Sports Redux: Who Are the Red Sox Gonna Call?

We're hearing a lot of negative thoughts about the Red Sox lately. For a team with a 10 game lead and the best record in baseball, the Negative Nellies are out in full force, predicting doom and gloom in the form of (1) injuries, (2) guys who are hot cooling off, (2b) guys who are cold never heating up, and (3) an inevitable Yankee rally.

This, to us, is pre-10/27 thinking.

If Red Sox fans learned anything in 2004, it should have been that positive and negative energy from the stands actually does affect what happens on the field. We expected them to choke in 1978, we feared the worst in 1986, and look what happened. The collective "WTF?" yell from New England when Grady Little walked back to the dugout alone in 2003 probably was loud enough to influence air currents in the Bronx.

In 2004, though, when the Sox went down 3-0, we became little kids believing in miracles again. Dave Roberts. David Ortiz. David Ortiz again. Tim Wakefield. Curt Schilling. Bronson Arroyo. Mark freaking Bellhorn. Et cetera. The Red Sox hit rock bottom in Game 3, but once Sox fans started believing - started entertaining the possibility that, hey, this could happen - the snowball effect kicked in. Did the fans will the team to victory? No scientist will touch that question, apparently, so we'll assume the answer is "yes".

Which is why this gloom and doom has GOT TO GO. It's like in Ghostbusters II, when Ray and Egon realize that the river of slime flowing under Manhattan is only dangerous because it feeds on all of the negative energy in the city. If people are anxious and crabby and fearful all the time, the slime gets stronger and meaner. But if everyone links hands and does a singalong, the slime turns benign, and the Ghostbusters can subdue Vigo the Carpathian and save little Oscar.

Don't make us organize a "Dirty Water" singalong outside of Fenway. Sox/Jays tonight; Wakefield against Halladay. Good Wake will be back and mow down Toronto like he did earlier this season. Manny will start hitting. Believe.