William Wordsworth: A Red Sox Fan Indeed

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William Wordsworth; A Red Sox Fan Indeed

One would not usually associate baseball, America's favorite pastime, with English romantic poets of the 18th and 19th century. Certainly, the thought of modern American baseball does not initially trigger notions of the sublime, natural scenes, and individual spirituality. Yet, what could be more poetic than the end of a curse, the greatest comeback in sports history, and the end of an 86 year drought without a championship? What is more poetic than all three of these occurrences happening in the same year to the same team? Less specifically, it is not hard to believe that a romantic poet would embrace the coming together of average Americans to cheer on their home team on a warm summer day. What is the seventh inning stretch but the mass-harmonizing of a short, heartwarming poem? It is true that baseball and romantics have more in common than one would at first suspect. Particularly, William Wordsworth and the Boston Red Sox are a terrific example of a romantic poet and a Major League Baseball team that seem to fit. Wordsworth's love of nature and verse and his sympathy toward the common man would draw him to the sport itself, while the history and mysticism of the Boston Red Sox would intrigue him. Indeed, William Wordsworth would have loved baseball and been a fan of the Boston Red Sox.

Before one can assert that William Wordsworth would be a Red Sox fan, one must first establish that he would even be interested in baseball. This is not difficult given Wordsworth's personality. From the beginning, young William showed a love for and an interest in nature. As a child Wordsworth would "roam the countryside at will [...] `drinking in' [...] the natural si...

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...ance before the 2004 win, the Red Sox extended their streak without a championship to 68 years, the exact flip of the actual time period of 86 years. Moreover, "the roof over the grandstand in right [field] featured retired Red Sox uniform numbers in the order they were retired: 9, 4, 1, 8, eerily reminding us of Sept. 4, 1918, the day before the start of the last World Series the Red Sox would win for close to a century" (ballparks.com). Although the numbers have since been put in numerical order, and another has been added (27), it is extraordinarily strange that they appeared in that order for a period of time. Certainly, William Wordsworth would be intrigued by the seemingly supernatural essence that surrounds the Red Sox. Furthermore, whether or not the curse is true, 86 years is a long time for Wordsworth to look back in tranquility at the win of 1918.

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