What Could Have Been

It was quite a day, and the Sox certainly did their part to give the end some excitement.

First, there was the 90 minutes of high tension followed by that 1 minute of glorious release. The headfirst slide into the corner flag. The dog pile that made Kendry Morales, somewhere halfway around the world, flinch for just a minute. Then there was the dog fight that was the Germany-Ghana-Australia-Serbia group, where no one had it under wraps until the final whistle of both had been blown.

And during it all, there was the epic, inconceivable battle going on at Wimbledon. 59-59. That's how it stands as ITM goes to press this morning. The match has been going on for 10 1/2 hours. The 5th set alone is longer than any other tennis match in history.

And then, to top it off, you go home and it's a hot, sticky summer night. The one where you turn all the lights off, crank up the fan, let the mosquitoes swarm the tv, and remember what baseball is about. And you watch the Sox come back against the other-worldly Ubaldo Jiminez, who is putting up pre-WWII numbers on the mound. You watch them do it with guys who've been fighting for just about a decade to finally get a shot in the big leagues. You watch Lackey do what he apparently does - just enough to get them in a winning position, even if it means hitting a double and scoring the go-ahead run himself. You watch all that, and then you watch Jonathan Papelbon come in and you're thinking, 'This has really been an amazing day. This is why I love sports.'

And then, just as Papelbon finishes his warm-up, before the batter steps in, you go to bed. Because you're a sports fan and a Sox fan, and you know that no day could be quite so perfect.