Our Sox obsession sets town on edge

14 December 2001

My daughter hands me a piece of paper.

"What's this?" I ask.

"My Christmas list for Santa."

I snap. "Christmas list. Christmas list! At a time like this? How could you!?"

I know there are many things to be upset about: Al-Qaeda, anthrax, Tom Menino's lonely battle against liquefied natural gas. But that's not what keeps me up at night.

It's the fate of the Red Sox. The soul of the city is for sale, on the block to the highest bidder.

The future looms like a black abyss.

Bidder No. 1, at $650 million and still counting, is Charles Dolan, king of Cablevision.

Dolan wants the Sox because he's in the entertainment business. (For Sox fans, of course, the futile hunt for a championship long ago ceased being entertainment.) Combine the Sox and the team's interest in New England Sports Network with Dolan's partnership in Fox SportsNet and the deal becomes quite lucrative.

But how can we forget that Cablevision was a disaster for Boston, leaving the city a technological backwater? Dolan's plastic, faux- wood cable boxes with their ridiculous A/B switches are reason enough to torpedo his bid.

Worse, though, is that he lives in New York.

I know, I know. These days we're supposed to feel sorry for the big city to our south. We even sing, "New York, New York," during the seventh-inning stretch.

Through clenched teeth.

Let's be honest here. There were few tears shed in Boston when the Diamondback's Luis Gonzalez batted a single in the ninth to win the World Series against the Yankees.

A New Yorker owning the Sox? Never.

This is also a problem for Bidder No. 2, a group led by Tom Werner and John Henry.

Werner, a television producer, once owned the San Diego Padres. Henry is an owner of the Florida Marlins. To them, sports teams are a commodity (Proof: Henry made his money as a commodities trader), meaning they'll have as much loyalty to the Sox as free agent players have to their teams - which is to say, none. To top it off, one of their partners is The New York Times.

True, I buy the Times on Sunday, but only because it impresses the neighbors, all of whom mistakenly believe I actually read the thing. Boston already has an inferiority complex. The Times owning the Sox could put the city over the edge.

That leaves us with Bidder No. 3: the team of Stephen Karp and Joseph O'Donnell.

Karp and O'Donnell are the hometown favorites because they've made lots of political contributions to lots of local politicians. Karp got rich by building shopping malls, O'Donnell through concessions.

The two men want everyone to believe they're in this for love of the game, but my bet is something more mercenary is at work: Look for Karp to turn Fenway Park into another mall. The Sox will be a lure, drawing in crowds to shop at the Gap and eat at a food court by center field while the game drones on in the background. ("Get your hot dogs! Cokes! Designer jeans!")

What a sorry lot.

John Harrington's criterion for a successful bid is simple: whoever puts up the most money. Moreover, money is the motivation for everyone who is bidding.

They don't get it. Baseball shouldn't be about mere commerce. If you want to make a fortune, start a dot-com company.

OK, maybe not.

Still, the Sox are our religion and Fenway is the temple that (cue James Earl Jones in "Field of Dreams") "reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again." The team is the glue of Red Sox Nation, the stuff that holds New England together.

Sold to the wrong person, and who knows the consequences? Once friendly Massachusetts and New Hampshire could become the bitterest of enemies. The cycle of the seasons - the hope that is spring and the gnawing sense of doom that is autumn - may turn into 12 months of cold and bitter winter. Our lives could become empty, bereft of meaning.

I try to explain all of this to my daughter. These are the things, I tell her, causing the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, making me bite my nails to the quick.

"Don't be ridiculous, Dad," she says. "It's only a game. It doesn't matter who owns the Red Sox. It doesn't even really matter" - and here I shudder - "if they win or lose."

Does she have a point? Are we making too much of this, treating the Sox as a core part of our lives when baseball is just a simple pastime, an inconsequential diversion? Is our obsession with the sale a sign of grossly skewed priorities?

Naw. She's just a kid.

"When you grow up," I say, "You'll understand."