August 22, 2006
Will the real fans please stand up?
By Karlsie
The Red Sox helped the Yankees cause this week by consistently snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. As uncomfortably painful as that series was for the team, it was a reminder of days past for us fans who have been with this team through thick and thin. If nothing else, the Boston Massacre of 2006 just reinforces a truth as expressed in the movie Dodgeball: "It's time to separate the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys, the awkwardly feminine from the possibly Canadian."
The pink hat fans (as dubbed by the local media) are the people who looooovvvvve winners. They know what to chant and when to chant it mistaking the game on the field with a viewing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" while wearing their oh so trendy Sox gear.
But this is where true fandom is tested. Can you stand by your team when the manager only seems capable of rocking back and forth and seems to be secretly paging through Joe Morgan's "Baseball for Dummies?" Can you take the heartbreak in August instead of October? Are you ready to chant, "We are number two?"
If so, then you're a true Sox fan and you're welcome to sit by me any time. Otherwise, just take your pink cap and leave me alone - there's a game going on and I'd like to watch.
Here's what I don't understand about myself.
I loved the Red Sox for my entire life, but really stopped caring about them once they won.
I loved the Red Sox before everyone expected a 9th inning comeback, a four-game miracle win, a World Championship. I loved the Red Sox when David Ortiz was just a good player, and not a man held to unrealistic expectations.
Was it the fact that the "Red Sox nation" decided to name a greedy catcher their captain ( thus ending the reign of a team of equals)? Maybe.
Was it Manny's attitude? Perhaps, but to be fair, I did put up with Pedro with a grin on my face.
Above all of the aforementioned, the most likely scenario is that the Red Sox - after the 2004 World Series - grew a bandwagon so large that every 'fan' claims to have loved the Sox since before color TV (yet don't know who Carl Yastrzemski is)? Your "pink hat fans", the monday morning cheerleaders, they are more than likely what killed Boston's best for me. Of course, it also had something to do with the fact that the Red Sox management became so entirely corporate that they may as well have merged with the Yankees, but that's another story.
Yet, despite all that has transpired between 2004 and today, here I am now, and right as Boston's "newfound fans" go running into the hills screaming "Boston Massacre, Boston Massacre", I can't help but actually enjoy watching NESN broadcasts again. Maybe the Red Sox need a few painful weeks - or years? - to find their soul again? Perhaps they need to spend a year or two out of the spotlight (off of every magazine) before they will really become anything greater than just another $120,000,000 team? I know Boston fans don't like to hear this, but watching the Sox complain after spending the second most money in baseball - only to make the playoffs and lose - is insulting to anybody who actually follows a losing team; furthermore, that's exactly why "Red Sox nation" hated the Yankees in the first place..
I drafted Justin Verlander, picked up Hanley Ramirez and traded for David DeJesus in the YS.com fantasy league because I know rookies and underdogs. In the AL East I'm a huge D-Rays fan, in the Central I love the Royals. As such, I know losing teams and I know what it's like to watch a team whose "cinderella story" is merely to beat a great team in the regular season (Red Sox choke in Kansas City, I was there). I can't help but feel that these teams - the ones who don't make the endorsements, who don't complain to ESPN analysts or walk onto reality television - are more sympathetic and enjoyable to follow than teams like the Red Sox or Yankees.
Perhaps I just like the lovable losers, but here the Sox are, after a week's worth of loss and shame. At the same time, here I am, wearing my Red Sox hat for the first time in a year. Take from that what you will.
And yes, as someone who followed the Sox for years upon years, I am truly enjoying life - once again - in a world where the Yankees are frighteningly good and the Red Sox are painfully bad... Somewhere deep down, I have the feeling that you find some solace in that as well.
Cheers,
Jack Jablin
![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.yankeessuck.com/nav-commenters.gif)
