Friday, April 06, 2007

Red Sox Nation

When you relocate from one country to another you expect to experience all kinds of jarring culture changes. But when you move just over 200 miles in the same country? Surely not.

I like to follow baseball. We used to live near New York City so it was kind of natural to follow the fortunes of the New York Yankees and to go and watch the occasional game at Yankee Stadium. Yankee fans can be passionate about their team. They expect them to make the playoffs every year and they usually do. They expect them to win the Worlds Series, and they've done that more than any other team too.

I now live near Boston. Boston Red Sox fans are different, very different. They are not just passionate about their own team; most of them hate the Yankees too. Kind of illogical as, in these days of free agency, top players can and do move from one team to another. So this year's hero of the Red Sox can be playing for the Yankees next year. But historically the Yankees have usually been the obstacle preventing the Red Sox from progressing to high honors. So Red Sox fans have this huge inferiority complex about the Yankees.

I knew all this, but this week I saw the most amazing display of the twisted culture of Red Sox Nation that I truly believe I may have moved to a different country. I took my 16-month-old story granddaughter to story time at the local library. There were three other cute little girls there too. Not as cute as my granddaughter of course. She's in a class all of her own. She even has my hair.


Now one of these sweet little girls, no more than 18 months old was wearing a pink T-shirt with a slogan on the front saying "YANKEES STINK". Can you believe it? What kind of twisted mind has such a venomous hatred for another sports team that she labels her baby daughter with a slogan expressing her own loathing? Doesn't that go beyond sports mania into the realms of obsession, paranoia or other mental illness?

We're not in New Jersey any more, Toto.

6 comments:

Scott said...

First time I've commented, but being a fairly new resident of New England, I have to whole-heartedly agree. People here are sports fanatics. I can't go one day without hearing about at least one sports team. Anyway, I like the blog and enjoy reading about different boats than I get to sail on. I race near Marblehead on "big" boats.

Anonymous said...

I would say that about 5-10% of all T-shirts that I have seen are in poor taste or offensive in some way. Perhaps unintended, but nevertheless not representative of the better part of humanity. What's your estimate?

Anonymous said...

Pawk the caw in Hawvad Yawd. Yes Toto, yus ain't en Joisey. Fuckn' A!
[I first heard the last expression when I was in boot camp from a New Jersey guy.]

Mal Kiely [Lancelots Pram] said...

wow... here, it's car racing fans... Holden Vs Ford... it's almost obsessive in some parts! Blimey! In that way, I can kinda identify what u mean!
Cyalayta
Mal :)

PeconicPuffin said...

Even in New York you can find the "Yankees Stink" mindest. We're called "Mets fans". Mets and Red Sox fans have a peculiar relationship...Met fans root for the Sox all year (anything to beat the Yankees) and they root for us when we play the Yankees in interleague play. Yet the Mets have the distinction of being the last team to beat Boston in the World Series.

It's a beautiful world. The Yankees stink!

PeconicPuffin said...

that should be "mindset" not "mindest". Error!

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