E-Mail This Article to a Friend Death of a Sox fan BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Like World War II veterans, those who remember the Boston Red Sox’ last World Series title — 1918, I think it was — are slowly diminishing in numbers. And why wouldn’t they? To truly understand and appreciate the spectacle of a world championship, you’d have to be, oh, at least 10 years of age, in my estimation. And all those who where 10 or older back in 1918 are now around the ripe old age of 96 — or more.

Nope, not many of ’em left, that’s for sure, and if things keep going the way they are, well, a whole damn generation may be wiped out. (As die-hard Sox fans are known to say, "They killed my old man, and now they’re comin’ for me!")

Many of those who get old and gray rooting for the local nine certainly haven’t been rewarded before meeting the ultimate reward, but it is always included in their newspaper obituaries that they were a milkman, machinist, mime ... and a lifelong Red Sox fan. Indeed, more of them shake this mortal coil each year, to be replaced by another 10-year-old likely destined for a duplicate lifetime of hardball misery.

It is downright heartbreaking to imagine sports fans going their whole lives without seeing their team win a world title — something that Celtics, Bruins (although it’s 30 years and counting), and Patriots fans of this generation have fortunately been able to avoid.

Yet every once in a while you hear about someone taken in the prime of life. If that person was a Sox fan, he or she had undoubtedly been waiting a long time for redemption on the baseball diamond, but still fully expected it to happen in his or her lifetime. There was, of course, plenty of time. Wasn’t there?

I write about this because of the passing in the last 12 months of three close friends, all of whom were members of the loyal legion of Red Sox rooters. All three passed before their time — as well as the time when their allegiance would have been fulfilled. All three were at some point employed at the Boston Phoenix or its subsidiaries, and I had the pleasure of not only working with them, but of sharing our love of sports — and baseball in particular. The fact that two of them took their own lives matters not in this tale, because this is not about the Red Sox and what the fidelity to this organization does to a person; there were far greater things at work in both cases, and the baseball association was merely a subplot.

Sue Bauernfeind worked in our art department for a few years in the mid ’90s, and I don’t think I would have ever gotten to know her as well as I did had she not also been a baseball fan — and a knowledgeable one at that. I have not known that many female fans of the sport, and I have always regarded a distaff diamond gal as that rarest of finds. Perhaps I was sexist, or perhaps a bit too much of an elitist when it came to the sport, but I could always tell when someone — male or female — knew more about the sport and the city’s hallmark team than was learned simply by tuning in to Bob Lobel’s sports report on WBZ-TV each night.

I have only known a couple of gals like Sue B. — my baseball insider in Chicago, Kirsten (who grew up in baseball’s best city, St. Louis, loving the Redbirds, but now is loyal to the Cubbies), is one — and conversations with her about the Red Sox over drinks could go on for hours if we’d let it. On those rare occasions when Boston got into the playoffs, she’d sport her well-worn Sox cap in her cube while designing ads on her Mac. When she left the Phoenix, she was one of many I kept in touch with over the years, and whenever we’d get reacquainted, the topic would inevitably turn to the Sox.

Why she took her life last September — just weeks before her 40th birthday — a lot of us, including her family, will never know, but a big part of me and my baseball persona was lost when I heard of her passing. When you’re young, you assume that your friends and confidants will be around for a long time, always ready at the drop of a hat to meet for drinks and maybe even talk some baseball.

Red Sox Nation had without good reason lost one of its proudest soldiers, and when a group of her friends gathered to celebrate what would have been Sue B.’s 40th birthday weeks later, I was rendered speechless when one of her closest friends gave me that old Boston cap of hers to keep. It sat proudly atop the TV last October as the Sox managed to win three straight and vanquish the A’s in the ALDS, and 10 days later its seemingly supernatural magic also brought the team, for the first time in 17 years, to the brink of the World Series. Alas, the baseball gods, Grady Little, and Aaron Boone conspired to squelch the otherworldly aura that Sue B.’s cap brought to the festivities, and all that remained was another winter of discontent, and the memory of a young lady who would have lustily rooted on the Hub’s heroes in their pennant battle with the Evil Empire.

In most of his 56 years, Don Orciuch (pronounced Or-choo) lived the sports fan’s ultimate dream. As GM of the press that prints the Phoenix newspapers and Stuff@Night magazine, he raised a great family and was a prototypical New England sports fan. Nobody I knew was more of a free spirit and lover of the sporting life than Don was, and during the NFL season he often made his way to whatever city in which the Patriots were playing — whether he had tickets or not. He invariably found a way to get in, see the game, and fly back that night in time for work the next morning. The highlight of his life had to be his trip to the Big Easy to see the Patriots win Super Bowl XXXVI, and he also made it to Houston to see New England nip the Panthers in this past February’s reprise. Road trips to Baltimore, the Bronx, or you-name-it to see the Sox were also spontaneous and rewarding. Because of those jaunts he never had time to submit his football-pool sheet to me on time each Friday; instead, he called in his picks from some hotel room nationwide. Don would have turned 57 this past Tuesday, but unfortunately, he suffered a fatal heart attack in mid May, leaving friends and co-workers devastated. As I head to Baltimore this weekend for my first visit to Camden Yards, I will bear in mind how much he loved to jet down to DC for Sox weekend series there, and how highly he spoke of that Orioles ballpark. Since last spring, I have slowly grown accustomed to not hearing him lumber into the Boston offices for the weekly senior-managers’ meeting, but I still can’t get used to reaching my desk each Monday morning of football season and not seeing the light on my phone blinking — alerting me that sometime over the weekend, someone had called in his picks from a faraway city.

Finally, more bad news on the doorstep came with the recent passing of Boston Globe copy editor John Ferguson, who also tragically took his own life, at 52, on September 8. I had gotten to know John during my early days at the Phoenix, where he was the arts editor in the ’80s. He was a remarkable man, and while I hadn’t worked with him since probably 1989 — nor had I seen him since a Phoenix reunion party back in ’95 — it was always nice to know that the possibility lurked of running in to him. I can’t say I knew him all that well, but he too was a huge baseball fan. From attending his memorial service, I found out that he grew up in Texas and went to his first game in the Astrodome, where he saw the Houston Astros play. He moved to Boston, and in the Hub of Hardball he slowly but surely (like many transplanted fans) came to even better appreciate the game. Speaker after speaker at his service recounted tales of his love for baseball, and one even spoke of hearing John rock a baby to sleep by reciting that morning’s box scores. He was a unique individual, and Phoenicians and Globe-ites alike were greatly saddened when they heard of the gentle Texan’s passing last month. And while I don’t have detailed memories of my days working with John Ferguson in the Phoenix’s production area, I do remember the contentment he exuded as his co-workers got caught up in the Sox' pennant chase in 1986, allowing him to enjoy first-hand the local flavor and Boston's love for its team. Roger Clemens won game seven of that ’86 ALCS over the Angels, thereby sending the Sox to their first Fall Classic in 11 years, but little did John, or any local fans, realize that would be their last best chance to see the local nine compete for that long-elusive championship. And if, as I predicted in my "Baseball Preview" last March, the Red Sox and Astros do meet for the World Series later this month, then John Ferguson will undoubtedly be pleased — seeing the two teams with which he identified the most getting the chance to bring a long-awaited title to his native state, or his adopted one.

When friends commit suicide, sadness always gives way to a little bit of anger. Why did you do this? Doesn’t this churchful of people tell you that you had so many friends that any problem could have been solved? Couldn’t the sport that brought you such inherent joy, and the possibility of an imminent baseball championship, help to bring solace?

Of course, baseball was the last thing on any of these folks’ minds, even though it was a prime resident there in their happier times. Whatever demons haunted Sue B. and John, and whatever deity felt that the heavens would be a better place than Fenway or Gillette for Don O. to spend the rest of his days — will forever remain anonymous.

All I know is that I hope that as a threesome they get a luxury box together in the big ballpark in the sky for all the important games to come, and maybe have some say in what transpires for their beloved teams this fall. Meanwhile, we earthlings should merely enjoy the opportunities and the chance meetings that sports present, and the concept of hope that will outlive us all.

There’s a story about how Satan once called all his advisers together to determine how to destroy meaning in people’s lives. One devil said, "Tell them that their sins are so overwhelming that they are all doomed." A second said, "Tell them that all their sins are forgiven, and they have nothing to worry about." A third said, "Tell them there is no God, and anything goes." Finally, Satan silenced them and said, "No, those things don’t matter to human beings. Just tell them they have plenty of time."

"Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com