Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Yesterday's game between the Boston Rat Sox and the Texas Rangers must have been as satisfying to Rat Sox fans as it was horrifying to Ranger fans. The Rangers led, 4-2, going into the ninth. Before you could ask whether David Ortiz was injecting steroids into his buttocks, Rangers' closer Frankie Francisco had given up six runs. When the Rat Sox took the lead, 5-4, I turned my television off in disgust and went to bed. (The Rat Sox won, 8-4.) There wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that the Rangers could come from behind against the Rat Sox closer, Jonathan Papelbon. I slept poorly. I even dreamed about the Rangers! Games like this make me wonder why I invest so much emotional energy in the Rangers, or indeed in baseball. It's a game, for God's sake! But then, it's not just a game. It's life and death, joy and misery, loyalty and treachery, honor and dishonor, pride and shame, us and them.