I'm a yeller. I love screaming. I don't know why, but very few things are more enjoyable to me than shouting at my sports teams while watching them on TV. I yelled a lot on Thursday night, but it wasn't at my team. It was at the Boston Red Sox. I've never yelled at any team that wasn't my own. It's like family. You can yell at your own family, but you don't yell at other people's family. And as I was begging Grady Little to take Pedro out in the eighth inning, it hit me that I was getting way to worked up about a team that I wasn't supposed to care anything about. It's like the episode of "That 70's Show" when Hyde realizes that he likes Jackie. He hated Jackie, he couldn't stand her. But once her date started to rip on her, he slugged him in the face. That's how it was for me and the Sox during Game 7. I was an Orioles fan. The Red Sox were a hated division rival. I kept saying how choosing between the Sox and Yankees was like picking the lesser of two evils. But when everything started falling apart in that eighth inning, I found myself rooting for this baseball team like I had never rooted for any other baseball team in my entire life. I couldn't help myself.
And so I have to consider becoming a Red Sox fan. Call it a bandwagon move if you'd like. Trust me, joining the Red Sox isn't setting yourself up for an easy stroll through the park. I know it's a big upgrade as far as standings go, but I'm not doing this because the Sox are better than the Orioles. You could tell me the Orioles will win the World Series next year, and I'd still consider switching teams. I'm not considering doing this because I'm choosing the Red Sox. I'm doing this because I feel that the Red Sox may have chosen me by making me care. This isn't about what's best for me. This is about what's right.
My life is finally starting to take shape. I'm heading to Med-School in New Jersey, and I'll probably stay in Jersey for the rest of my life. I'm pretty sure I know where I'm going, and I know that when looking at the Orioles, I'm not sure that they fit in with the direction I am heading. The things that were important to me in junior high, aren't the things I need now that I'm an adult. So call me a traitor for contemplating leaving the Orioles, but the person who decided to start following those teams isn't the same person that's typing this today. I'm almost positive I'll never leave the Timberwolves and Patriots. When we came together, it was a pefect match. The Timberwolves are my childhood team, and waiting patiently for the dreams of them winning a championship to finally come true has been wonderful. They're not only a part of my history, but I'm a part of theirs. There's no breaking that bond. The Patriots are just the purest team imaginable. Whenever they take the field there's always one of three outcomes. One, they play good and win. Two, they play bad and lose. Three, something magical happens. And the third thing seems to happen with more frequency than anyone should expect. I could rehash Super Bowl XXXVI, but you know that story. Just take Sunday's OT victory over Miami as an example of the magic that Patriots create. I can honestly only remember them blowing a game once in the ten seasons I've followed them. And then there's baseball...
"Anyway, my wife understands now. She only jumped on the bandwagon a few years ago, thanks to me. Now her Sox virginity has been taken; she was near tears last night. "I finally understand why you're so crazy about this team," she kept saying. "I can't imagine going through this for my entire life. This is horrible." Add another one to the list." - Bill Simmons
That's an excerpt from the Sports Guy's "Paradise Lost, Again". I wasn't near tears on Thursday night, but like the Sports Gal, I finally understood why Red Sox fans are so crazy about their team. It was the most horrific loss in sports history. I can't imagine the heartbreak that every Red Sox fan felt. And for some reason I just can't get enough of it. Maybe I just like to be miserable. My other teams are playing phenomenally. I have nothing left to complain about. And there's always something to complain about when you're a Sox fan. But I don't think it's that. I believe it's about something higher. Like I said earlier, it's about what's right. I hate the New York Yankees. They're destroying professional sports with the way they run their organization. They toss more money at super-stars than any other team can afford and stifle their competition. I hate the attitudes of the lousy New York Yankees fans. I've never met a group of people that so blindly follow a team without knowing anything. They think that every move the Yankees make is golden, every heinous act is justified. They put on a show trying to be patriotic by singing "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch.
It makes my stomach turn.
They just use it as a way to freeze out the pitcher. Even after surviving Game 7 by the skin of their teeth and Grady Little's stupidity, all the Yankees fans I know acted like they earned the win. If it were my team, I'd be very quick to point out that we got lucky. But not Yankees fans. They have an air about them like the win was owed to them. That they're somehow superior just because they happen to root for the richest franchise in sports. I can't stand it. I am unabashedly opposed to everything that franchise stands for. And if you're going to hate the Yankees, you should hate them the right way. And the only right way is to hate them as a Red Sox fan.
In my opinion there are only two types of baseball fans - Yankees fans, and Red Sox fans. It's the ultimate battle of good versus evil. You have to pick a side. You might like your Giants, or Cardinals, or Rangers, or whoever, but you still have to make a choice: Yankees or Red Sox. Do you support a franchise that has been more victorious than any other in professional sports, or do you support one of the most down-trodden gut-wrenching losers of the past century? What's more important to you, a life of ease or a life of integrity? Are you content to sit back and watch everything fall into place for you, or do you want to scrape and claw fighting for that moment of glory that may never come? I don't know about you, but I choose the latter options. And so that's why I choose the Red Sox. Maybe if you've never had to face adversity in your life, the Yankees make sense to you. You can be content taking the easy way, because you've never had to struggle in your real life. But for people like me, who have struggled just to make it through the day at times, things just aren't worth it unless you feel some pain. I need to know that I took the hard route and came out the victory. But with this team, that would be a big if.
Maybe there's a bigger reason for all of this. Maybe the Red Sox haven't won yet so people like me can join in and experience the euphoria when they do. Maybe they're holding out so your children can witness that moment when the waiting will finally all be over. Maybe their just sitting back, biding their time until the anticipation of the Red Sox nation swells to an incomprehensible level so that when the cries of victory are shouted, it's the single greatest expression of happiness the world has ever seen. And maybe this whole paragraph is a bunch of crap, and none of this will ever happen. But that's the beauty of being a Red Sox fan.
So now I have to ask myself... "To switch, or not to switch?"
