I’m the odd man out among most of my friends, because I’m not a dyed-in-the-laundry Red Sox fan. I enjoyed playing baseball as a kid, at least until needing glasses but, like Stephen Colbert, professional sports doesn’t interest me. I like to go running, and I used to participate in the Boston Marathon, but that’s it.
I am obviously very much into enjoying and appreciating music, to the extent of being a former radio DJ, and yet I’ve never felt much of a connection to Bruce Springsteen. So it’s perhaps semi-ironic that my favorite song by the Boss is “Glory Days”.
What got me started on this was watching “Fenway Park”, the first episode in the PBS series Iconic America, with rich guy David Rubenstein. Next year will be the 20th anniversary of the Red Sox ending the Curse of the Bambino. The documentary makes the case that the curse was less about superstition and Babe Ruth, and more about management and longtime owner Tom Yawkey.
I was not always a Springsteen fan (still not much of one), but there are a couple of songs of his I do find very moving, and which made me appreciate him more as an artist. Those are, “Streets of Philadelphia” from the movie Philadelphia, starring your fav Tom Hanks; and also “American Skin (41 Shots)” Do check them out if they’re not familiar.
That said, my favorite of his is probably The River.