The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Last year, as we watched our team battle back against the Tankees and complete a four game sweep of the St Louis Cardinals, we vowed that things would be different. We said it a thousand times. We repeated it between every pitch of games 4 and 5 of the ALCS. We made the promise again and again, and the worst part is - we really believed it.

Last year we all promised that if the Red Sox could get past the Tankees, and then go on to win the World Series, that we would spend the next few seasons just enjoying baseball. No stress, no worry, no heart palpitations, no checking the standings every fifteen minutes. No game threads, no message board addictions, no spreadsheets. Goodbye psychosis, hello social life. We promised the baseball gods that in exchange for a championship, we'd finally just chill out.

Of course, it was a lie. We should have known it at the time, because the truth of the matter is - we don't know how not to care.

Last night , on a Wednesday night in early May, the Sox won a squeaker over the hated Oakland A's on an El Bencho walk-off in the ninth. Fenway erupted. Cheers could be heard in every house from Nantucket to Newburyport. Children went to bed happy as their parents reveled in another Red Sox victory.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

At the start of the bottom of the ninth inning, everyone at Fenway rose to their feet and put their hands together. Were they begging their team to score a run or were they celebrating the run they knew would come? You see, we're still crazy, but now we're confident. Any other year, we would have been waiting for the GIDP to put us out of our misery. But that was before the Red Sox completed the greatest comeback in the history of professional sports. Now, no lead is ever safe. The bottom of the ninth will never be the same.

But confidence does not breed serenity.

It is May 11th. The season is one month old. The Maalox is back on the nightstand.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.