It's Not Your Fault: An Open Letter to Arlen Specter

Dear Senator Specter,

It must be hard to be a sports fan in the city that booed Santa Claus. Trust me, I understand your pain.

Boston may not be a loser city anymore, but up until 2001 the only playoff taste I'd ever known was futility. My Celtics were the joke of the NBA. My Patriots were called "the Patsies." My Red Sox were mired in an eighty-some-odd year World Series drought that I'm sure you've heard too much about already. Even my high school teams were terrible.

So trust me, I know your pain. And trust me when I say this, it will get better. You might feel like all hope is lost, and you might feel bitter enough to lead a witch hunt against the Patriots, neglecting all your political duties in the process. But like Mick Jagger said, "you can't always get what you want."

The only thing you can do is accept your teams' failures and move on. Try to stay optimistic. It's the only way. Say it with me now. "It's not your fault."

Feels better, doesn't it? "It's not your fault." I don't know where I first heard that phrase, but it has helped me get through the three biggest disappointments of my life.

The first time had nothing to do with sports. It was Christmas of 1996. I was ten. Vacation had started too late that year, with school going right up to December 23.

I woke up Christmas morning, greeted by the webbed frost hanging in the corners of my windows, the whistling, high-pitched whine from the radiator, and the last red link from my construction paper Christmas countdown chain.

Finally, I'm getting a Nintendo 64, I thought, eagerly, about the video game console that I'd pined over during the many, many sleepless nights since Halloween.

I got some shirts, some baseball cards, some candy, and a book of scratch tickets. But no Nintendo 64. I wanted to cry until my tears filled my bedroom and drowned me in my misery. Life just wasn't worth living without a Nintendo 64.

Now I know that the memory of Donovan McNabb hunched over in the huddle, exhausted, trying to hold back the nervous regurgitate, as he prepares to mount a game winning drive must make you sick to your stomach. But "take a tip from me," as Brad Nowell said, "It all comes back to you, you bound to get what you deserve."

Karma is a funny thing. That Christmas day, when I didn't get what I wanted, did I complain to my parents, and act ungrateful for everything else they got me? Of course not. If I had done that, I never would've gotten what I wanted. Besides, I knew they tried. It just wasn't in the cards for me to get a Nintendo 64 that day.

And you know what? None of my friends got one either. There was nothing any of us could do. I said it then. "It's not your fault," and in doing so I embraced that truth, realizing that I wasn't alone in my misery. By the time spring came around, the rush on Nintendo 64s was over, and I finally got one.

The second great let-down was Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS. As you may recall, the Red Sox led heading into the eighth inning, with the greatest pitcher of his generation going on the mound. This was it. We were going to win the World Series. It all seemed inevitable.

My 80-year-old grandmother beamed, grinning from ear to ear like she might actually live to see them win one. My father and his uncles gripped the necks of their beers so tightly that the glass should have shattered into their palms. My mother paced in the dining room, itching to watch the game—but we wouldn't let her, because the powers that be had determined that she was bad luck whenever she entered the kitchen.

Then Grady Little decided to leave his balls in the dugout. Three innings and a walk-off Aaron #*%$ Boone home run later later, I was on the floor of my room, elbows hooked around my knees, telling myself, "It's not your fault."

I felt cheated. I wanted to strangle Grady Little, and then call the league and ask them to replay the game, this time without Pedro Martinez finishing the inning. The Yankees weren't supposed to win. 2003 was supposed to be the year that Nomar, Pedro, and Manny

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