October does this to me every time.
Put the Red Sox and Yankees in a short series with a season on the line and I age about five years per inning. Their postseason history is long enough by now that I’ve stopped pretending I’ll handle the next one calmly, or even with basic dignity, if we’re being honest about the state of my living room.
I’ve made my peace with the idea that this rivalry is wired into my nervous system for life. What still catches me off guard is how far these nerves travel. A 7 p.m. first pitch in the Bronx is an 11 p.m. first pitch in Accra for nearly all of October. Red Sox fans in Ghana (plus neutrals who just enjoy watching these two franchises bicker) can follow along on Betway Ghana, where MLB gets its own spot in the Sport Betting menu next to the football and basketball markets.
The 2025 AL Wild Card Series didn’t go our way. The Yankees took two of three, and as the higher seed they hosted every game, so I watched the entire thing from my couch, talking at a TV that can’t hear me. Game 3 finished 4-0, which is a tidy way of saying Boston’s 89-win season ended without much of a fight in the Bronx.
Anyone who’s blocked out why these series never go smoothly should reread our piece on the 2004 ALCS, then maybe go lie down for a bit.
Midnight Baseball in Accra
Ghana isn’t a baseball country, there’s no denying it. Football owns the calendar there, and the Black Stars get the headlines.
Still, Betway Ghana lists MLB lines. Its baseball markets include a “Winner (Incl. Extra Innings)” option, which is the plain moneyline with the small print spelled out right there in the name. Bets are priced in Ghanaian cedis, with a GHS 1 minimum stake. It’s a strange little thought, that a game I’ll be pacing through in Massachusetts is somebody’s midnight entertainment in Osu or East Legon.
Ghana uses GMT year-round with no daylight saving, while Boston’s clocks don’t fall back until early November. So the four-hour gap covers almost every October game, and a World Series that drifts into November stretches it to five, which is a rough deal for anyone in Accra with work the next morning.
Live betting is probably the bigger draw at that hour, if I had to guess. Betway Ghana offers in-play markets, so a fan watching in Accra can react to a bullpen change in the sixth instead of locking in a pick before first pitch and then just suffering like the rest of us.
Three Games Is a Coin Flip With Extra Steps
I love a short series. I also hate a short series, usually in the same inning.
One shaky start from your ace and you’re scrambling for innings from guys you forgot were on the roster in July, and a best-of-three doesn’t leave any room to settle in. I’d expect the moneylines to come in tight between two teams this familiar.
And there’s no automatic runner on second in the postseason, so a tie game in the 10th can drag on well past midnight in Boston, never mind Accra. That extra-innings wording on the Betway Ghana market label is key for exactly this reason.
Totals are a different headache. October air in the Bronx is cold, and cold air takes a little off fly balls, though Yankee Stadium’s short porch in right has a way of ignoring physics when it’s a Red Sox pitcher on the mound.
Part of me thinks home field barely means anything in these games, since we’ve won big ones in the Bronx before. The other part of me watched Grady Little leave Pedro in during Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS and has never fully recovered, which is kind of why this blog exists in the first place.
Off Nights and the Casino Tab
Survive a Wild Card round and there’s normally a day or two off before the Division Series starts, with a rested top seed waiting on the other side who couldn’t care less how draining the Bronx was.
Betway Ghana has virtual sports and a live casino section for a dead night like that, when there’s no baseball on and the rotation is all anyone in Boston can talk about. Treat it as entertainment with a set budget, the way you’d treat an overpriced Fenway beer. It’s not a way to recoup whatever the Yankees just cost you.
My Standing October Pick
Red Sox, every time. I have no analytical basis for this beyond spite and a vague memory of Dave Roberts stealing second in 2004, but spite has gotten me through worse Octobers.
But if the Yankees win the next one, at least I’ll have company, because it’ll be 11 p.m. in Accra and somebody over there will be staring at the scoreboard, wondering how they ever got attached to a team from a city they’ve never set foot in.