Technically the baseball season began last night, but that was just a Yankee game so I decided to hold this post until this morning.

As I wrote to my email pal, the excellent MLB correspondent for the Boston Red Sox Ian Browne, “Well, the new season is upon us! Here’s how sappy I am: just played “Tessie” and got choked up, then looked at my photo of Tony Conigliaro from 1967, and got more choked up. Where the Sox are concerned, I’m always 12-years-old.” And I posted this iconic photo…

… from legendary Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. I was there, but I didn’t see Carlton trying to guide his game-winning blast fair. I was watching, as everyone else was, that ball sail into the night and over the Green Monster.

Baseball takes up a lot of my time, and it’s time I cannot afford, one could argue. Yet I have learned as much about ethics and life from the sport, and particularly the Boston Red Sox’s epic journey through it, than from all other aspects of my experience combined. I have learned about loyalty, bravery, sacrifice, honesty, duty, responsibility, coping with disappointment and finding solace in failure, nobility, respect, the chaos of existence, and that there is always hope, promise and redemption in the future—maybe.