'Matter of Laugh or Death,' the award-winning humor column

By Bill Dunn

Interesting observations on this thing we call life

(appearing each week in the Republican-American newspaper, Waterbury, CT)

NOT EASY BEING WIFE OF SPORTS NUT

Hi, I’m Bill’s wife. I’m writing Bill’s column this week because he is a bit distracted right now.

You see, the Boston Red Sox are playing the New York Yankees to see which team will go to the World Series. As a passionate, lifelong Red Sox fan, Bill’s emotional state of mind is always fragile at best. Whenever the Sox make the playoffs, as they seem to do every few years or so, he gets quite excited. But when it happens that Boston faces the Yankees in the playoffs, well, Bill just—to use the clinical medical term—goes bonkers.

Personally, I don’t care much about baseball. But I did take a wedding vow: “For better or worse, in sickness and in health.” Red Sox fever is obviously a sickness.

Because of the newspaper deadline, I’m actually writing this before any of the Red Sox-Yankees games have taken place. By the time you read this, three games should have been played. If the Yankees are on a roll, it means at this moment Bill is lying in bed whimpering with the covers pulled over his head. If the two teams are playing fairly even, it means at this moment Bill is pacing purposefully around the living room muttering, “OK, OK, we’re hanging tough, we still gotta chance.” And if the Red Sox are actually taking charge of the series, it means at this moment Bill is up on the roof, his face and bare chest painted red, and he’s waking up the neighbors by screaming the Tarzan yell at the top of his lungs.

Even though at this point no one knows the final outcome of the Red Sox-Yankees series, let’s be honest—because the Red Sox are involved, we most certainly do know the final outcome: heartache and pain.

I’ve been trying to remind Bill of this fact ever since the Red Sox clinched a playoff berth in September. “Yes, it’s nice they made the playoffs, honey,” I said, “but don’t forget, these are the Red Sox. It can’t possibly have a happy ending.”

“No, no, no,” he replied. “This year will be different. I can just feel it!”

“But you also felt it last year, when that kindly old manager left Pedro in the game one batter too long.”

“It was four batters too long,” Bill replied through clenched teeth.

“And you also felt it in ’99 and ’98 and ‘95 and ’90 and ‘88 and, let’s not forget, you really, really felt it in 1986…”

“Quiet!” he shrieked. “Don’t ever mention that year again! You’re gonna jinx them!”

“…and ’78 and ’75 and ’67 and ’46…”

“Hey,” he said, “I wasn’t even born in 1946.”

“I know, dear, but you still get a tear in your eye whenever someone mentions Enos Slaughter scoring from first base on a single to win Game Seven for the Cardinals, or the fact Ted Williams hit only .200 in that World Series, or—oh, I’m sorry. Don’t cry.”

So anyway, as you can tell, when it comes to the Red Sox, Bill’s level of excitement, not to mention his grasp of reality, is a little out of control. As his loving wife, I’m faced with a very difficult balancing act. On the one hand, I want to support him and share in his joy when the team wins, but on the other hand, I have a duty to temper his momentary joy with a reminder of the ultimate outcome.

All I can say is I hope it ends as quickly and as painlessly as possible. You see, Bill is convinced he won the divisional series against the Anaheim Angels by not changing his lucky underwear. If the Red Sox end up playing much more past this weekend the Health Department will be paying us a visit.

Also, I hope the New York Giants don’t go the Super Bowl this season. I can’t take much more of this.

©2004