Letters

Sox-ual Healing

From the moment I woke up on the morning of Oct. 28, I've been searching. Searching for something to convince me that the Red Sox were finally World Series champions, for something that would fully allow me to feel, undeniably, that 86 years worth of torture and sadness had ended for millions of people around the world. I bought every area newspaper and poured through dozens of articles about the victory. I watched hours of postgame interviews and spent way too much money on photographs and posters. I even watched the victory parade and the MLB World Series DVD, and those came close but didn't quite do the trick. Well, I finally found my something. Tom Verducci's Sportsmen of the Year (Dec. 6) is a beautiful article, written with respect, kindness and admiration for not only Red Sox Nation but also all sports fans everywhere. It is everything that is right about sports. Thank you for letting this lifelong Red Sox fan finally feel it.

Charlie Wood Westport, Mass.

As an avid cycling fan and LIVESTRONG-wearing husband of a cancer survivor, I was so dismayed you passed over Lance Armstrong as Sportsman of the Year that I turned the award show off when the winners were announced. Then, after resisting at first, I read Verducci's article. It is a story so rich with tortured perseverance, hope against hope and finally the realization of a collective, lifelong dream that it transcends sports and becomes not a story about an athlete or a team but an allegory for the triumph of the human spirit. You made an absolutely brilliant selection.

Chris Youhn, Webster, Fla.

I would like to thank you for Robert Silvers's remarkable pictorial tribute to the Boston Red Sox. Only with two thousand pictures could your cover even begin to encompass the phenomenon that is Red Sox Nation.

Kyle Noble, East Greenwich, R.I.

Until Oct. 27 I had assumed that the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey gold medal would be the crowning moment of this fan's rooting existence. Wrong again. To many of us in Red Sox Nation--maybe even most of us--the 2004 Boston Red Sox are not merely the Sportsmen of the Year; they are our Sportsmen of a Lifetime.

John Hamblin, Medway, Mass.

Halfway through your article I realized that it was not the Red Sox team that was being honored as Sportsmen of the Year but rather the entire Red Sox Nation.