Lock the Curse In the Other Room

Pitching Like Dinner at Hoy Hing Was On The Line

In 1993, they kept me in the other room.
It was the last game of the Phillies-Braves playoff series, and my friends Aaron and James had decided I was cursed. Every time I looked at the television, things went horribly wrong for the Phillies. So in the middle of the 6th, they - and James looks like the offspring of Reggie White and Ian Anderson - picked me up off the couch in James' basement apartment where we were watching the game (over takeout from Hoy Hing, the greatest greasy wok joint in Boston at the time, but I digress), slung me into James' bedroom, and shut the door. After each pitch they told me what had happened - "Roger Mason threw a fastball. Roger Mason threw a fastball. Roger Mason threw a fastball. Roger Mason threw a fastball" - but they wouldn't budge a bit when I pounded on the door and demanded to be let out.
Eventually, the game ended. The Phillies won. They let me out. And I wondered, just a little bit, if they were right - that I was some kind of a jinx.
You do that when you're young, overcaffeinated, overbeered, sleep deprived, and in grad school. You generally grow out of it when you hit the real world, encounter the laws of causation and probability first hand, and realize that there is absolutely nothing you do at home, watching on television, that affects what happens on the field.
Tonight, I turned on the Yankees-Orioles game while I was cleaning up the kitchen. It was a 2-2 tie when I turned on the televison. It was not a 2-2 tie ten seconds later.
Aaron, James, I think I owe you guys an apology. And maybe one for Roger Mason, too.