Wrong. The Sox got behind early again and couldn’t quite come back, Schilling lost (television viewers were treated to the less than lovely sight of Father Curt, the staff’s supposed anchor, pounding the shit out of a defenseless Gatorade cooler after giving up a key two-out hit), and the Yankees won for the 730th time in their last 732 games. Consequently, we’ve fallen five and a half games out of first place. These will be hard games to make up, assuming they can be made up at all (probably they can), and what hurts the most is that the last two losses have come at the hands of the Rockies, currently major league baseball’s worst team. But the Red Sox have a talent for making bad teams look good, I sometimes think; we have done some almighty awful franchises the favor of making themlook terrific for their fans, especially during the two or three weeks after Memorial Day.

For this is almost certainly the beginning of that yearly Red Sox rite known as the June Swoon. Longtime fans know it so well they can set their calendars by it, if not their watches; it begins when the NBA finals end. During this year’s Lakers-Pistons finals,[22] the Sox were busy taking two out of three from both the Padres and the Dodgers, who are vying for the top spot in the NL West. Now that the finals are over, they are busy getting their shit handed to them by the lowly Rockies and their lead in the wild-card race—yes, even that—has melted away to a mere single game.

If it is the Swoon, I don’t think I can bring myself to write about it…but I’ll be watching it happen. Have to do it, man. It’s my duty, and not because of this book, either. It’s because that’s the difference between being a mere fair-weather fan and being faithful. Besides, July’s coming, and the Red Sox always turn it around in July.

Usually always.

I take the Fenway tour in the morning, hoping to catch BK working out. He’s not. The grounds crew is doing something to the track in left; they’ve dug up the corner and pulled some padded panels off the wall. We can’t go down to field level—a drag, since I wanted to walk the track and peek in the scoreboard. We hit the press box, then the .406 Club. While we’re listening to the guide’s spiel, I notice two members of our tour being escorted to the mound far below. A man and a woman. The man goes to one knee. KELLI, WILL YOU MARRY ME? the scoreboard flashes. She kisses him, and the tour applauds.