The Funeral At Fenway

Our man Charlie Pierce is in fine form over at Grantland writing about the 2013 Red Sox:

Koji Uehara is a reason to keep coming to the ballpark. There was some informed speculation that the closer would be part of the exodus at the trading deadline. This caused me to wonder whether trading Koji might well be the final straw for me. It has been a very long time since I have enjoyed a player as much as I enjoy the man with the drop-dead splitter. He comes on with Darude's techno-anthem "Sandstorm" blaring throughout Fenway, and people hopping and dancing around and having a high old time, largely because most people there feel the same way about him that I do, that he was the best thing about that improbable 2013 world championship.

...He's been bounced around a little bit this season, at least by the standards he set last year during which he drove me to combine the Japanese my father taught me with certain 12-letter incest-implying nouns. But on Sunday night, with the Sox down a run in the ninth, he came on, gave up a hit, but then forced a double-play grounder for what might have been an easy win had Pedroia's blast not drifted foul later in the inning.

There's a reason, after all, why they call it "playing" out the string. You keep playing because playing is fun, and fun is always its own justification.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]