Red Sox fandom in the post-"curse" era

Good point.

There are a number of reasons for that dynamic, some more reasonable than others. Of course you have the pure bandwagon people who will grab onto a team just because they're winning.

Other people have divided or multiple loyalties because they have strong ties to more than one region...either because they've moved around a lot or for some other reason. I know this is may seem goofy to people who are lucky enough to have an unambiguous sense of place, but it happens.

And finally, I think a few people abandon their home team because they get disgusted with the ownership...cf. Wirtz's Blackhawks or the way Houston said "buh-bye" to the Oilers when Adams tried to take the team hostage in exchange for a stadium.

 

Fans are fans, regardless of where they are. No team has better fans than another. No team has more bandwagon fans. Winning teams have more fans, losing teams have less. Teams in larger markets have more, because there are more to be had.

I won't support a losing team because, well, why should I? I won't buy American cars because they suck. If they suddenly become as good as Honda and Toyota, I'll spend my money on them. Same thing.

It's popular to bash Red Sox fans now because their team is winning. They aren't any more or less obnoxious. It's just that now there is a reason to pay attention to them.

 

Some of it you didn't have to put in blue, Pastor. I think that is what Irish is alluding to. Here's my spin: as a Cubs fan and a pseudo-Sawx fan (both teams are distant cousins when it comes to heartbreak), we don't have a problem with the bandwagon fans who wants to root for the team. I said "team." I did not mention the ones who show up in the bleachers in their Cubs fashionista gear so they can be on t.v..

Look, since the beginning of the 21st Century, people have started to dislike the Yankees and Red Sox, because they are rolled out on Sunday Night Baseball, ESPN, and Fox on a junkie-filled basis. Cubs and Cardinals fans think that is overload.

What makes this rivalry (NYY and BOS) appealing to the masses is the history of obnoxiousness, arrogance, and the hatred. Everyone hates them and love them.

What Irish, to me, is saying that those Pink Hatters need to stop whining about the ever popular love of the Sawx right now with the fair-weather fans. That's an issue on to itself, but I'll say it anyway: there is a sector of hard-core Red Sox fans who are having a hard time adapting to the fact that Boston have won two WS titles in four years, and that they are good. Damn good.

Casual baseball fans aside, the baseball fans who follow the sports religiously are in two camps: the ones who are happy that the Sox are no longer the heartbreak kids, and the ones who would rather have them go back to being the insufferable bastards they are, so that they can make fun of them.

The Red Sox had to spend money to build a team that would not only compete with the Yankees, and to beat their asses. It was the only way that the New England "woe is me" mentality had to end.

Pastor, winning titles does mean being fucking obnoxious. And don't lie if your team wins, the fans of that team would go apeshit as well. Boston fans have built this mentality of "why is it our team can't make it to the mountain top?" They don't need that anymore.

Irish has the right attitude about it: start enjoying your team's success and stop trying to revert back to what it used to be.

 

D-3, Pastor uses the blue font for ALL his posts. It's his way of protesting others' use of the blue font to indicate irony.

And "pink hat" designation that annoys Pastor so much is a term that I think first appeared in Boston media to refer to the new generation of Sox fans that have latched onto the team since they started winning.

 

What about the people then who grow up in the Carolinas? Or Idaho? Or the Dakotas? Or Hawaii? Or Montana? Wyoming? Or Nebraska? Iowa? Alaska? Kansas? Kentucky? Tennessee? If I grow up in NE Nevada, do I have to simply forgo fanmanship of a Major League Baseball team so the purists are not offended?

I grew up more than 2,000 miles from Boston, but I grew up a Red Sox fan because my uncles (on my mom's side) were Red Sox fans. There was no major league team within a 12-hour drive of my hometown. Am I less of a Red Sox fan because my wound is geography?

My father grew up a Yankee fan because the Yankees had a minor league team in his hometown, and he idolized Mantle and Ford. On a trip to NYC as a 11-year-old, he got Ford's autograph outside the dugout at Yankee stadium. Then he and his family drove 2,200 miles home to Denver.

The only person that fan has to justify their love of team to is himself.

 

Can somebody explain to me why it's bad to only support a team when it's winning? It's called buying a quality product.

 

BBJones, are you from Dallas?

 

Me? No.

 

Irish, I overheard this discussion the other day. It's an interesting one, a healthy one.

Much of the anger is from Sox fans who feel they've been priced out of Fenway by the Pink Hats (who, in general, also have bigger bank accounts and can afford $100 seats). If there were an extra 10,000 seats in the ballpark, there would be less complaining.

Instead, old-line Sox fans are whining about it, since they feel like they have no other recourse.

 

This may not be true.

Right. Nobody has to justify their fandom to anyone. I just stated that I find it odd that someone would support a team outside of their regional area. Yes, it happens when people move around, as W.I. pointed out. I never said that people in Idaho, Nevada, etcetera were not allowed to follow MLB.

My reference is specific to someone that lives in, say, Miami and has decided that they are a Cubs fan. However, that person has only been to Chicago once in their life and it was for a two week vacation in their twenties.

Of course, this is just my opinion, which in the grand scheme of things means very little to anyone else.

Teams represent areas. Buying into a product from another area prevents your own area from producing a better product because you have reduced the pool of funds from which your representative team can pull from.

 

That's an interesting phenomenon, but, of course, the people buying the overpriced tickets are the reason that Boston can afford to, say, take Mike Lowell in the Beckett trade. That's worked out pretty well.

 

You're partly right. A bunch of factors are involved, including the gold mine that NESN has become.