I can remember when the Sox were considered perennial losers, sometimes referred to as the Dead Sox or the Woe Sox. Shortly before 9/11, the New York Times Sunday Magazine ran a brief article on the psychology of baseball fans who remain stubbornly loyal to teams with long histories of losing seasons; I remember in particular that the writer noted that the only people who could really understand Red Sox fans were Cubs and Phillies fans. Of course since 2004, all three teams have won at least one World Series.
I was an undergraduate in western Mass. when the Sox lost the WS to the Cards in 7 games, and some faculty as well as students practically went into mourning. The Phillies actually finished slightly above .500 that year, so I was well content. As an NL fan, I don’t feel any particular loyalty to the Bosox even though I’m still living in New England. I won’t make any predictions about the WS winner this year, although I will hoist a brewski to the Brew Crew in honor of Kav’s love of beer.
Ooooh! Fresh meat for my ‘Stros!
Go Stros !!
YAY, BO SOX!
Kimbrel doing his imitation of Full Pack Stanhouse, but they did it!!!
I texted my son in Houston in the bottom of the 9th, telling him that this was my childhood happening all over again. He texted back that he was terrified. He was a freshman in college in 2003, sitting and watching the ALCS alone in a dorm basement in KY. A few guys joined him in the last inning and shook their heads. “We’ve always heard about this, but didn’t believe it until now.”
Well, this prevents the season from being an embarrassment after the 108 wins. Houston has better pitching, Boston has better hitting, and in the playoffs odd things happen. Should be fun.
I grew up a loyal Sox fan. Over 3 decades after he left the Sox, I was able to identify Eddie Bressoud from a picture my sister-in-law showed me. In his high school yearbook, a friend listed his Pet Peeve: “Watching those Red Sox lose.”
Those were the days.. 🙂 I regret that my first visit to Fenway Park was the 1961 All Star Game- a rare tie- so I never saw Teddy Ballgame work his magic.
I was very glad at the events of 2004, and have a polo shirt advertising same. At this stage, I have lost passion. I figure the Sox will do what they do with or without my attention. I am glad if they win- but will not throw a hissy fit if they lose. I have looked at the AL standings maybe once a month this year, and read maybe 1 Sox-related article a month.
While my political views have changed, and I now despise the politics of Massachusetts, some childhood loyalties remain: to the Pats, Celtics, and Red Sox.
the redsocks are fortunate that the Yankees have an idiot for a manager, otherwise they would not now be in position to lose bigly to Houston. and what’s with the redsock closers? They had that goofball Papelbon always holding his mouth like an imbecile and then this goat-bearded weirdo Kimbrel with his bird-like stance taking sings from the catcher. and another thing! what’s with “Sweet Caroline”? written by a perv over a 12 year old girl. really. read the lyrics and you tell me that song isn’t sketchy. and yet here you have redsock fans, cheerfully crooning along to a pedo fantasy. make it stop!
(Yes, big Yankees fan here!!)
Saw The “Thumper,” Bobbie Doerr, Pesky Dom DiMaggio, etc., play as a starry-eyed kid and have been a fan somewhat for years. I find the magic gone with two things: the wild card for money (why have a season?) and the buying of a team…and they all seem to do it.
My cure, 7 innings, shrink the strike zone and electrify the calls, and go back to two leagues and farm teams
Dr. Lurch: (Yes, big Yankees fan here!!)
My hometown, while it tends towards the Sox, also has its share of Yankees fans. That is consistent with its relative distance between Boston and New York. In my last visit to my home area, I visited a family friend – since deceased- at a local rehab center.
Turned out that his roommate in the rehab center was a neighbor of mine, who had once driven the school bus I rode on, and was also the cousin of a classmate of mine. (Because the family friend lived in another town, they hadn’t know each other before the rehab center.)
I and the family friend were Sox fans. His roommate, my former bus driver, was a Yankees fan. There was no point arguing over that. We agreed to disagree.
One year my high school gym class had a student teacher who had played for both the Yankees and the Red Sox.
While I am not a Yankees fan, I am a big fan of Yogi Berra’s contribution to American humor. I will also agree that Babe Ruth, courtesy of both hitting and pitching accomplishments, was baseball’s greatest player.
“They had that goofball Papelbon always holding his mouth like an imbecile . . .”
I was surprised the Phillies kept him on for three years before offloading him on the Nats. He had one of the oddest stances on the mound that I’ve ever seen. And it must be karma for Papelbon’s dugout histrionics that the Phillies are rumored to be looking to sign Bryce Harper.
Clearly, based on his overall body of work, Kimbrel thinks we fans enjoy an exciting finish to the game. For this lifelong Sox fan I would tell him he is WRONG! Nothing boring about a simple 1-2-3 ninth.
I was a student in a Boston area Catholic elementary school in 1967. This was first through eighth grade. All the teachers were nuns and as much as I can remember they all loved baseball. Back then games were played in the daytime. The school scheduled half-days for us on every game day of the WS. I was 10 years old at the time, my mother has confirmed my recollection.
In those days we were more interested in playing baseball, and many other sports, than we were in following the team and watching games. I was hooked on the Sox from that point on.
Our tiny-payroll bunch of mostly rookie Tampa Bay Rays gave the BoSox some good amounts of pain this season…Yankees had some pain from our Kids too. Me & my baseball fanatic Queen will be rooting for the Astros of the ALCS.
All that said, the Red Sox have a really breathtaking bunch this year!!
Hey NeoConScum, you have plenty to be proud of regarding your Devil Ray…ooops… I mean Rays. can’t say I’m fond of the “opener” concept that you guys started (and is being adopted by other teams). whatever. Baseball is changing and the changes are not good.
My prediction (since the Yankees manager is a moron) is that you guys take second place and the wild card next year. The Bean Eaters will improve their bullpen during the Hot Stove and will have a firm grip on first. Yankees will be in third place (out of contention).
I was really hoping somebody would defend “Sweet Caroline”. Guess I’d need to be in a group of Liberal if-it-feels-good-do-it redsock fans in order to hear support for such a creepy tradition.
Neo might be interested to know that the most rabid baseball fan to inhabit the White House was a First Lady, Grace Coolidge. ” . . . not everyone realized that of the two [spouses], Grace Coolidge was by far the more knowledgeable and enthusiastic fan.” The Coolidges rooted for the Washington Senators throughout the 1920s, but became Red Sox fans after they left the White House. “After the Coolidges returned to their hometown of Northampton, Massachusetts in 1929, they transferred their allegiance from the Senators to the Boston Red Sox. Following her husband’s death in 1933 Grace Coolidge traveled the 100 miles from Northampton to Boston several times a year to see the Red Sox play. . . . At a father-son baseball dinner at Northampton in November 1948, the featured speaker, Philadelphia Athletics pitcher Joe Coleman, was asked if an unassisted triple play had ever taken place during a World Series. Flustered, Coleman admitted he didn’t know the answer. At that moment a voice spoke up from the audience: ‘Yes, Bill Wambsganss, Cleveland infield, in the 1920 series.’ The voice belonged to Grace Coolidge, and she was exactly right.”
I bet Grace is smiling down on Judge Kavanaugh even if he does support an NL team.
Neo, I believed that no divide, not the liberal/ conservative, nor the Darwinist/Creationist, nor the empiricist/rationalist, nor the “tastes great”/”less filling” divides could be as deep as that dividing the Red Sox/Yankee fan. Yet, even though a long time Yankee fan, I toured Fenway (and even bought a Red Sox cap in a moment of insanity), and I’ve come to acknowlege the achievement Curt Schilling and his bloody sock. So, fortunately, I can keep reading your column which would have been my great loss if I couldn’t.
Yankees fan here.
This year’s ALCS does have the two best teams in the AL.
Now I’m rooting for a Red Sox – Dodgers World Series.
(I do care for Dodgers over the Brewers more thank I care for the Red Sox over the Astros.)
“than,” not “thank.”
Until about 10-15 years ago the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry was still strong, and bitter. It has mellowed enormously in the intervening years. Not entirely, but significantly. If one hears deep resentment, it is nearly always from a person over 50, or maybe even 60.
The first cracks came during the Steinbrenner era, when even Sox fans looked on at New York fans with pity. When people up here sided with Bucky F-in’ Dent over Steinbrenner, I knew the old rivalry would never be as strong. 2003 and 2004 were the last major fireworks, I think.
Lurch: Thanks for the Rays thumbs up!! Snell may make Cy Young & Joey Wendel has a real shot at Rookie of the Year. Kevin Cash just renewed thru 2024, Thank God!!
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I can remember when the Sox were considered perennial losers, sometimes referred to as the Dead Sox or the Woe Sox. Shortly before 9/11, the New York Times Sunday Magazine ran a brief article on the psychology of baseball fans who remain stubbornly loyal to teams with long histories of losing seasons; I remember in particular that the writer noted that the only people who could really understand Red Sox fans were Cubs and Phillies fans. Of course since 2004, all three teams have won at least one World Series.
I was an undergraduate in western Mass. when the Sox lost the WS to the Cards in 7 games, and some faculty as well as students practically went into mourning. The Phillies actually finished slightly above .500 that year, so I was well content. As an NL fan, I don’t feel any particular loyalty to the Bosox even though I’m still living in New England. I won’t make any predictions about the WS winner this year, although I will hoist a brewski to the Brew Crew in honor of Kav’s love of beer.
Ooooh! Fresh meat for my ‘Stros!
Go Stros !!
YAY, BO SOX!
Kimbrel doing his imitation of Full Pack Stanhouse, but they did it!!!
I texted my son in Houston in the bottom of the 9th, telling him that this was my childhood happening all over again. He texted back that he was terrified. He was a freshman in college in 2003, sitting and watching the ALCS alone in a dorm basement in KY. A few guys joined him in the last inning and shook their heads. “We’ve always heard about this, but didn’t believe it until now.”
Well, this prevents the season from being an embarrassment after the 108 wins. Houston has better pitching, Boston has better hitting, and in the playoffs odd things happen. Should be fun.
I grew up a loyal Sox fan. Over 3 decades after he left the Sox, I was able to identify Eddie Bressoud from a picture my sister-in-law showed me. In his high school yearbook, a friend listed his Pet Peeve: “Watching those Red Sox lose.”
Those were the days.. 🙂 I regret that my first visit to Fenway Park was the 1961 All Star Game- a rare tie- so I never saw Teddy Ballgame work his magic.
I was very glad at the events of 2004, and have a polo shirt advertising same. At this stage, I have lost passion. I figure the Sox will do what they do with or without my attention. I am glad if they win- but will not throw a hissy fit if they lose. I have looked at the AL standings maybe once a month this year, and read maybe 1 Sox-related article a month.
While my political views have changed, and I now despise the politics of Massachusetts, some childhood loyalties remain: to the Pats, Celtics, and Red Sox.
the redsocks are fortunate that the Yankees have an idiot for a manager, otherwise they would not now be in position to lose bigly to Houston. and what’s with the redsock closers? They had that goofball Papelbon always holding his mouth like an imbecile and then this goat-bearded weirdo Kimbrel with his bird-like stance taking sings from the catcher. and another thing! what’s with “Sweet Caroline”? written by a perv over a 12 year old girl. really. read the lyrics and you tell me that song isn’t sketchy. and yet here you have redsock fans, cheerfully crooning along to a pedo fantasy. make it stop!
(Yes, big Yankees fan here!!)
Saw The “Thumper,” Bobbie Doerr, Pesky Dom DiMaggio, etc., play as a starry-eyed kid and have been a fan somewhat for years. I find the magic gone with two things: the wild card for money (why have a season?) and the buying of a team…and they all seem to do it.
My cure, 7 innings, shrink the strike zone and electrify the calls, and go back to two leagues and farm teams
Dr. Lurch:
(Yes, big Yankees fan here!!)
My hometown, while it tends towards the Sox, also has its share of Yankees fans. That is consistent with its relative distance between Boston and New York. In my last visit to my home area, I visited a family friend – since deceased- at a local rehab center.
Turned out that his roommate in the rehab center was a neighbor of mine, who had once driven the school bus I rode on, and was also the cousin of a classmate of mine. (Because the family friend lived in another town, they hadn’t know each other before the rehab center.)
I and the family friend were Sox fans. His roommate, my former bus driver, was a Yankees fan. There was no point arguing over that. We agreed to disagree.
One year my high school gym class had a student teacher who had played for both the Yankees and the Red Sox.
While I am not a Yankees fan, I am a big fan of Yogi Berra’s contribution to American humor. I will also agree that Babe Ruth, courtesy of both hitting and pitching accomplishments, was baseball’s greatest player.
“They had that goofball Papelbon always holding his mouth like an imbecile . . .”
I was surprised the Phillies kept him on for three years before offloading him on the Nats. He had one of the oddest stances on the mound that I’ve ever seen. And it must be karma for Papelbon’s dugout histrionics that the Phillies are rumored to be looking to sign Bryce Harper.
Clearly, based on his overall body of work, Kimbrel thinks we fans enjoy an exciting finish to the game. For this lifelong Sox fan I would tell him he is WRONG! Nothing boring about a simple 1-2-3 ninth.
I was a student in a Boston area Catholic elementary school in 1967. This was first through eighth grade. All the teachers were nuns and as much as I can remember they all loved baseball. Back then games were played in the daytime. The school scheduled half-days for us on every game day of the WS. I was 10 years old at the time, my mother has confirmed my recollection.
In those days we were more interested in playing baseball, and many other sports, than we were in following the team and watching games. I was hooked on the Sox from that point on.
Our tiny-payroll bunch of mostly rookie Tampa Bay Rays gave the BoSox some good amounts of pain this season…Yankees had some pain from our Kids too. Me & my baseball fanatic Queen will be rooting for the Astros of the ALCS.
All that said, the Red Sox have a really breathtaking bunch this year!!
Hey NeoConScum, you have plenty to be proud of regarding your Devil Ray…ooops… I mean Rays. can’t say I’m fond of the “opener” concept that you guys started (and is being adopted by other teams). whatever. Baseball is changing and the changes are not good.
My prediction (since the Yankees manager is a moron) is that you guys take second place and the wild card next year. The Bean Eaters will improve their bullpen during the Hot Stove and will have a firm grip on first. Yankees will be in third place (out of contention).
I was really hoping somebody would defend “Sweet Caroline”. Guess I’d need to be in a group of Liberal if-it-feels-good-do-it redsock fans in order to hear support for such a creepy tradition.
Neo might be interested to know that the most rabid baseball fan to inhabit the White House was a First Lady, Grace Coolidge. ” . . . not everyone realized that of the two [spouses], Grace Coolidge was by far the more knowledgeable and enthusiastic fan.” The Coolidges rooted for the Washington Senators throughout the 1920s, but became Red Sox fans after they left the White House. “After the Coolidges returned to their hometown of Northampton, Massachusetts in 1929, they transferred their allegiance from the Senators to the Boston Red Sox. Following her husband’s death in 1933 Grace Coolidge traveled the 100 miles from Northampton to Boston several times a year to see the Red Sox play. . . . At a father-son baseball dinner at Northampton in November 1948, the featured speaker, Philadelphia Athletics pitcher Joe Coleman, was asked if an unassisted triple play had ever taken place during a World Series. Flustered, Coleman admitted he didn’t know the answer. At that moment a voice spoke up from the audience: ‘Yes, Bill Wambsganss, Cleveland infield, in the 1920 series.’ The voice belonged to Grace Coolidge, and she was exactly right.”
The full article on the Coolidges as baseball fans (with lots of photos) can be found here: https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-coolidges-and-baseball
I bet Grace is smiling down on Judge Kavanaugh even if he does support an NL team.
Neo, I believed that no divide, not the liberal/ conservative, nor the Darwinist/Creationist, nor the empiricist/rationalist, nor the “tastes great”/”less filling” divides could be as deep as that dividing the Red Sox/Yankee fan. Yet, even though a long time Yankee fan, I toured Fenway (and even bought a Red Sox cap in a moment of insanity), and I’ve come to acknowlege the achievement Curt Schilling and his bloody sock. So, fortunately, I can keep reading your column which would have been my great loss if I couldn’t.
Yankees fan here.
This year’s ALCS does have the two best teams in the AL.
Now I’m rooting for a Red Sox – Dodgers World Series.
(I do care for Dodgers over the Brewers more thank I care for the Red Sox over the Astros.)
“than,” not “thank.”
Until about 10-15 years ago the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry was still strong, and bitter. It has mellowed enormously in the intervening years. Not entirely, but significantly. If one hears deep resentment, it is nearly always from a person over 50, or maybe even 60.
The first cracks came during the Steinbrenner era, when even Sox fans looked on at New York fans with pity. When people up here sided with Bucky F-in’ Dent over Steinbrenner, I knew the old rivalry would never be as strong. 2003 and 2004 were the last major fireworks, I think.
Lurch: Thanks for the Rays thumbs up!! Snell may make Cy Young & Joey Wendel has a real shot at Rookie of the Year. Kevin Cash just renewed thru 2024, Thank God!!