Red Sox Hate-ion

You have the hat, and the t-shirt and the fake New England accent.
Congratulations. You’re a phony baloney Boston Red Sox fan and Left
Field probably scowled at you last weekend up in Seattle where we set
up camp for the weekend series against the Mariners.

Now, let’s
get one thing straight: Red Sox fans are endlessly better than Yankees
fans. And, Red Sox fans have a sort of blue-collar, beer-drinking
folksiness about them that’s easy to like. But it’s the bandwagon Red
Sox fans that bought a cap when Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez (now a
Yankee and a drug user, respectively) led the magical team of 2004 to
victory and now deem it necessary to root against their home team every
time the Red Sox come to town.

By Left Field’s estimate, about
one in four Safeco Field seats were occupied by Red Sox fans – who
gladly chanted “Let’s go Red Sox” ad nausea, which in a visiting
ballpark is the equivalent to walking over to your neighbor’s home for
the express purpose of taking a paint-peeling dump. There are some
things you just don’t do away from home.

There were some noble Red Sox fans, including but most likely not limited to the guy in his Sox shirt, hat and sweatshirt who introduced himself to us at the beginning of Saturday’s game upon noticing Left Field’s 1981-era M’s gear, promising not to “be obnoxious.” And he wasn’t, really, even when the Sox hit a pair of two-run dingers in the first two innings.

In the end, the Mariners took two out of three games from the Red Sox – only losing the one game Left Field attended in person – but seeing all that red throughout Seattle was enough to make us want to projectile vomit on the nearest Dustin Pedroia jersey. Why can’t there be bandwagon Mariners fans that pack stadiums wherever the team goes? Oh right, no one wants to wear those silly “what the future will look like when we get there” teal-and-navy uniforms, no matter how cute Ichiro might be. – Mike Bookey

This article appears in May 21-27, 2009.