Where are you on the fan spectrum? Rational? Bat shit?

Steve:
OK, here's something positive: Despite all the crap that has befallen the Red Sox in '05, '06, and over the past few weeks of '07, nobody, not even the Curly Haired Boyfriend, has so much as mentioned "The Curse."

 

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Steve:
That old canard is finally dead and buried.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, true, but aftah 2004 I really did expect things to be totally different and yet it seems, with the exception of the Curse and 1918 and all that crap, we are pretty much right back where we were befoah.

 

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Steve:
Well, as Don Rumsfeld will tell you, there is often a considerable gap between expectations and reality on the ground, but in the case of Red Sox Nation, I think there has been a real shift since the World Series win.

 

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Mike:
What? Have you not been reading the blogs, listening to the radio?

 

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Steve:
Yeah, I have, actually. And that's where I'm drawing my inference from.

 

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Steve:
It seems to me that a good chunk of fans, I dunno 25% I'd guess, are actually talking and blogging and commenting in a downright rational fashion.

 

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Steve:
And I'd say another 25% are concerned and sullen and quite probably expect the worst, but they are not going bat shit crazy or anything.

 

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Mike:
That still leaves another 50%.

 

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Steve:
Absolutely.  And of that remaining 50% there is a lot of gnashing of teeth and clinking of rosaries but, even then, the percentage of whacked out, "28 Days Later" wanting to eat the flesh off your bones fans have been reduced to a number smaller than I've ever seen.

 

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Steve:
And I'm totally convinced that had there been no 2004 glory, the flesh eaters would outnumber the rationals 9:1 easily.

 

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Mike:
Well, while I can't say I'm feeling all warm fuzzy after your overly long exposition, I confess that I can see some wheat in all the chaff of the past few days.

 

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Steve:
  Yes, and Beckett goes tonight.  It's not over yet.

 

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Comments

[Kaz]

Unfortunately, even the rational among us are of the mind that if the Sox lose 2 or 3 to Tampa Bay, then someone needs to be taken to Salem, hung at a gallows, then burned at a stake, then fed to the pigs.

[Genghis Ortiz]

Incredible artistry today. You surely have the pulse of the nation...

Or to be more of a Philistine...

And as the thunder cracked, and the people departed, sadly and slowly, the Centurian uttered "Truly, this man was material to be President of Red Sox Nation"

[louclinton]

2004=best day ever.

Bring it on.

lc

[buckner was framed]

Not sure what was worse:
a) traveling 600 miles to witness that completely lifeless team,
b) having to endure the BJ fans saying "we own the Red Sox",
c) paying $9 for a warm beer. Budweiser at that.
d) having a foul ball clang off my hands (that was me in the Soxaholix tee misplaying Tek's foul in game 3), or
e) coming thru customs, answering the question "Why were you in Canada" with "to watch the Red Sox lose 3 to the Blue Jays" and have the response be "Yeah, wasn't that great?" from the Skank fan customs agent. Everybody's a f*ing comedian

Great to be back to work. Bring on the Devil Dogs

[denversoxfan]

Fuck Boston Dirt Dogs. They've been hating so hard on everyone they can find lately. I'm sick of that site - thanks for pointing it out today, hb.

[Devine]

I guess I fall in the concerned/sullen group...

[louclinton]

If you want some good news, go to

http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/shots/

You're welcome.

lc

[yazbread]

Call me sullen. I don't read BDD anymore. But I just took a look at it and the headlines and pictures pretty wrap up the end of the season. On the bright side, the Bills come to Foxboro and the Pats move to 3-0 this weekend. Pats might clinch their division before the Sox.

[Kaz]

HALLE-LOU-YAH!

I still miss Trup though. :(

[vermonter]

/Pats might clinch their division before the Sox./

THAT is funny.

Burlington Avenue, huh, h.b. You'll be dancing naked in Brattleboro in no time.

Ok, I feel good about tonight. New team, new attitude. I have to think the players are sick of this, too. May Toronto now beat up on the Skanks. If they don't I'll think conspiracy.

[Colin]

Wow the Dirt Dogs site was on par with the same flashy sensationalist scheisse of Perez Hilton. I now congratulate myself for lowering my IQ about 10 points.

[Colin]

And some idiot chick from Hawaii gets arrested at gunpoint for wearing a fake bomb that was acutally a computer circuit board, wires, and Play-Doh.

Ladies and gentlemen, as a 23-year old MA resident and National Guardsman, let me be the first to say I've now lost faith in my generation. God help me...

[Colin]

I forgot to mention she was an MIT student and this was at Logan.

http://wbztv.com/topstories/local_story_264104114.html

Once again, lost faith in my generation.

[Natalie]

hb- I think you mean gnashing of molars or wringing of hands.

I'm in the sullen 25%. With a dash of cautious optimism...

[Kaz]

Oh man, Colin, good stuff. What a tool. I bet she thought she was either a)"making a statement" or b)"being funny".

I can defend the Mooninites and the two guys who were hanging the ads around town. That was absurd over-reaction by officials over pretty obvious nonsense. Wearing play-doh on a circuit board into the airport...straight up stupid and punishable by a rifle butt upside your head.

[Steve in MD]

/And some idiot chick from Hawaii gets arrested at gunpoint for wearing a fake bomb that was acutally a computer circuit board, wires, and Play-Doh./

/I forgot to mention she was an MIT student and this was at Logan./

When I was a grad student at Stanford, a bunch of undergrads pulled a similarly stupid stunt: they faked a kidnapping at gunpoint in one of the cafeterias, alledgedly to give students a taste of what was happening in US backed third world countries. Nobody got killed in that stunt either, but I've read that many of the students present who did nothing to help the fake victims have had severe psychological problems as a result of the incident. I guess there is difference between the kind of smarts required to get into top grad schools and common sense.

[h.b.]

good call on the "gnashing" weirdness. switched to teeth from hands.

[tessie]

i believe i fall in the "hiding under a rock til the season's over" group but i have a lot of chicken blood in me. meanwhile, my happy indians-loving sister's taking me out to their ballgame tonight...oh sure, just what i want to see, a team that's actually playing well.

though i woke up from a dream this morning doing the "Let's Go Red Sox" clapping and can't help but feel like that puts me on the hopeful side of things.

Let's go Red Sox!

[NYSoxfan]

an observation: most of this season, a glimpse at the passersby in and around Manhattan would only produce an odd Yankees cap or jersey. Now that they are winning, all the regalia is out of the closet -- no longer banished next to the Knicks stuff. When the MFYs get knocked out in the division series, I'll report back on the October disappearance of all those NY swastikas...

[Jason O.]

I am surprised that she is not dead. A fake bomb in Logan?

[carlos]

That's really funny NYSox fan --equating Yankees fans with the architects of genocide. Hilarious stuff.

[h.b.]

//the architects of genocide//

Sshhhh, don't tell Ahmadinejad.

[Sonoma Sox]

where on the spectrum does: "in need of restraint so I don't destroy my own house" fall.

Not really sullen, not in the gnashing of teeth but more in the destruction of property mode...been that way for me most of the season/life re: inability to score w/ RISP.

Again - cheers to Lou Merloni. Glad to see him kick ass, even if it is AAA.

[Kaz]

Gabe Kapler wants to play again. If it means we can sit JD Drew, I say we pick him back up.

Also, carlos, when were the Buddhists, Hindus, and Jainists ever "architects of genocide"? Oh, wait, you just *assumed* he was equating NYY fans with Nazis and not using the more wordly "well-being" definition of the symbol. Shame on you.

[Kaz]

Ok, after seeing and reading more information on this "bomb hoax" at the airport, I have to reverse judgement and apologize to the kid.

This was another lite-brite. It was just inside of a shirt. In fact, any "pic of the device" that you find right now is the *INSIDE* of the shirt. AND if you look closely at it (pic 3) you'll notice it's a PUNCH board not a CIRCUIT board for holding the LEDs in place (ala lite-brite) and the handful of wires (that were under the shirt not outside of it) were simple capacitors hooked up to a 9-volt! (and I'm not even an electric engineer and I know these things).

Geezus, from the outside the shirt woulda twinkled when the LEDs were running and *might* have been a little bulkie where the plastic was reinforcing it. I have halloween costumes that light up like this (please don't come and arrest me and take my hoax bombs away, BPD, thanks). A talking bass toy or a battery-powered Xmas tree with LEDs is more sophisticated!

Yet another over-reaction by Boston's finest. Do these people get out at all or what?

[Colin]

Regardless of which I'm still not apologetic to the kid based on the pure fact that this little stunt was devoid of common sense. You just don't do stupid things like walk around with something some authority will flip about and act stupidly at an airport...you just don't.

[da kine]

I think she should have been punched for being named "Star". Stupid, indeed.

[maineiac red sox fan]

How funny is this story...

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6872490

[Aaron]

In more pleasant news:

CameraGate is over. Other 31 NFL teams, commence shitting your pants.

[Jackie]

I've been having a fun back-and-forth e-mail with another Sox fan who works with me... after every loss, we come up with another creative way to commit suicide. (e.g., on Wednesday night I sent him an e-mail that said "I am sharpening my ritual hari kiri knives...") It's been entertaining. I'm not sure where on the spectrum it puts us, though.

[Steve in MD]

Sox win. Yanks lose. Backing slowly away from the ledge...

[soxdownunder]

Maggies gone for another year but courageous to the end. 98,002 rabid fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground including one sdu:

http://picasaweb.google.com/soxdownunder/PiesPrelimFinal07

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/magpies-show-they-are-all-heart-on-the-football-field/2007/09/22/1189881836109.html

Can now focus on this abortion that is the red sox in late September. SDU = Batshit on the ledge.

[Devine]

Playoff baseball clinched! Nice comeback, Sox!

[Genghis Ortiz]

(Big sigh of relief)

Now for something completely different...

I hope that a few of the fellas remember
1. The ass-kicking from Chicago in 2005;
2. The ass-kicking from the MFY in August 2006;
3. Losing 10 of 18 to the MFYs in 2007

and turn all that negativity into a happy, ass-kicking October for us...

[n]

maggy is the best word ever

[soxdownunder]

//maggy is the best word ever//
Very true. However, it is seldom used in the singular and would, as a proper noun, generally attract a capital M.

[Genghis Ortiz]

So can someone please explain - if the 'big goal' is winning the WS, etc., and Papi has been injured the last 3-6 months, why was he playing last night? It obviously didn't inspire any extra effort from the somnulent majority...