Red Sox fandom in the post-"curse" era

Buck,

Are you gonna be a Packers fan once your man-crush QB retires?

 

Can't imagine why I wouldn't be. I got into the Cheeseheads because of No. 4, true, but I can claim fandom since 1993. It's pretty well ingrained by now.

 

Like mold on limberger.

 

Re: the Pink-Hatters, it's really just that those of us who are from Boston, Hub of the Universe, feel inherently superior to all the rest of you. I mean, hell, we started this damn country.
While there are other factors (Harvard, JFK, Sam Adams beer), some of that superiority complex derives from the legacy of suffering Red Sox fandom we inherited from our fathers and their fathers. We loved the game. It hurt us back. It was a cross we bore with honor.
Now that we are blissfully atop the baseball world, we need something to complain about. Enter those noveau Sox fans who wouldn't know Bobbie Doerr from Bernie Carbo from Bob Stanley, especially the ones tacky enough to wear a pink (or camo) hat. Certainly doesn't help that they mean you have to mortgage your house to go to a Sox game (which sucks when you could get in for $8 ten years ago).
But it's OK. We won. And eventually the Sox will "get old." The pink-hatters will move on. And the rest of us will still be the Red Sox fans, and proud Bostonians, we were born to be.

 

It took four pages, but I finally got the concise explanation I was looking for. ;D

A somewhat fluffy take on the generation gap between adult and child Sox fans from NPR:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15739291

 

Real Sox fans know how to spell Bobby Doerr.

 

That doesn't make you superior, it makes you stupid.

Nail on the head. And if the Cubs ever win a World Series, their fans won't know what to do with themselves (after they sober up from their Zima binges) because their whole existence is wrapped up in being "lovable losers." Apparently, lovable losers morph into insufferable winners once they've finally reached the pinnacle of success.

 

Glad I could help a fellow Irishman.

 

Hey, the last name's the hard part.

 

Nice use of "cross to bear" and the depiction of Sox fandom as a baneful inheritance, like Original Sin. Somewhere at Holy Cross, BC or Providence I bet a kid's written an essay on the mutual influence between Catholicism and Red Sox culture.

 

Your resolve is notable.

Many former Chicago Bulls fans have fallen by the wayside . . . . . . . . . . .