why Jason Gay is the best Boston sportswriter not writing in Boston.
