Or maybe Boston’s West Coast swing and current three-game losing streak are only cover stories for a deeper malaise. Later, in August and September, I’ll dumbly drop my neck and accept the yoke of fan-citizenship in Red Sox Nation, but in June and July I resist a rather distasteful truth: as summer deepens, I find that instead of me gripping the baseball—apologies to Jim Bouton—the baseball is gripping me. This morning is a perfect case in point. The alarm is set for 7:30 A.M., because I don’t really have to get up until quarter of eight. But I find myself wide-awake at 6:15, staring at the ceiling and wondering if the Red Sox managed to come back from a 4–2 deficit, which was where I left them. I’m also wondering if the Yankees, who were playing Baltimore at home, managed to win yet again. I’m thinking that the Orioles, with good hitting and fair pitching, must have managed to beat the Yanks at least once. I’m also wondering what Nomar Garciaparra’s status is, and if there’s any update on Trot Nixon.

By 6:30 I can stand it no longer. I get out of bed (still cursing my own obsessive nature) and switch off the alarm. It will not be needed today. I go to the TV and have only to punch the ON button; it’s already on NESN, NESN is right where I left off seven hours ago, NESN is where the electronic Cyclops in my study is gonna be for most of the summer. Just like last summer. (And the summer before.) A moment later I’m sitting there on the rug in my ratty Red Sox workout shorts, hair standing up all over my head (“Your hair is excited,” my wife says when it’s this way in the morning), looking at Jayme Parker, who is for some incomprehensible reason doing the sports today on location from Foxwoods Casino, and although she’s as good-looking as ever (in her pink suit Jayme looks as cool as peppermint ice cream), all the news is butt-ugly: the Sox blew their lead and lost, the Yankees came from behind and won. The Evil Empire now leads the AL East by two games. Even Roger Clemens, the pitcher then-Sox general manager Dan Duquette proclaimed all but washed-up and then traded away, won last night; he’s 8-0 for the Astros.

The Red Sox continue their West Coast swing tomorrow night. It’s way too early to liken this particular tour of duty to the Bataan Death March (although that simile has done more than cross my mind in other years, on other nightmare visits to Anaheim, Oakland, Seattle, and yes, even Kansas City, where we go next), but not too early to restate my original scripture: on the whole, I’d rather be at Foxwoods.