Uncooperative Crickets

New England Sports

Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox. I am really excited to be back in a town with a World Series champion again. This hasn't happened since 1991.

Tsjaz (among others) points out that the Red Sox achieved this largely by outspending everyone. And he is completely correct. I don't like this in principle, but I also like to root for the home team. This is what sports are largely good for - building community...and then having your community despise other communities. But the important thing is that you are all despising together.

So I am not going to apologize for rooting for the Red Sox, although I don't think that the anti-Red Sox comments were directed toward me. Rather, I agree with Tsjaz (and others) that there shouldn't be Red Sox fans throughout the country all of the sudden. Why were there so many Red Sox fans in Denver this week? Certainly, some rabid fans traveled across the country to see them play, and some of the people grew up in New England. However, a large portion of them were likely frontrunners. This is not acceptable. It was not acceptable when people decided they liked the Yankees because they were winning, it was not acceptable when people decided that they like the Cowboys because they were winning, and it was not acceptable for the Red Sox.

Here is a case where I may be guilty of that (although I don't think that I am): I grew up a Boston Celtics fan. This was in the '80s, when they were really good. But here are five good reasons to give me a pass on the "frontrunner" label:

1. I was young and stupid at the time.
   
2. They were literally the first pro sports team I saw on television after I started caring about basketball. They were playing the Bucks.
   
3. I probably picked them because I like the color green (this may be stupid for other reasons, but it doesn't make me a frontrunnner).
   
4. The Celtics have not won a championship since I started following them.
   
5. I didn't have a home team to root for at the time.
   

I am also enjoying the Patriots, which makes me more of a candidate for being a frontrunner than for the Red Sox. This is because I did not like the Patriots before I moved to New England, but I liked the Red Sox (I pretty much like all Boston things, including bands: Throwing Muses, The Pixies, The Lemonheads, Buffalo Tom, Juliana Hatfield, etc). However, I am again pulling the "I live here" card, which I am okay with.

Just to be clear, my primary allegiances are still with my original hometown teams: the Twins, the Vikings, and the Timberwolves (it took me a long time to admit this last one, since I tried to hold on to my Celtic alligiance for as long as I could).

So I had an extremely relaxing weekend with Skye watching the Red Sox, the Patriots, and convincing myself that I am not a bandwagon-jumper.

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 1:19 PM