It’s 2:32AM in Boston and helicopters are circling my neighborhood. Police in riot gear, on horse back, on motorcycles, on foot attempt to control a wilding crowd that is breaking glass, swarming the streets, racing down alleys and setting cars on fire. The cops in black riot uniforms walk 10 abreast on Boylston street attempting to clear it of drunken, aggitated revelers so that fire engines may extinguish the flaming metal hulks of cars. An acrid smoke of burning fuel is in the cold night air along with a smattering of small explosions.
This is not Baghdad, nor Kabul. No one is fighting for political or human
rights. This is all due to tonight’s success of a private baseball
franchise. The Red Sox won their division championship tonight. They did
this before in 1995 or so. Back then, I was in this very same apartment
and I fail to recall rioting and mayhem coincident with their victory.
It’s just a game played by very well compensated professionals for private
interests, but it triggers the worst behavior in people. How people are
empowered by the fortunes of sporting events to riot, I’ll never understand.
It reeks of desperation and the barely controlled rage of small lives. This
does little to raise my estimation of professional sports or their fans.
I have never feared for the saftey of my home before tonight. I’m happier than ever not to own a car parked near my apartment. If you think I’m exaggerating, perhaps the pictures (whenever they are published) of the cars burning within a few blocks of my apartment will give you pause. I have long said alternately that I hate baseball or the Red Sox. Really, I hate the fans. I wish they had burnt Fenway Park to the ground tonight in their madness.