I used to write more about baseball. Well, maybe not baseball specifically, but my life as baseball season started, and began, as spring turned to summer, to have more and more of an impact on my day-to-day life. Whether it was a sleepless night staying up to watch a loss, or the elation in the morning of the discovery of a victory, and the voracious consumption of articles and game recaps in its wake. The Red Sox form the cornerstone of my spring, summer, and hopefully a bit of autumn. As sports go, baseball’s pace makes for good life metaphors in writing, and it frames life in this time nicely.

However, over the last few years I’ve not been able to keep up the way I used to. Even staying up to watch the first inning of east coast game is a little too late for someone battling MS-induced fatigue. And without the temptation of the first inning, there are fewer opportunities to lose myself in a game until 3 or 4 in the morning. The timing’s not been too bad for this drift from the day-to-day. The team’s been awful for three out of the last four years (the anomaly of those four, the championship in 2013, is one of my favourite seasons of baseball ever). I can’t hold it too much against them. I’ve not been on best form either. We all go through bad stretches.

Against the Orioles a couple of weeks ago we lost and looked awful and I watched it and bitched about how that was the last game we wouldn’t have a losing record. We were doomed this season, just like the two before. Fellow fan and old friend Alex called me out on it, slapping me with a “typical Boston fan pessimist” label that irked me. An exchange on Twitter later and he coined the idea of “An Optimist’s Guide to the Red Sox”. I liked the name. He said that was the sort of Red Sox blog he wanted to read.

And so that’s the Red Sox blog I started. Because writing a new book, funding an old one, and writing another blog wasn’t enough, apparently. No, I had to start a Red Sox blog as well. And not just any Red Sox blog, but one I have to update every day. Because the point of this new blog is to look at the bright sides of every single Red Sox game this season. I didn’t start at the beginning, to be honest. I think it was game 7 that I started. And I’ve done 13 thus far. So there are only 142 more to go, not including the playoffs (as of right now, we’re tied for an AL wildcard, so there’d be a playoff). That's a lot of baseball to write about.

It’s crazy and stupid. Sort of a 6-month NaNoWriMo (and yes, I’m writing a novel at the same time). But it’s a different sort of writing than I’ve done before, and deadlines and restrictions can be good things. So here I go. If you’re interested in baseball, optimism, writers out of their comfort zone and hitting “post” before their first cup of coffee, you should check it out. It’s on Tumblr. And it will be updated until the Red Sox’s season is over, whenever that may be.

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