In all of my years extensively researching the subject, the only known negative side effect of drinking large amounts of alcohol is feeling like shit the next day. Although the booze induced nausea might not seem like it at the time, hangovers are a necessary evil. Hangovers are a nagging reminder of our humanity, and they’re there only to remind us that although we might have felt like it the night before, we are not invincible. Well it turns out ingesting booze for hours on end isn’t the only way to get a hangover. In the sports world, the term “championship hangover” is used to describe a team that won the championship the season before, and is now in a slump at the start of the following season. There have been countless examples of this throughout history, but one such glaring example of it is happening with my hometown team as we speak. I have had some terrible hangovers in my lifetime, but none of them compare in severity to the World Series hangover that the Boston Red Sox have right now.

Back in October of 2018, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the 4th time in my life. When you also consider the success of Boston’s other teams, spoiled doesn’t even begin to describe what my life as a fan has been like for 23 years. Like everybody else in New England, I was fucking thrilled. Our team looked great, and for the most part, everybody was staying next year to do it all again. The off-season didn’t cut too far into our depth, really only losing pitchers Joe Kelly and Craig Kimbrel, the latter of which was as shaky as jello in an earthquake during the playoffs. Needless to say, everybody was looking forward to Opening Day 2019, myself included.

But then Opening Day arrived, and our pitching staff decided that throwing batting practice to the Seattle Mariners was a solid game plan. We got our dicks kicked in so badly it came out of our asses, but as a fan base, we all just said “This was just a fluke” to comfort ourselves. But then our West Coast road trip continued, and so did our awful style of play. Our offense was as dead as my grandparents, and our pitchers continued to look as if they were showcasing their ability to lob strikes as a way of auditioning to pitch for this year’s Home Run Derby. Calling it a terrible start to the season does not do it justice, but fear not: Real Opening Day doesn’t happen until we play at Fenway. Starting the season with a West Coast roadtrip after winning The World Series was complete bullshit, and surely once The Red Sox received their World Series rings and were back in front of the hometown fans at Fenway, they would turn things around. “Of course that will happen” we all assured ourselves.

Well if you’ve been following along at all, things have not been going according to the aforementioned plan. Currently, we have half as many wins as we do losses, and we’re sitting 7.5 games back in our division. Furthermore, we lost some disgusting games in the stretch since returning to Fenway, AKA Real Opening Day. There were 3 notably bad losses in this stretch: 2 to the Orioles, and 1 to the Yankees. Starting with the Orioles, we lost one game 9-5 and another 8-1. I almost had to double check to make sure I was typing that correctly just now. The Baltimore Orioles? The team that had a historically bad season last year and became the earliest team to ever be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs? That team had us begging for mercy at Fenway? Jesus fucking Christ. Chris Davis was having one of the worst slumps of all time before he played us, and the Red Sox made him look like he was using powerups from Backyard Baseball. When he hit a homerun the other day, I turned off my TV and went for a walk around my neighborhood. Literally just walked around and mindlessly dragged my feet like mental patient roaming the grounds of the sanitarium, which is fitting because this team is driving me insane. I haven’t picked up a bat in 10 years, and I think even I would hit one onto Lansdowne Street at this point if I were on an opposing team.

Which brings us to our present series: The New York Yankees. The Yankees right now are more injury ridden than a polio hospital in the early 1900’s, yet the Red Sox somehow managed to lose 8 to zip to these cripples last night. First pitch for tonight’s game is in a few minutes, and with Happ on the mound, I honestly might fade the Sox and bet on the Yankees tonight. My ancestors are rolling in their graves, but money is more important than pride sometimes. Although with my betting luck, the Sox will probably win tonight just to spite my bet. With that in mind, it’s a win win situation for me really: I either I win my bet, or The Red Sox beat our oldest rival. A bet that I seemingly can’t lose?Count me the fuck in.

Which brings me back to the title, and I guess the point of this blog. I don’t know what needs to be done to remedy this situation, but this World Series hangover has got to go. I don’t know if World Series hangovers can be solved the same way as alcohol related ones, but let’s pull all of the known hangover tricks just in case. Here are a few suggestions:

-Put the whole team in a sauna to sweat it out

-Make them all chug Gatorade until their piss streams are rainbow colored

-Eat the greasiest plate of breakfast foods imaginable.

-Sit down in the shower until you feel better.

-Rip a dab pen and take a nap.

At this point, anything is a good idea to try to save this team. If a genie popped out of the Mountain Dew bottle I’m drinking right now and granted me 3 wishes, you can bet your tits one of those wishes would be for the Red Sox to stop sucking. If it doesn’t stop soon, I’m gonna be forced to drink away the pain and show up hungover to work every day this season, thus making their World Series hangover transcend over to me in the form of an actual hangover. So please, for the sake of my bank account, liver, and job productivity, sleep this World Series hangover off and get back to dominating the diamond.

Signed, every masshole

PS: Forgot to mention we released Blake Swihart, one of the most underutilized players in the entire league, earlier this week. Great. Fantastic. This is fun. I AM HAVING FUN