The wild card remains in play

Now that the Red Sox are mathematically guaranteed to finish behind the Yankees for a ninth straight season, I will come clean about my own failure this baseball season.

Way back in April, I made an important life-affirming decision: I was no longer going to follow the Yankees.

For Red Sox fans such as myself, following the Yankees is something is something of a second national pasttime. It used to be that I couldn't go to bed without checking the ESPNews crawl one more time to see if the Yanks were leading or trailing.

But this year, I decided, it would be different. No more rooting against another team. It's just too exhausting. I even threw out my Yankee Hater cap. I was done defining myself by dislike of another. From here on out, it was just going to be positive thoughts about the team I liked. If the Yanks were on ESPN, I'd change the channel. If the Sox were playing the Yanks, I'd watch through clenched teeth.

This was a great strategy, so long as the Sox were in first. But as soon as they slipped behind the Yanks in late summer, like they always do, I was back to scoreboard watching and wishing ill upon A-Rod, Abreu, and the rest.

Of course, now I've pretty much given that up as well, as the Sox flirt with third place.

A baseball plan hasn't bombed this bad since my fantasy baseball strategy, so it's back to the drawing board for me. Good thing there's always next year.