Dylan Thomas, who was born on October 27 in 1914, would have found it dramatic and moody that the Boston Red Sox won their first world series since 1918 on this day in 2004. “Do not go gentle into that doomed championship series,” he might have said. When the Red Sox committed four errors in the first game, but beat the Cardinals anyway, Thomas might have recommended that fans “Rage, rage, against the booting of the balls.”
By the second game, though, Thomas might have found out that they sell beer in the stands during baseball games, and that might have been that. He got a reputation pretty early in life as a “roistering, drunken and doomed poet” — but he probably did all he could to encourage that reputation, too. He peaked quite early as a poet, and had quite a few pieces published while he was still a teenager. He was well known during his lifetime partly because he was not just a poet, he was also a popular voice performer on BBC radio.
Thomas was popular in the US too, where he traveled several times on speaking tours. He had a serious breathing problem during his 1953 trip to New York. Although it was never diagnosed, it was probably pneumonia. he used an inhaler, complained about blackouts, and was generally ill. When he got to New York, the air pollution was so bad that it had already killed 200 people. Thomas went drinking, and when he got back to his hotel claimed “I’ve had 18 straight whiskies. I think that’s the record!” The bartender, though, said he hadn’t had anywhere near that much. His breathing got worse and he was admitted to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where he died the next day at the age of 39, having never attended a baseball game.
John Cleese was just 14 when Dylan Thomas passed away, and since he was born in England, he probably hadn’t seen a baseball game by then either. He probably did know that he shared Thomas’ birthday though. About the Red Sox and their 86-year history of failure, he might have pointed out that the team’s front office was to blame. Instead of trying to win, “…decisions are made by persons whose main concern is not losing their jobs. That’s why they’re so cowardly and gutless and contemptible.” When the Red Sox made four more errors in Game 2, but again won anyway, he would have pointed out that the parrot wasn’t dead at all, only sleeping. When Matt Morris walked the leadoff hitter for the Sox in the fifth inning, it definitely qualified as a silly walk, because Morris was benched and Cal Eldred took over as the pitcher. Cleese thought cricket was far more interesting anyway.
Fran Lebowitz was born on October 27th too. She’s almost the prototypical New York writer although she hardly writes at all any more because of her severe writer’s block. If she follows baseball at all, she would almost certainly prefer the Yankees to the Red Sox. In Game 3, when Pedro Martinez pitched for the Red Sox and held the Cardinals scoreless for seven innings, she was probably bitter — the Sox had, after all, beaten the Yankees to get to the series. “You can be nasty when you’re young,” she’s pointed out, “but you really have to be older to achieve bitterness.”
The Red Sox won the fourth game of the series as well, taking the whole thing in four straight games. At least I think it was four straight; math can be daunting, but as Lebowitz says, “In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.” When Game 4 arrived, Sox fans weren’t very confident. After all, they had 86 years of failure to remember, so they tended to be anxious. “There is no such thing as inner peace,” according to Lebowitz. “There is only nervousness or death. Any attempt to prove otherwise constitutes unacceptable behavior.” But the behavior of the Red Sox in Game 4 would have even cheered up Sylvia Plath (who, of course, was also born on October 27th). She was a confessional poet and novelist, and was clinically depressed for most of her life.
Plath won a position in 1950 as a guest editor of “Mademoiselle” magazine in her third year at Smith College, and spent a month in New York (Fran Lebowitz wrote for Mademoiselle too). While she was there, Dylan Thomas was too — one of her favorite writers. An editor tried to set up a meeting with Thomas, but it didn’t come together. Plath hung around the Chelsea Hotel for a couple of days trying to see Thomas, but it turned out he had already left. She was as devastated as a Cardinals fan might have been after the first inning of Game 4, when Johnny Damon hit a home run to give the Sox the lead. Or she might have been as devastated as a Red Sox fan might have been realizing that the game was taking place on October 27, the anniversary of Game 7 of the 1986 World Series. That was the one where the Red Sox were in the lead by three runs in the sixth inning, only to lose the game and the series to the Mets. “I have done it again.” Plath wrote in “Lady Lazarus,” “One year in every ten / I manage it.”
But as it turned out, the Red Sox kept their lead. And now for something completely different: they won.
