An Open Letter to Self-Loathing Red Sox Fans

Note from Cyn: I’m going to swear in this piece and I’m going to swear a lot. F-bombs will be dropped, this I promise you.

So, in the interest of not offending those offended by such things, I’m inserting the cut here. Click on the “more” link if you like.

Oh yes, I’m in rant mode right now. 🙂

So, to all those self-loathing Red Sox fans out there:

First off, shut the fuck up. But, wait, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’m not linking to any of the whiny, self-important bloggers (and sports writers. Hello Eric Wilbur!) who feel the need to write about how they hate the new generation of Sox fans and who rush to point out that they don’t belong to that group.

You’ve read them. Do a quick Google search and you’ll find a bunch of them. Hell, check out Deadpsin on any random day and if you don’t read a comment from one of them, you’ll see a link to one of their blogs.

And you’ve heard the messages: “‘Red Sox Nation’ is embarrassing!” “Jerry Remy shills for his website too much!” “There are too many ‘pink hat’ fans going to the games now.” “All the other fans hate Red Sox fans now.”

Big fucking deal.

You don’t like “Red Sox Nation”? Don’t join. You don’t want to buy stuff from Remy’s website? Don’t visit it. Before you go judging bandwagon fans (I detest using “pink hats” to describe them – as I’ve mentioned before – since pink hats only applies to women), think back to when YOU became a fan. 1975? 1978? 1986? 1999? 2004? Guess what? Unless you were born into watching and supporting Boston Red Sox baseball, you’re a bandwagon fan. Congratulations.

What really has me pissed off is the whole “Everyone hates us; we’re becoming Yankees fans” bullshit. First off, most fanbases don’t like the other fanbases. It’s part of being a fan. How many people, when thinking about baseball, ever come up with “You know what? We should go see a game in Pittsburgh. Those Pirate fans? Hardcore. And really good people. Maybe we should leave our kids with Pirates fans and go on vacation; they’re salt of the earth.” They don’t. What you usually hear from other fans is “Ugh, <insert team nam here> is all right, but I hate their fans”. It’s part of fandom.

You think your fanbase is full of “douchebags”? Look around, pallies. Everyone has a story about an opposing team’s fans acting like jerks. Off the top of my head I can list Rays fans, Mets fans, Phillies fans, Yankees fans, Giants fans, Blue Jays fans and Orioles fans as all having representatives around me who acted like jackasses. More than one example for each. Douchebaggery isn’t exclusive to Boston (or, to be fair, New York). To play it up as if it is only makes you look like the douchebag.

Of all those teams I listed, truth is I can also give you examples of representatives from each fanbase who just acted like good fans. In New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia, I enjoyed talking with many fans of the opposing team. What’s that? There are good AND bad people in every fanbase?

No way!!?!!!!

Way.

It’s chic to bitch about how terrible Red Sox fans are right now. And I don’t pretend there aren’t fans I want to punch in the face once in a while. But I never associate those jackasses with the majority of fans. I have different groups of friends who are unrelated to each other. In each group there are some who are Red Sox fans. (Some groups have more Sox fans in them than others, admittedly.) There isn’t one in any of the groups who I’d be embarrassed to take to Fenway or to acknowledge publicly as a Red Sox fan. I know a lot of people and I go to a lot of games. The good outweigh the bad. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make for good copy. I understand writers trying to bleed stories from this, but when Red Sox bloggers start whining about being embarrassed about being a Red Sox fan…well, that’s when I like to say “don’t let the door hit you on the ass”.

It’s almost as if it’s “un-cool” to be a Red Sox fan. That’s really tough shit. If the Red Sox hadn’t won in 2004 and especially in 2007 (remember all the, “get back to us when you win another one in 86 years” talk?), all you’d be reading about is how ‘insufferable’ Sox fans are because their team can’t win. Remember before 2004? When fanbases didn’t like the Red Sox? That hasn’t changed, regardless of the “Oh you’re like Yankees fans now” bullshit. Red Sox fans have NEVER been liked by anyone outside Red Sox fans. And no one ever cared. No one ever bitched about how the Red Sox fans need to change so people will like them. Now folks do it to get traffic to their sites or so fellow commenters on random message boards won’t mock them. Who friggin’ cares? I wasn’t ashamed to support this team when they were frustrating us by always finding ways to not seal the deal and I’m certainly not ashamed to support them when they’re winning.

It’s only been since 2004 and the “please don’t lump me in with THOSE fans I’m one of the GOOD fans” is already getting old.

The line that kills me the most. One I read on blogs and have received in emails:

“I liked it better before they won in 2004”.

To this all I have to say is, go fuck yourself. You’d rather your team lose than win just because of the perception of our fanbase by people who, pretty much, don’t have a friggin’ clue what they’re talking about (or people who are just writing something negative to get people to read them)? That’s brilliant. Yeah, let’s go back to the days when the league’s fans were split into two groups: those who hated Sox fans and those who pitied them. Yesiree, those were the good old days.

Not me. I love that I was able to experience my father, who is in his 70s, see the Red Sox win the World Series twice. I love that my sister wears a Johnny Pesky t-shirt to the gym. Hell, I love that my 6 year-old niece actually KNOWS who Johnny Pesky is. I love that my niece can proclaim her allegiance to the Red Sox without someone telling her she roots for a loser.

If any of these writers and bloggers bothered to frequent Red Sox message boards or other blogs, they’d be able to weed out the “undesirable” fans from, what I consider, the “real” fans. (This is easily done with any sports team. Go to SoSH and you’ll find an equal mix of idiotic, embarrassing fans and fans who just want to appreciate the game and the team. Same with NYYFans. ) But what would that accomplish? Why would they want to write the truth when it’s easier to take a minority and spin it so that they seem to be the majority.

I have no problem with bandwagon fans. It’s the bandwagon bashers (read, the folks who decide to bash just because it’s fashionable) who piss me off.

So, self-loathing Red Sox fans, do us all a favor and shut the fuck up. Or just go find a new team to root for and leave the fans who are enjoying the current success of their team alone. I hear Rays are looking for some fans.