2002-09-27 - 12:08 a.m.

I'm sad that the Red Sox didn't make the playoffs this year.

Yeah, I know that in the greater scheme of things, it's a pretty stupid thing to be sad about, but it is sad nonetheless.

I didn't watch them much this year, maybe 20 or so games, compared to a couple of years ago, when I watched a portion (usually the very end, when I got home from work), of almost every game. They made the postseason that year, by the way, and choked.

But I love the Sox. Oh how I Iove them. And it doesn't matter who plays for the team, or how well they're doing.

They could finish the season 59-103, and I'd still be able to come up with seemingly logical reasons to �splain why they're the best team in baseball.

I don't know why I like baseball so much. Watching an entire game really is boring, even for me. The organization is corrupt, and of course (many of) the players make way too much money. I don't actually play baseball (but if I could find a bunch of wussies like me who would be willing to play, I�d make every game), and I average only just one or two games at Fenway a year.

Maybe the stats have something to do with it.

And having crushes on players, like Tim Wakefield, the knuckleballer who is destined, at this point in career, to be eternally underrated, or Brian Daubach, the streaky weirdo who every now and then wears his socks way high like an old school ball player.

Underdogs who let you down sometimes, true. But why root for a perennial winner when you can throw your lot in with a curiosity with personality?

Don't go out drinking with me when there's a Sox game in progress. I won't even pay you the respect of pretending to listen to you. I might even try to steer the topic to baseball.

Oh, and then there's the commentary. Sean and Jerry, sometimes Don and Jerry, play perfectly against one another.

Jerry Remi is like the wise uncle I never had, whereas Sean McDonough has an unparalleled knack for technically saying nothing less than the most appropriate material for family television, but what he doesn't say, his unspoken, between the lines and what not, thoughts on the matter at hand, well, you might as well write it down and study it until you can spout it back out as if it were your own.

And when he gets riled and really says what he means, well, it's friggin' dogma.

Maybe if I grew up in a city other than Boston, I would have a different approach towards sports in general. Probably indifferent, although if it was New York, uh... I'd most certainly be a jackass.

I rebelled against sports in high school, but I embrace 'em now.

That was a joke for me.

I'd like, here, to make some kind of greater point about sports, or baseball, but, hey, I think I just lost my fastball.

Yeah, so no postseason bliss this year. The Sox won more than 90 games, which is cause for celebration, I guess. But it means nothing, really.

So, for the 25th year in a row, here�s to next year.