Monumental Red Sox collapse is my fault

Don’t blame Terry Francona for the Red Sox September swoon. As manager of a failed team, he didn’t under-manage.

And don’t blame Sox general manager Theo Epstein for putting together a baseball team that, in the end, didn’t have the cohesiveness to hold grip on a playoff spot, despite a nine-game lead at the beginning of September.

And don’t blame $142 million Carl Crawford or any of the other players for sub-par performances, especially in the clutch.

Blame me.

I’m the reason for the Red Sox monumentally, historically awful collapse.

I didn’t invest enough mojo, enough enthusiasm in the team this season.

I’m a Red Sox fan and a citizen of Red Sox Nation, but I failed in my duties as both a fan and a citizen.

My Red Sox cap should be confiscated. I should be stripped of my citizenship and deported.

As a true fan, you have to invest yourself into a team’s season. You have to care, not some of the time, but all of the time.

My normal contribution to a season is not heroic, by any means.

My contribution has been to get to at least one Red Sox game a year.

Usually, that means at Fenway Park in Boston, where a day or evening at the park is the equivalent of a monthly car payment.

A couple of times it meant taking in an away game, the Red Sox at Baltimore.

But it’s a tradition that I managed to keep up for many years: At least one game a year in person.

Until this year.

I didn’t make a game with either of my two adult children, which usually happens. I didn’t make a game with my wife, which usually happens.

It was a tradition that spanned a decade that included two World Series and almost the guarantee that they’d at least get into the playoffs.

Not this year.

Somehow, other parts of my life got in the way. Ultimately, I took my eye off the ball.

They started going into their September slide and I was selfishly thinking they would rebound, just as they did after their miserable start in April.

But they didn’t rebound. And I continued to go about my merry way, thinking that the unthinkable couldn’t happen.

But it did.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I won’t let it happen again. Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.

The sum of all our parts

In my research about Baby Boomer issues, I frequently comes across the phrases “second acts” and “encore careers.”

They refer to the idea that Baby Boomers will not retire in the fashion of their parents and grandparents.

When they “retire” from a job they might have had for a number of years, the expectation is that a lot of Baby Boomers will shift gears into a new career or profession that better reflects their passion:

The corporate lawyer, for example, who decides to open a bakery (and maybe the baker who decides to become a lawyer?)

I’m one of those Baby Boomers. I “retired” fairly early from a 30-plus career in newspapers.

And in the intervening three plus years I’ve been trying to determine exactly what my second act or encore career is going to be.

I’ve come to the realization that it’s no one act, no one career.

I’m currently the sum of several different acts and careers that I’ve managed to assemble to occupy my time, engage my brain, occasionally challenge my sensibilities and pay the bills.

It might be a little adult-onset ADD at play here, but I don’t think I can do just one thing these days.

I defined my newspaper career singularly through the blocks of years as a reporter, editor, director of operations.

But I define my post-newspaper career as a mish-mash of different jobs, different roles happening all at the same time.

I am, at once, a writer, editor, data miner, blogger, web site updater, newspaper industry consultant, surfer, golfer and lay-about.

All suit me, all at once, sometimes on the same day.

I had an experience recently where I was hired to do a consulting job for a newspaper consolidation project in Ohio, and I was terminated from the job within 10 days.

There were differing expectations of the role I would bring to the project and the role the client wanted brought to the project.

No harm, no foul.

But I realized, in losing that job, which was going to be a full-time job, that it didn’t bother me too much that I’d been fired.

That’s because one job doesn’t define me anymore.

There are other jobs today, probably more jobs tomorrow that make me want to get up in the morning, have my cup of coffee and charge into the office (which is right down the hall from our kitchen).

At my high school reunion not too long ago, I talked to a lot of classmates on the cusp of retirement. They’re thinking about what’s next, who’ll they’ll be in the next go-round.

Be a lot of things, do a lot of things, I suggest.

I have different roles to different people these days. But my whole is definitely greater than the sum of my parts and it’s the best thing so far about this so-called “retirement.”

The process of opting out

I’m trying to take control of my inbox before it takes control of me.

I came to realize that I’m getting way too much email from senders who aren’t relevant to my life right now.

I guess at one time they were relevant, otherwise I wouldn’t have signed up for their emailed newsletters, updates and promotions.

But, while they may need me and my business, I don’t need them.

Here’s a sample of the folks I don’t want to hear from anymore: Mansion House, Fender Guitars, Boston Red Sox, Major League Baseball, SiriusXM, Marketing Profs, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Marriott hotels, Telecharge, 1-800-CONTACTS, Swing By Swing Golf and the Times Union Center in Albany, NY.

I’ve asked each of them -- and others besides -- to remove me from their mailing lists using that “unsubscribe” option that is normally in the teeniest and tiniest of print at the bottom of their emails.

At one time I opted in, now I’m opting out.

It’s not that I don’t love some of these folks -- I love Fender guitars and I love the Boston Red Sox, for example. I just don’t want or need to constantly hear from them.

Do I really care that Spooky World is going to be at Fenway Park for Halloween?

I know that I signed up to get the Fender newsletter and promotions at some point, though I can’t remember why. Perhaps it was some drawing for a free guitar.

Well, I didn’t get the guitar, but I certainly got more emails than I cared about or cared to read.

A lot of the promos come as a result of making a reservation for an airplane ticket or a hotel room.

I provided my email address so I could get my flight or room reservation confirmations emailed to me. They want my email so that they can bombard me with promos. It’s really not a fair trade.

Take the Mansion House, for instance. My wife and I had a lovely stay at the Mansion House on Martha’s Vineyard for her birthday last April.

When and if I want to go there again, I’ll seek you out. You don’t need to find me; I know where to find you.

I’m not an email hoarder. If it doesn’t matter, I don’t want it hanging around.

Some have listened better than others to my unsubscribe requests.

MLB.com has a difficult time getting the message. I unsubscribe and I still get emails.

A recent offer from Major League Baseball was for a rental car through Budget. No thank you … go away.

I’m looking for less clutter, more relevance. A lot of these come-ons are from the yesterdays in my life. I’m trying to focus more on the todays and the tomorrows.

Second guessing Irene

We love to second guess.

Part of our DNA make-up, it seems, is to play Monday morning quarterback and analyze decisions and events.

We second guess ourselves, but it seems there’s more sport in second guessing others.

Irene -- the hurricane that became a tropical storm -- is a case in point.

As she churned up the eastern seaboard last week, making landfall in North Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane, there were dire warnings through the northeast.

Weather forecasters and the media were full of predictions about what could happen -- in particular to highly-populated, vulnerable areas like the Jersey shore and New York City.

Evacuations were ordered. For the first time in its history, NYC shut down mass transit.

But once Irene blasted and soaked her way through with wind and tropical rain, the second guessing began, particularly in New York City where the consequences weren’t so dire.

Why all the hype? Why did forecasters get it wrong?

The truth is, hype and error are in the eye of the beholder.

Weather forecasting is an educated guess, and in particular for major storms like this one you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Those who weren’t affected by the storm profess it was no big deal, that the hype wasn’t necessary.

Those who were affected by the storm -- and I count myself among them -- believe Irene was as nasty as predicted and deserved every amount of warning and hype that she received.

True, she didn’t batter New York City. True, she didn’t tear up the northeast coast.

But look at what she did to inland sections of New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Take a look at the pictures from Paterson, New Jersey or Brattleboro, Vermont.

Her rain wasn’t much of a factor for me here in southern New Hampshire, but her rain was a huge factor in the state’s north country where entire areas were cut off by rapidly rising river water.

Sections of the famous and picturesque Kancamagus Highway were torn apart by raging water in the Swift River. The road is closed.

Fortunately, the rain in my area wasn’t too bad. My sump pump never kicked in. But the wind was responsible for the power I lost for two days, and the wind was responsible for the large maple tree that blew over, landing in the backyard about 30 feet from the house, destroying a fence (see photo).

I might have been thinking like the second guessers. Until the lights went out. I might have been thinking like the second guessers. Until the tree came crashing down.

I won’t second guess Irene. She was as bad as forecast. And she deserved every warning and all the hype that accompanied her.

Now, who’s this Katia they’re beginning to talk about?