Last night, Mookie Betts treated us to a 13 pitch at-bat, before hitting a Grand Slam into Lansdowne Street. It was the 10th straight win for the Sox, who are now 37 games above .500 for the first time, apparently, since 1949, the year I was born. And there are still three games to go before the All Star break.
 
In a week which has seen England’s defeat in the semi-final of the World Cup, the Trump visit, the Brexit shambles descending to new depths, and my apparent inability to write anything worthwhile about the 1871 Paris Commune, I can rely on the Sox to provide some measure of cheer as I fall asleep with Dirty Water flowing through my head.
 
The Town Nine are on pace for a 113-win season. Which sounds insane, but is possible. It really could happen!
 
Not least because the last few months have seen many things come to pass which sounded insane on first hearing. And we need something to focus on at a time when the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. 

​Which brings us to inexorably to Boris Johnson.

What rough beast is he, slouching towards Bethlehem to be reborn?
 
Of course, Johnson manages to lack all conviction and simultaneously be full of passionate intensity. His allegiance is only to himself, his ego and his ambition. His resignation was prompted only by his fear of being out-flanked in a future Tory leadership race by David Davis of all people.
 
As Aung San Suu Kyi pointed out, Lord Acton got it wrong.

“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it …”.

Johnson is an opportunist who sees his opportunity disappearing and will grasp any nettle to retain it.
 
I am not denying his intelligence, although he does a good job of concealing it. But as Harold Wilson confessed, the trouble with his first cabinet was that there were too many Oxford firsts around the table: a classical education is no longer a useful attribute in politics. And despite my admiration for Mike Duncan’s podcasts, I am not convinced that there are many parallels to be drawn between the situation now and the end of the Roman republic. And if there are, they are not instructive.
 
It may be difficult to conceive of a situation where Johnson outside the tent is less dangerous than inside, but I fear that will be the case.
 
His only roadplan now is for a disaster. He is hoping for disaster. He is counting on disaster. And he will work hard to ensure that the disaster happens. Regardless of the cost to his colleagues and the country.
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: I have never been convinced by Mark Knopfler, but some recent listening has made me reconsider. My issue, it appears, was not with Knopfler per se but with Dire Straits. The listening has been the complete Dylan/Knopfler recordings – outtakes, alternatives and rehearsals - posted by Mat Brewster recently. Quite excellent.

Today from the everysmith library: Reading Rick Gekoski's A Long Island Story. This is the difficult second album after the triumph of Darke, and I am not finding it easy. I will return to it, maybe next time.

It was midnight UK time when the Sox surrendered the last out and an Opening Day defeat to the Rays.
 
It had all started so well. The Sox arrived in St Petersburg after a short bus ride from Fenway South, with a 22-9 record in the pre-season. They were looking good. And they continued to do so for seven and half innings. Sale was awesome, nine strike-outs, six shut-out innings. The hitting was fine. A Laurel and Hardy moment in the Rays’ outfield gave Nunez an inside-the-park home run. Barnes pitched a 1-2-3.
 
To be honest, it was all pretty routine. A good day at the office. What could possibly go wrong?
 
Pretty much everything. This is why we watch sport, because you couldn’t predict what happened. No-one could expect the implosion that followed, not even the Red Sox Nation, and we’ve seen it all over the years.
 
Kelly couldn’t throw a strike. He walked three. Carson Smith was no better, unable to get what he’s paid for, ground ball double plays rather than the triple that he did manage. Suddenly, we had conceded six runs. All the walks came home to roost. Why was the outfield so shallow?
 
Should Cora have called up young Bobby Poyner, a lefty but someone who has never pitched outside of Double A? Should he have brought in Kimbrel, the best closer in the MLB who he had talked about using in non-save situations?
 
By the time he had Poynter warming up, it was too late. We’d lost the game. Kimbrel never got up from the bench.
 
So far, so Red Sox. Defeat from the jaws of victory. Criticism of the coach for in-game decisions. Relief pitchers blowing a lead. It’s happened before, back on Opening Day 2003, against the same club. The same 4-0 lead from Pedro. The same final score. I remember it well, as I will remember this Opening Day.
 
But there are 161 games to go. And I like the look of the Town Nine this year. I’ve watched a fair number of the Spring Training games, and although I have to keep telling myself that it is only Spring Training, the record was good and the way we won those 22 games was even better.
 
I know that I will have issues with some of Cora’s decisions. It’s all pretty obvious from where I’m sitting, on my sofa, with a glass of wine at hand. It’s a great deal harder from the dugout.
 
Kelly has never walked more than two in his whole career. Smith will get his command back. Cora had every right to expect better than they gave him.
 
So do we.
 
And we’ll get it. We have a powerful line-up. We have a great defense. When they’re all fit, we have a great rotation. And we have JD.
 
What could possibly go wrong?


Today from the everysmith vaults: The Dead on their first 'trip' to the UK and a crazy weekend at the Hollywood Festival outside Newcastle under Lyme. I've had a couple of AUDs for a while, but this is primarily SBD and it seems that the sound guys managed to keep their heads while all around them (including me) were losing theirs!

Coverage of Game 7 of the World Series on my iPad was interrupted by a succession of noisy news notifications. The defence secretary, the Right Honourable Sir Michael Fallon KCB MP, had resigned for ‘inappropriate behaviour’ a decade or so ago, although it now appears that his closet also contains skeletons which date from more recent times.
 
Overnight, on Thursday, it was not difficult to ignore these news flashes. A Game 7 is a rare treat regardless of one’s allegiance and the preceding six had given us baseball at its best. I have sympathy for Dave Roberts, who stole one of the most significant bases in Red Sox history, but I am delighted for Houston, a club which has switched leagues and reinvented itself over the last four years. In Altuve, they have a brilliant player for whom I voted as AL MVP. In Verlander, they have a pitcher who deserves the Cy Young. And in Houston, they have a fan base which has stuck with them throughout the rebuilding process and deserves gloating rights over the Sox and the Yankees, both of whom they beat on the way to the ALCS.
 
The following morning, however, our focus was on the activities of the dishonourable members and the shambles which is our Parliament and our government.
 
Given the recent stories about similar activity in the creative and corporate worlds, one might think that this is Parliament reflecting its constituencies and the electorate at large. But it isn’t.
 
It is about power, and the abuse of power. It is about a very particular culture which casts a shadow over our political and economic institutions. It is about the bubble in which they operate.
 
It manifests itself in different ways. Sir Fred Goodwin, for example, treated RBS as a plaything, with corporate jets flying him across the world for Formula 1 events and the pursuit of vanity projects. His victims were employees, shareholders and the global financial system.
 
In the case of Weinstein, Fallon and their ilk, the victims are women.
 
An excuse has been ventured by some. The BBC’s Nick Robinson tweeted that: “Admirer of Fallon says alcohol is a power drug which turns some into a Jekyll & Hyde”. I guess he – or the  ‘admirer of Fallon’ - means Hyde, because even in Dr Jekyll mode, Fallon was a deeply unpleasant politician. But as someone who is not averse to a glass of red myself, I know that alcohol invariably provokes an exaggerated version of the original, minimising the inhibitions of normal social behaviour, and creating a personal dissonance. There is some sense to the maxim of in vino veritas.  And if it’s not there in the first place, it can’t be spewed out after a large glass of Shiraz.
 
I am not singling out Fallon because he is a Tory. It would appear that Labour has its own problems in this regard. And he is joining an ignominious list of those corrupted by power: Trump, Nixon, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Berlusconi, Gaddafi, Kim Jong-Il to name merely a few which spring immediately to mind.
 
Years ago, we used to joke that anyone who wanted the highest office should be barred on psychological grounds; that the desire for power was a symptom of a malaise which makes them unfit to exercise it.
 
Maybe it’s not a joke after all. It’s certainly not funny.

Today from the everysmith vaults: 30 Days of Dead from Deadnet. A new track for each day during November, a series now in its seventh year. Currently I'm on 2014.

The season ended after 166 games with another American League East title but also another ignominious exit in the divisional series. Marginally better than last year (we won a game!) but still not what we expect. For many clubs, it would have been an acceptable season. Not for us. In the Red Sox Nation, we expect more and better even if we accept each pitching failure, each inability to convert a bases loaded, no outs situation into runs, with a sense of resignation which is born of long and bitter experience.
 
It’s an essential part of our culture, almost a tradition. And, as tradition dictates, the knives must now come out.
 
Last night, my twitter feed was almost exclusively red: red pepper, red labour, red sox, red sox nation; the former preoccupied with changing the course of Brexit, the latter with changing the structure of a club which, put simply, isn’t good enough.
 
There are calls for the firing of Dave Dombrowski and/or John Farrell: “a fish rots from the head down” said one tweeter. There are attacks on David Price: “a sullen presence in the clubhouse”. There are references to our inability to replace Papi and incredulity that Dombrowski believed that Sandoval and Ramirez could do so. There is criticism of Porcello’s reversion to type after a Cy Young season in 2016, together with Sale’s decline in the final weeks of the regular season and, related to this, concern about the effectiveness of Carl Willis as pitching coach.
 
There’s a great deal more, but these are the principal issues, at least on my twitter feed. And I haven’t made it to Boston this year, so I haven’t picked up a sense of the zeitgeist in the city itself. But here’s my long distance view from the baseball desert that is Leamington Spa, England:
 
Farrell should go.
 
I know he has a World Series and two ALE titles. But he also has two last places. I know he’s a nice guy – a friend of Tito’s is a friend of mine – and the bar staff in the Island Creek Oyster Bar speak highly of him. It’s also clear that he has the back of his players, as we saw last night with Pedroia and as we recognized, with some embarrassment, during the Pricegate affair.
 
But I’m not convinced that he is the man to handle Dombrowski’s “win-now” line-up. (Actually, I’m not convinced by the Dombrowski approach at all, but that’s another issue.) As readers of my baseball posts know, I was not in favour of his appointment in the first place and regret Lovullo’s departure deeply. He was a great bench coach under Farrell, and there was a real buzz in Boston when he took over as Farrell recovered from cancer. This year, Lovullo has taken the unfancied D-backs to the play-offs, achieving pretty much the same record as the Sox with significantly fewer resources.
 
We can all second guess specific decisions – why did Sale come out for that final inning last night? – and it’s not Farrell’s fault that Price got injured.
 
But my sense is that the Sox need a shake-up to succeed next year. And the departure of Farrell would be the catalyst for that shake-up.
 
And his replacement?
 
The man for whom we all have total admiration and respect: the awesome legend that is Jason Varitek.

Today from the everysmith vaults: Jorma and Rick Danko playing together in a show from 1987. 

When Theresa May announced her ‘snap’ election, we were a dozen games into the season with the Sox riddled with with ‘flu-like symptoms’ and bereavements; but we had still managed a respectable if Priceless start to the season.
 
Inevitably, the decision to call an election changed my plans for April, May and June. I had scheduled some late nights with the Sox on mlb.tv interspersed by a few trips to see Bob on the UK leg of the current European tour.
 
I am on schedule with this, taking in the excellent series against the Cubs and the less than excellent series against the Yankees, together with – the highlight of the last few months - a show at the London Palladium in which Bob was playful and passionate, full of energy and irony.
 
I was fortunate enough to be close to the front and right in Bob’s eyeline as he sat at his baby grand piano, which he treated as if it were a battered upright in a public bar.

Jill and I are heading to Bournemouth – “I married Isis on the fifth day of May” – to see him again at the end of this week, when and where we hope the weather holds and we are able, as we did the last time Bob played Bournemouth, to walk along the beach after the show and eat crab sandwiches, washed down with a glass of Sauvignon, silhouetted by the sea and very probably with one hand waving free.
 
If all this sounds idyllic, and it has been and will be, we mustn’t forget that the country is currently in crisis. My days have been preoccupied with politics – leafleting, talking, discussing and arguing about the future.
 
I think that we have reached the pits as far as political debate is concerned, with the Tory campaign reduced to personal abuse of Corbyn and robotic reiterations of the nonsensical phrase ‘strong and stable government’ when they are clearly being neither strong nor stable and governing only in name.
 
Their refusal to discuss policy or take on their opponents, and the refusal of the mainstream press to report this or hold them to account, is not merely a cause for concern, but a denial of democracy. Just thinking about it keeps me awake at night.
 
But being awake at night allows me to watch the Sox.
 
Despite the games against Detroit, each of which could easily have gone the other way, and the Yankees, we are, as I write at the beginning of May, only a game back from where were this time last year. There is much about which to take heart: the unsupported pitching of Sale and Porcello and the emergence of Eddie Rodriguez. There is, of course, an equal number of problems., particularly Wright. When a knuckleballer loses it, he loses it big time and that is happening with Wright – I hope tonight proves me wrong.
 
But the big issue is the hitting.

We are miles away from the production of last year and we have no Papi to bail us out of the slump. But we are playing a new game, a National League game, and managing to get on base regularly and frequently. The runs will surely come. The wins will surely come. And from hovering just over the .500 mark, we will be right up there by the end of this month.
 
Keep the faith.
 
In music, in politics, in baseball, what goes around, comes around.
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: Bob - but not Triplicate, which I’m afraid is proof that one can have too much of a good thing. From my speakers, I am hearing 1975 Rolling Thunder. In my head, I am listening to this newly animated manifestation of a Bob who, remarkably, celebrates his 76th birthday in three weeks but is performing with the same energy as he showed us back in the '60s.

​Two postponements and two games in and we are .500 - won one, lost one.  Game one was excellent in every respect. Price pitched well. Papi hit a homer. Mookie hit a homer and pulled off a great defensive play. Game two was marred by the starting pitching: Buckholtz blew it. But that’s Buckholtz being Buckholtz.
 
The important thing is that we are underway. This is real. So what follows is not my belated season projections. I’ve done those for the last ten years and, to be honest, they have been more an expression of hopes and aspirations than detailed statistical analysis. There are guys who can do that sort of thing a great deal better than I can, and their projections are as wrong as often as my dreams.
 
Watching the first two games here in Europe was exhilarating and, despite the loss, my dream of the play-offs is intact. It may be all about the pitching, but these guys can hit. We out-hit Cleveland in both games and, in each game, scored six runs against good pitching. The Sox are hitting .288 with an .896 OPS. And that’s without any contribution from Xander who is 0 for 9 as I write.
 
I predict that he will get his first hit tonight, backing up the power sinkers of Joe Kelly who had a great spring training. It’s a midnight start for those of us over here but, if the games against Toronto in Montreal are anything to go by, it will be worth the sleep deficit. One of my favourite non-Sox players, Josh Donaldson, will be back to add a frisson to the occasion and anyway the next two games are scheduled for lunchtime. Which is 6pm in the UK and 7pm in France. I’ll be watching the NESN feed on mlb.tv and despite my total admiration for Don Orsillo, I am beginning to warm to OB, even if he hasn’t yet learned that on television rather than radio, sometimes you don’t have to say anything.
 
But all this will pale into insignificance next week when I land at Logan, dump my bag at the Parker House and head up to Fenway Park. I’ve schlepped across the Common and down Commonwealth Ave many times, but 'fanatics have their dreams' and arriving at Fenway is still a dream come true for someone isolated in the baseball desert that is Europe.
 
In my dream, the Sox win their fourth Series this century; Papi has a 30+ HR year (he’s already ahead of schedule!); Price performs consistently like the ace we know he is and is backed up the rest of the rotation; Hanley settles into competence at first and hits for power; Mookie continues to demonstrate that he is potentially one of the greats; Xander comes good; JBJ shows on a daily basis that he is one of the great defensive outfielders in the game today; and the bullpen does its job – don’t think my heart could manage another season like 2015.
 
As for Sandoval, well - sorry Pablo. I really want to be wrong about you, but you don’t figure in my dream at all right now.
 
Realistically? I think we will make the play-offs and then who knows?
 
Not me. I just dream.

Today from the everysmith vaults: Some Merle Haggard, Melancholy Mood from the forthcoming Fallen Angels, but primarily Peter Green and the 1970 manifestation of Fleetwood Mac. Whatever happened to that band? They were good ...

When Tito went, I wasn’t happy, but I understood. It was the right decision from the point of view of both parties. When Theo went, I recognised that it was time. When Nomar went, I was distraught but accepted that it was the right trade, and so it proved. Even when we failed to sign Lester, I acknowledged the thinking behind the decision.
 
But there is no logic, no reason, no justification for the sacking of Don Orsillo.
 
Before the introduction of mlb.tv, being a baseball fan in Europe was a lonely and frustrating life. Box scores were almost our only information and sometimes even they were unobtainable. The International Herald Tribune would give the scores from games played the day before yesterday, leaving us to do the sums on standings and stats.

But the internet changed all that. Suddenly, and for the cost of a seat in a loge box down the first base line, we could watch every game, home and away, regular season and post-season. We could tune in at midnight and be taken to Fenway or the Busch Stadium or Camden Yards or Yankee Stadium to watch our beloved Sox.
 
And the voice of the NESN feed on these broadcasts was Don Orsillo, the doyen of play-by-play announcers. His is the only voice I have known in this context. It was a voice which was full of wit and wisdom and warmth. It was a voice which perfectly complemented the gravelly Marlborough Red tones of Jerry Remy.
 
I watched and listened to their final broadcast together, from Progressive Field in Cleveland, on a rickety wi-fi feed in a budget hotel in the centre of France. The Sox lost, but for once, this was not the focus of my attention. I wanted to be present when Don made his last call. And I was, in spirit, even though I was physically located nearly four thousand miles away. He had been dignified and silent over the long weeks since the abrupt announcement. He had acknowledged the fans and the players at his final Fenway broadcast, but this was the finale.
 
To be fair to NESN (although why should we be?), they peppered the breaks with classic moments. Jerry Remy appeared the more emotional. The game itself – actually not a bad game despite the result – took second place. And then it happened.
 
As the Sox saluted him, he said: “Orsillo rounding third and heading home. Unbelievably, I wave to the Red Sox for a final time. Thank you, boys.”
 
Unbelievably is right.

The 2016 season is going to be very different. I can see some real reasons for optimism next year: Xander, JBJ, Mookie, Castillo, Eddie Rodriguez. I have enjoyed the second half immensely. On the field, it’s been fun. But in the booth and on my iPad screen, this cloud has been hovering. I admire Dave O’Brien a great deal. I am sure he will do a great job. But it won’t be the same.
 
Jerry was speaking for every fan and especially those of us the baseball desert which is Europe when he said: “I want to thank you for all the fun moments we’ve had and the friendship.”
 
Me too. Thank you, Don, for your professionalism and your vicarious friendship.

​Next year, once in a while, I will tune into mlb.tv and click on the San Diego game. Just to hear your voice and remember the last dozen years.

Today from the everysmith vaults: I am gearing up for the imminent release of the Bootleg Series Volume 12 by listening to an extraordinary boxed set of 14 CDs entitled 1965 Revisited. It includes everything Bob recorded in that annus mirabilis. Much will doubtless be incorporated into the The Cutting Edge but I can't be sure I will win the lottery to buy it.

There are very few compensations for being parted from Jill for a couple of weeks, but on my recent sojourn in the UK for family reasons (Leamington Letters #96), I benefitted from at least two.

The first was the final three Grateful Dead shows at Soldier Field, Chicago. Jill not only missed the bus, but when she saw it, she jumped in a cab and disappeared in the opposite direction. 

So the fact that all three shows were available as a modestly-priced stream allowed me to indulge myself in the early hours of the mornings of Saturday, Sunday and Monday before watching the Sunday show for a second time at the Showcase Cinema on Monday night in the company of 300 or so local Deadheads. The sight of a motley crew of ageing groovers, some (though not me) in tie-dye, attempting to relive and celebrate their past must have been quite a revelation to the youngsters heading for Jurassic World, Minions and Magic Mike XXL, especially as I – a month short of 66 years of age – was one of the youngest in attendance. But hey, love-is-love-and-not-fade-away.

The Stalinist Deadheads have given these gigs some serious stick, but I enjoyed Friday and Sunday a lot. (Saturday less so, but then I was never a fan of Saturday shows – too many songs!) Lesh, Weir, Kreutzmann and Hart can still do it. Trey is not note-for-note Jerry but closer in spirit than the likes of John Kadlecik and, although I never embraced any of the Dead keyboard players after Keith, if I had to choose one, it would be Bruce Hornsby. And if you had to choose just one song from the entire run, it would be Cassidy on Sunday. Quite beautiful. Every component playing as one. Will never tire of it thanks to Bill Walker and NYCTaper.

So, a fitting celebration of 50 years of the Grateful Dead and of course, for me, a celebration of 47 years of my own life – and somehow appropriate that it took place in the early hours of the morning: much of my listening to Anthem of the Sun and Aoxomoxoa, for example, took place in seedy undergraduate rooms during those hours in the company of other nighthawks.

These days, of course, if I am still around at that time, it is because of the Red Sox. I am getting too old to live entire summers on Eastern Standard Time, so I welcome lunchtime games at Fenway. And I certainly welcomed the games played during my Jill-less fortnight. The Sox actually won four successive games and started playing the kind of baseball we expect.

We are still in the basement of a pretty poor ALE, of course. And there are many causes for concern. But it is a positive pleasure to see Mookie and Bogey proving that they are no longer prospects but accomplished ballplayers. Eddie Rodriguez has been sensational and really looks the part. Clay is, as Rick Hough pointed out to me, “more Mississippi John Hurt than John Lee Hooker” but he has pitched superbly before this latest trip to the DL. Ramirez is a great DH in waiting if we can sort out how to play Papi (maybe at 1st a couple of times a week?) and it is no accident that our W total has improved since the return of Ryan Hanigan. He’s not ‘Tek, but he’s very, very good.

As things stand, the morning after beating the Yankees last night (and as England beat Australia), I am not optimistic of a Red October. I think the season is over from that point of view. But these guys are good enough to give us a lot of fun times between now and then. And I have been spectacularly wrong before. I hope I am this year.

One thing I know, though: Dead shows and Sox wins don't compensate for being parted from Ms Every! 

Today from the everysmith vaults: Not, at this moment, one of the Chicago Fare Thee Well shows, but the first Santa Clara gig and What’s become of the baby? – an extraordinary piece which I had never heard live before and, to be honest, never thought such a thing was possible.

 

At the end of last season, the Sox were in the basement. But over the winter, they’ve been mixin’ up the medicine big time, moving the payroll up to the $200 million mark with the signings of Sandoval, Ramirez, Porcello, Miley et al.

And things are looking good as a result.

I haven’t been able to watch as many of the spring training games as I would have liked – though more, I suspect, than another English Sox fan, Ed Miliband – but what I have seen is encouraging. There is no doubt that this team can hit. A line-up which runs Betts, Pedroia, Ortiz, Ramirez, Sandoval, Napoli, Victorino, Bogaerts, Hanigan is going to score runs. Lots of them.

And it is not merely because of that middle-of-the-order power trio of Papi, Panda and Hanley. It’s because Pedroia is looking like his old self, because the colossus Mike Napoli can get some sleep, because Victorino is back.

Most of all, it’s because of Markus Lynn Betts, the man whose initials spell out his future (similar to Michael Colin Cowdrey, the England cricket captain). Their parents knew the destiny of their offspring.

Mookie is one of the most exciting rookies I have ever seen. His spring training has been nothing short of sensational. And although Farrell is properly cautious about throwing the kids in too early (Swihart, for example), there is no doubt that Mookie is the real thing right now, hitting .458 with .490 on base percentage in Florida last time I checked.

There is good reason to believe that the Sox can do it this year simply by scoring more runs, however many they concede. But in fact, I am not as sceptical as many about our rotation. I have seen them all, and at this stage of the year, they are all looking fine.

So no, we don’t need Hamels.

But we may need a closer. I am unclear what is going on with Koji’s hamstring. And I am unconvinced by Mujica. But then I was unconvinced by Koji when he first took the role, after we had flirted with Bailey, Hanrahan and Tazawa. We’ve got an extremely strong bullpen. Maybe one of them will step up in the same way as Uehara did.

The catching? It’s heart-breaking to see Vasquez on his way for Tommy Jones surgery before his season has already started. But I am confident that Hanigan can do a good job for us. He’s caught a couple of no-hitters in his time. He knows what he’s doing. And Swihart is sitting in Pawtucket –  are the Pawsox still in Pawtucket? – if we need help.

And if we do, we’ve got Brock – should have been our MVP last year – ready to play almost anywhere. We’ve got JBJ, the best centre field in the AL last year. And we’ve got the likes of Henry Owens, and Barnes and Johnson honing their talents in Triple-A.

So are we once again going to go from worst to first? Are we ready for another season which goes into October?

As Ed Miliband might say, “Hell yes, we’re ready”. And so will I be at 9pm UK time on Monday.

Today from the everysmith vault: As I write this, I am listening to the Floyd in Oakland in 1977. But what will take me through to first pitch on Monday evening will be the debut of the new combination of The Swaps and The Rosenberg Appeal, playing live in Wilde's on Easter Sunday. 

This year, the last game of the regular season really did mark the end of the summer. I watched it in a hotel bar in Beaune, Burgundy, with a very tolerable Haut Côtes de Nuit but without much enthusiasm, at our half-way point between St Quentin and Leamington Spa.

When the schedule was announced, there was - at least in this household - a frisson of expectation: the Sox were to finish the season with a series at Fenway against the Evil Empire, during which Derek Jeter would make his final appearance. It could have been something very special. But, in the event, we knew three months ago that the Sox had nothing to play for and a couple of weeks prior that the Yankees were also out of contention even for the second Wild Card.

2014 is the first season for years that neither the Sox nor the Yankees had an interest in the playoffs. And the Sox had the worst record of any World Series Champions since the Marlins in 2004. But they had been out scored by the Yankees in '03 and Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell were by then in a Sox uniform.

So this year has been frankly appalling, although it never felt that bad. Day to day, I don’t think many of us thought for a moment that we were watching anything as poor as the Valentine year, even though statistically they are virtually the same. In fact, it was the desire to win more games than in 2012 that kept many of us rooting for the Sox right to the end. And, to be fair, this was a likeable bunch of guys. Even as the gods of baseball punished us for the hubris of 2013, they kept playing and - mostly - smiling.

Especially the kids.

It's been a real pleasure to see so many make the journey from Pawtucket and show us that they can do it in the majors. I think that in Christian Vazquez we have a catcher who can read a game, throw and hit. In Mookie Betts (MLB), we have a tremendous prospect at second or in the outfield. In JBJ, we have a defensive centre fielder as good as Jacoby and I am convinced that he will learn to hit. Bogey has not performed as well as I expected at short, but watching the Yankees series made me realise that we are not missing Drew. You've only got to see what happened to the As without Cespedes (and with Lester) to appreciate his importance to a team, and Castillo appears to have the talent and the class to make a major contribution next year.

The pitching situation is more complex. I still hope to see Jon back, but heard this morning that he has put his Massachussetts home on the market. The Andrew Miller trade was against my advice, and although I have always had respect for Workman, he didn't seem to make progress this year. Tazawa worries me each time he comes to the mound and I fear that Koji will need careful nurturing if he is to play a role next year. But I do like the look of Joe Kelly and Anthony Ranaudo; less keen on de la Rosa. We’ll see. And we will see also if Matt Barnes is ready early in May or June.

So. From worst to first and from first to worst. Is our self destruction as unexpected as the triumph of the Os this year?

For me, it is. At the beginning of 2013, I was almost alone in predicting a winning Sox. This year, I got it totally wrong. In fact, you needed to reverse my ALE predictions to get close to what actually happened. It has been the story of Os. And, if only for my lovely and much missed friend Michelle, I am pleased for the people of Baltimore and I hope they go far enough this October to lose to the Giants in the World Series.

Of course, other things have happened this summer. We have had a sensational time in France: probably the best ever for Jill and pretty good for me, even if I was to-ing and fro-ing between the two countries. We have had a great time with old and new friends, enjoying the ball games even when we were losing.

That's important. In a summer in which I reached the pensionable age of 65, I know that there is more to life than winning.

The Sox had not won a World Series for eight decades when they gained my allegiance. That they have subsequently been World Series champions three times is wondrous. Generations of Sox fans did not see their team win. I have three World Series rings in my memory bank. But that is not why I watch so many games in the early hours of the morning, why I fly across to Boston to see them at Fenway.

I support the Sox because they are central to a community, because they are vulnerable, because thousands of us schlep to Fenway night after night to see the Town Nine play ball with passion and commitment and skill and joy.

Summer is over. I hope the Giants do it again, not least for Bob Bradley. And then, after four months of a baseball desert, it will be summer again. Fenway and France beckon.

Today from the everysmith vaults: Dirty Water by The Standells, from the Nuggets anthology. Original artefacts from the psychedelic era and the soundtrack to a win at Fenway.