Grew up in Upstate NY hating NYY. It's an upstate/downstate thing. Pretty much everything from Albany east ought to get cut off and dumped into the Atlantic, the Yankees included. No one would miss Poughkeepsie or George Steinbrenner.
However: Since moving back here in '02 I have found myself more and more tolerant of the pinstriped team and its fans -- even tune into a key game or two and root them on. I don't get that excited about it (AL ball doesn't do a whole lot for me, and sports don't generally determine my quality of life one way or the other).
Wonder why?
Maybe because, everywhere I've encountered it, and especially since the first WS win, Red Sox Nation is populated with more than its fare share of chirpy bitches. Yankee fans may be arrogant, but at least it's an arrogance born of a long tradition of success... and when things go poorly, they look to their team and its management for change. On the other hand, it's hard to sit in a bar around here without some yoho in a Red Sox cap whining about the Yankees' payroll. It gets old in a hurry.
Chaps, the bright side is, you're a thoughtful Sox fan, and tolerable. Which puts you in a league apart from many of your compatriots.
Red Sox fans = chirpy bitches with a chip on their shoulder. Discuss.
2 comments:
Matt,
1. To this day, you remain one of my favorite writers (and speakers) because of your penchant for a great turn of phrase. "Chirpy bitches" is right up there with my favorites of yours. Chirpy is a thoroughly underused adjective.
2. I don't disagree with you. I feel disconnected from a lot of Red Sox fans, because I never have shared that particularly sour perspective that is unique to that breed of Sox fan who grew up in or around Boston and thought the Curse was real and the bane of their existence.
My connections to the Sox run through my family in Connecticut, but because I lived all over growing up, but never in New England, I was never thoroughly immersed in the Curse. I have always been grateful to root for a team that contends nearly every year. I never identified with the Sox fans who even after '04, seemed bitter, angry, and constantly ready to proclaim the next great disappointment. I have never felt like those people are really "fans" -- people who love baseball and enjoy following their team. Instead, they enjoy wallowing in their own perceived grudge against the world.
I love the fact that my Sox are always in the mix. I can't fathom the drudgery that must be the lot of say, fans of the Pirates -- who haven't been to the playoffs once in the last 15 years. Or even worse -- the Devil Rays, who have been around 9 years and never posted a record better than 70-91 (.432). Yikes.
That's not to say I didn't enjoy the feeling of breaking through that "cursed" psychological barrier. The psychodrama of '04 made the celebration of ending it all the more joyous.
I'll be interested to see how this week's parade differs from '04's.
But, feel free to sock the next chirpy bitch you see and tell him he's not a real fan -- he's just a bitch.
>>sock the next chirpy bitch you see
And if that's not the title of the next vandals record I don't know what is.
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