Game 6

My parents remember exactly where they were when JFK was assassinated in 1963. There are two events from my childhood that I can pinpoint exactly where I was. I know that I was in my 6th grade science classroom on January 28, 1986 when the space shuttle Challenger exploded seventy-three seconds after liftoff and I remember that I was in a Danvers, MA hotel room eating cheesits and drinking rootbeer when the ball trickled through Bill Buckner's legs on October 25, 1986.

I have no desire to relive the Challenger moment and I am not going to rush out to see the movie Game 6 when it opens in theaters tonight.

Game 6 was written by novelist extraordinaire, Don DeLillo. The main character, played by Michael Keaton, is a tortured Red Sox fan living in New York during the 1986 World Series. After watching the trailer and reading this review by Ty Burr in the Boston Globe this morning, I decided that it would just be some sick form of self-torture to see this movie:

''Game 6" ends, as it must, with [the main character] in a packed New York bar watching the world as he knows it come once more to an end. This may be especially painful for Sox fans, since director Michael Hoffman replays it all, from Schiraldi to Stanley to the cataclysmic final error....Even after the triumph of two years ago, it feels like horrible justice." -- Ty Burr

Yes, the Red Sox World Series victory in 2004 went a long way towards healing the pain of October 1986, but Game 6 is a moment in time that should be locked away in a dark place in every Red Sox fan's memory and never revisited.

I'd rather spend my Friday night giving my cat a bath or washing my hair multiple times, but I am sure that Game 6 will be a box office smash in New York.

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