Sore winners
Not the Sox themselves — and congrats to the team and its fans, by the way — but Charles P. Pierce on Slate.com, who sours an otherwise serviceable season overview by taking the obligatory slap at the Yankees at the end:
Ultimately, though, it’s the talent nurtured and developed by the organization that belies the latest trope — that the Red Sox have suddenly become the Yankees. Leaving aside the fact that they are not owned by a crazy person, if they were the Yankees, they’d have peddled Lester or Delcarmen or Papelbon years ago for some superannuated right-handed slugger who’d help them win five games in September or knock the Mets off the back pages of the tabloids. The Red Sox heart is now a homegrown one.
Is it an immutable law of New England sports coverage that no Red Sox victory may be correctly enjoyed without casting it as a Yankee loss or shortcoming? Because Lord knows I understand defending a championship baseball team against the accusations from its detractors that it “bought” its place in the sun; I think this is Pierce’s main complaint, and I can sympathize with the feeling that, sour as the grapes may get, they’re beside the point.
But if the so-called “latest trope” is that the Red Sox have a lot of money, and spend it, well, that’s true. And if it’s that the Red Sox frequently spend it less than wisely on players who don’t turn out to be worth the investment, well, that’s also true; Pierce acknowledges this in the case of J.D. Drew, and I know sabermetricians aren’t supposed to care about clubhouse dynamics, but 1) Bill James devotes his entire Historical Abstract entry on Dick Allen to what Allen cost his teams by being a jackass, and 2) J.D. Drew had a reputation not for jackassery but for not hustling. So that was not the smartest purchase, and not the most unpredictable, either.
What Pierce doesn’t acknowledge? Dice-K. Fans more in the know than me, who watched him all season, can feel free to correct me on the fine points — but the guy sure didn’t look worth $51 million just to talk to from down here in Gotham. …I think that was the figure; again, corrections welcome. Here’s what you probably can’t correct me on: that money was to keep Matsusaka away from the Yankees. I mean, come on. Babe Ruth himself isn’t worth that kind of scratch unless the front office wants to cockblock Cashman — and since when is “Japan” considered “homegrown”?
You want to differentiate the Sox from the Yankees, fine, but conveniently leaving out the biggest transaction of Boston’s year, the one which makes them EXACTLY like the Yankees, doesn’t strengthen your argument. It makes it look like not much of an argument at all, actually.
The Yankee roster is way too old; this is true. The Clemens deal didn’t have a good payoff; this is also true. But the team isn’t the ’90s Marlins. There’s still homegrown, or at least longstanding, talent among the veterans (Jeter, Rivera). Also: Cabrera and Cano. Also also: Trading for expensive veteran talent often succeeds. This is why teams continue to do it. A-Rod = expensive veteran talent. Best position player in baseball, possibly ever. Without him, the ’07 Bombers finish under .500. Pettitte = expensive veteran talent. Proven quantity who put in good time this season. Without him, the ’07 Bombers have zero consistently effective starting pitching through June.
Randy Johnson = expensive veteran talent. Didn’t get the job done, was dismissed. Gary Sheffield = expensive veteran talent. Got traded; got hurt; shot his mouth off some more. (I missed that dude’s bat, don’t get me wrong, but when he left the Yankees I thought it was a smart call by the front office.)
Who else is expensive veteran talent? Hmm, let me think for a moment…oh, yes. Curt Schilling.
Baseball teams make trades in order to try to win championships. This is how the game works. It is not by definition savvy business when Boston does it, but at the same time a cynically loathsome sullying of baseball’s pure nature when New York does it, because the game is a business. Furthermore, referring to the capriciousness of “King George” re: personnel decisions is almost 20 years out of date; please have a basic understanding of team operations before you turn up your nose at their workings.
And finally: the Sox had their feet on the Yanks’ necks before the All-Star break; the Yankees drew within, what, a game and a half, two games at the end there? Threatened for the division, pretty credibly? Yeah. And remind me who won the season series? “Not Boston.” Yeah, I know.
All y’all Sox fans are rolling your eyes right now that I brought that up, because it’s sort of hard to believe either of those things; it is for Yankee fans too, because Boston was the better team all year. They had superior starting pitching, they had Papelbon, they had consistent offense early when ours didn’t wake up for two months (except for A-Rod), and they whipped Colorado’s butt red. They’re champions of the world, and deservedly. So I have to wonder why, as fucking usual, it’s not about beating the Indians, or the Rockies, but about being made of finer moral stuff than the Yankees, which is not only horseshit but also not germane in the first place. Just enjoy winning, for God’s sake, because I can tell you, when the Yankees won that string of rings back in the day, nobody gave two shits what that meant in comparison to Boston.
And if A-Rod goes to Beantown — and that’s an essay for another time, that situation — I had better not hear one more goddamn word about the big bad rich Evil Empire coming out of the Boston press, O’Shaughnessy, ever again.
I respect the Red Sox. I like watching most of the players. I could really do without the smug hypocrisy on the part of certain partisan sportswriters. Bill Simmons.
Tags: curmudgeoning
My boyfriend (Sox fan) refers to J.D. Drew as “Nancy” when he’s misbehavin. You don’t know how badly I want A-Rod to end up in Boston just so they can all shut their damn pieholes. I think justice (not David) would be served. I never much cared fer the fella…
I used to love Bill Simmons but now I can’t read his articles without developing a a sprain in my eyeball from all the eyeball rolling. I love Boston, and the Sox, but live the sanctimonious bullshit at home, folks. It’s over. We’re not the 96-200? Yanks, but we’re definitely not the underdogs anymore either.
Thanks for the congrats, Sars. You should have seen all the partying at Fenway on Sunday night. Insanity.
I second the massive Simmons eyeball rolling. He has some enjoyable stuff, but then ruins it by being such an unabashed homer that I can’t take it. And don’t get me started on the cheap, unnecessary shots at women’s sports just for the hell of it. Yes, yes, I understand that the WNBA is not your cup of tea already…
As a Sox fan, I think I speak for the entire nation when I say A-rod: DO NOT WANT.
And I don’t think most of us here on the ground are claiming any sort of “scrappy underdog” status against the big rich Yankees. That thing got put to rest in 2004. But with the sports writers, you still want to say, “Hey, three years ago called. It wants its baseball storylines back.”
Look at it this way: two championship sweeps in, Red Sox Nation still has a massive inferiority complex regarding the Yankees. My prediction is that one of the side effects of this win is that all those who embraced the Red Sox because they had an aura of underdog chic (which would be, many of the Red Sox fans who have spent less than three weeks total in Boston) are going to start looking for another perpetually lost cause, and media coverage of the Sox, at least outside New England, will change accordingly.
Oh, no, please. No A-Rod in Boston. I want him in LA so badly. Putting the needs for a power bat and a third baseman aside for a minute: I am just giddy over the prospect of A-Rod sharing a clubhouse with Jeff Kent. I have a huge grin on my face and I am using my laptop in the lobby of the university’s Fine Arts Center and NO ONE KNOWS WHY I AM GRINNING. It’s because A-Rod and Asshole on the same team just seems like comedy gold in the making.
I’m the kind of Red Sox fan who lives for The Rivalry™ and all the accompanying drama, but still rolls her eyes at idiocy directed at the Yankees. But that said, I appreciate Pierce’s article merely for the reason that I am sick to death of being compared to Yankees fans and having my team dubbed the new Yankees. The Yankees are one thing, the Red Sox are another, and while I do not find it offensive on a human level to be compared to a Yankees fan, I am offended on the level of “I’ve been rooting against those pinstriped boobs my entire life.”
That is supposed to be “leave,” not live (I’ve been up since 5), and sweet jesus no, do not want A-Rod in Boston. I do not like green eggs and ham.
But hee re: Drew = Nancy. It’s like calling Sidney Crosby “Cindy.”
Awesome, I hit Submit Comment while I was typing. Laptoppery is dangerous.
ANYWAY.
It’s these two attitudes I’ve encountered that I’m tired of:
(1) The Yankees never farm their own talent and the Red Sox have ceased to do so.
OR
(2) The Yankees have all kinds of homegrown talent and the Red Sox don’t have any.
I run into #1 despite reality and I run into #2 from deluded Yankees fans who seem to think that we just dreamt up Ellsbury, Papelbon, Pedroia, Youkilis, Buchholz, and Delcarmen. And it comes from Yankees fans who count Matsui as “homegrown” — if he counts, so do Okajima and Matsuzaka, which they do not. Schilling counts more than they do; he came here in his late 30s but he was drafted by the Red Sox in the first place. And he doesn’t count, either.
And at least Pierce acknowledges, in his twisted little way, that the Red Sox and Yankees are two different teams with different philosophies. He does it in an annoying way, but it’s there.
Yes, I admit that this time, I felt perfectly comfortable throwing this championship in certain people’s faces — but only the faces of those people, Yankees fans or otherwise, who dismissed 2004 as a complete fluke and went on into fantasyland about how we wouldn’t win shit again until 2090, as if baseball has been around long enough to establish such a pattern. But I did not do this to everybody. Just the people who drove me absolutely fucking nuts for the last three seasons. That’s approximately four people, and they have duly shut up (at least around me).
I’ve had a splitting headache from reading the idiotic pseudojournalism coming from all sides the last few days, and I haven’t been asleep since yesterday at noontime, so my thoughts are a bit jumbled and long (the length isn’t really excusable by the headache; that’s just me), but I think my point is this is a Red Sox victory, that’s all it is, and Red Sox fans should be enjoying it as such. And that the two teams are different despite the huge payrolls. Cashman and Theo have separate brains, the Steinbrenners and John Henry have separate wallets. Just let me enjoy my fun without trying to lump me in with the team I have so desperately rooted against for most my life (often to no avail), please.
The Yankees had nothing to do with it – the Rockies just lost so badly. Drew’s being a bit yank-y himself, the wanker.
I am a natural born citizen of the Red Sox Nation, so I “hate” the Yankees reflexively, which is to say I want them not to do better than my guys, but… I also really can’t stand it when Boston fans make everything all about the Yanks. My old boss, whom I loved dearly, was yammering on about how the curse was broken when the Sox beat the Yankees in the ALCS in ’04, which… no. I mean, to me, the curse is a funny bedtime story, really, like a Greek myth or the idea that thunder is really God bowling, that we tell ourselves to explain why things are the way they are without really believing it, as well as an excuse to use words like “Nanette” and “Frazee,” which are inherently funny. But if you believe it’s an actual thing, then it is in fact about winning the World Series. Sure, in the universe of people who believe the curse was real, the Yankees were the gleeful, pointy-toothed, cloven-hoofed, horned agents of the lengthy nuclear winter of our discontent, and it’s always nice to have someone to blame, but anyone with the cash could’ve filled those shoes. (To be fair, though, I wonder how many teams could have continued to so obligingly fill them for many many years by winning fuckloads of games and titles.) My point, I guess, oblique as it is, is that there is a subset of Boston fans with giant, New York-shaped chips on their shoulders, for whom the entirety of baseball just telescopes down to that rivalry. These people are probably not enjoying themselves as much as they could be, baseball-wise, but it’s an obsession the media kind of loves to feed.
Right. Anyway. Dear Boston, please just enjoy the awesome. love, me. And I totally agree about Matsuzaka, based on my admittedly limited knowledge. I don’t watch every game, and it got to the point where I was afraid to watch when he was pitching, because it seemed like every time I did there’d be some sort of catastrophic imposion on the mound and the opposing team would score a thousand runs. People who know more than me about this say when he’s good, he’s very, very good, and maybe the idea is that he will settle down eventually and be very, very good all the time. In the meantime, I guess we get the thrill of terror everytime the dude picks up a ball, plus “hilarious” visual puns involving dice. Also, I read that he wears toe socks when he is pitching, which is kind of awesome, though I imagine this is not exactly what the Sox thought they were paying for when they signed him.
I’ve lived in Boston for 11 years and absolutely adore the Red Sox (almost as much as the Twins, my first love), but my happiness at seeing them win the World Series this year was almost equal to my hoping this means that they will finally SHUT UP about being the underdogs. Good God, people! Honestly!! Well, I know they won’t shut up until hell freezes over (don’t hold your breath, sarahK), but maybe now I’d be legally justified in some minor assault and battery on the worst offenders among my friends.
Sars, just when I can’t find the words, there you are.
My girlfriend (Sox fan) accused me of not being a “true” Yankees fan the other day. Why? Because ::gasp:: I don’t loathe the Red Sox, and was DAMN happy they won – they deserved it.
I’m a New Yorker. I’m a Yankee fan. But I’m first and foremost a BASEBALL fan. Why is it that Sox fans don’t understand that?
Well, according to this article in the Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2007/10/30/sneers_loathing_greet_a_boston_fan_in_nyc/) there are at least a few New Yorkers who are becoming vehement knee-jerk Red Sox/Bostonian haters much like how a lot of Red Sox fans are about New York/The Yankees. I don’t get why they hate the sox considering how alike the two clubs are and then there’s the fact that the two teams didn’t even play each other in the post-season. It’s not the sox fault they couldn’t get past Cleveland. That was a hard job, and my boys had to get to seven games before they could accomplish that. Cleveland was good.
Pierce is a dick anyway. Although he’s not nearly as bad as O’Shaughnessy or Simmons. I freaking hate those guys. I’m just glad my boys won and made all those late nights putting up with McCarver and Buck worth it for me.
@Marie: All the more reason to appreciate the WNBA. (Which I did not, until roughly a month ago. And I thought my last chance to root for a hometown pro team since its birth was the Thrashers. Although, if New Team gets named the Georgia Peaches? My dignity will prevent me.)
Congrats to the Sox and their fans on a great season and impressive post-season thrashings of their opponents.
That said, Shaughnessy better stuff some pumpkin in his piehole, or I’m going to jump on the Acela and deliver a Huffy Princess 18″ with pink streamers and a basket to his office.
I think it’s still too early to really know if Dice-K is worth his $100 million. He had a lot to adjust to (5 vs 6 man rotation, language barrier, different travel demands, etc) even before having to deal with the insanity of playing in Boston’s harsh media spotlight. Beckett seemed like a bust last year, but this year he adjusted and earned his salary. For the first couple of months, Dice-K looked untouchable. I’m hoping with some training in the off-season, he can make the same sort of adjustment that Beckett did.
And as someone born and raised in Red Sox Nation, I feel entitled to say, “Shut up, Bill Simmons. And you too, Dan Shaughnessy.” Not only do you make us all look bad, but you encourage all of your little wannabe fans that are constantly calling into radio shows.
I’m a Red Sox fan, and I don’t disagree, largely. I feel that if you’re a Sox fan with half a brain, you gave up on that underdog crap a while ago. The Red Sox are somehow still “underdogs”? Even if only compared to the Yankees? Um, NO — on both counts. Let go of it, people. Let go.
What the Red Sox might still be is “a perpetually very good team that is always in danger of stringing its fans along and giving them hope, and then blowing it at the last moment”. I still can’t quite let go of that. I felt it during the entire ALCS, and I felt it during the WS, too. “When are they going to choke?” For me, that’s the hardest readjustment at the moment, thinking that maybe I should shelve that feeling for a while. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.
Yeah, the 2004 ALCS was sweeter because it was beating the Yankees. That has its spot in the mythos, and it’s great. And also, there’s a certain amount of give-and-take built up between the two teams, that I think is fair to point to. The Idiots’ Johnny Damon being let go by the Sox and signing with the Yankees — that still hurts, and some schadenfreude there is still appropriate. Not to mention A-Rod… well, that doesn’t sting like it once did, because we get to evaluate that deal in retrospect.
And let’s be honest — to me, it looks like one of the reasons that the Sox and Sox fans measure themselves against the Yankees is because the Yankees set themselves up to be measured-against. You can’t tell me that the Yanks don’t want to set the standard by which others are measured.
Sars: “Furthermore, referring to the capriciousness of “King George” re: personnel decisions is almost 20 years out of date.”
What about Torre, then? Admittedly, this is the view of an outsider, not an insider, but that looks an awful lot like more of that famous Steinbrenner capriciousness, or… arrogance, or something. (Yeah, I know that there were reasons for thinking it was time for the Torre/Yankees relationship to be over. But Torre came off looking a lot more dignified than Steinbrenner in that one, and that just reinforced all of the “crazy George” stories, I think.)
Finally, in re. A-Rod: JESUS CHRIST, NO! NO NO NO NO NO!!!!
Look, I have some respect for the Sox management at the moment, and decisions they’ve made. (And believe me, I didn’t respect the whole Daisuke thing all that much; I’m pleased it more or less turned out well for us, after his performance in the post-season wasn’t spectacular but certainly helped. Few things could be sweeter than him actually RBIing two runs in Game 3. But… overpaid, much? Dude, Okajima is the more valuable asset gained from that deal, IMO.) I desperately want them to re-sign Lowell, although I am bracing myself for that not to work out (because even if today’s Sox are no longer choke-artists, they seem to be continuing their tradition of hard-nosed fan-disappointing attempts at business acumen).
But if they fail to sign Lowell? The last thing I want in the WORLD is for them to sign A-Rod. Just, NO, people. NO NO NO.
I would lose every ounce of respect that I have for them at the moment, if they do that.
re: Torre — I don’t know how involved George was in that decision, in the end. Somewhat, sure, but the George of today is not the George of 30 years ago (who would have sacked Joe in May…or 5 years ago).
I have no actual evidence to back it up, but I think getting Matsuzaka was not just about his pitching or about keeping him away from the Yankees — I think the management partly wanted him to attract Japanese fans and media coverage, and maybe having a high-profile Japanese pitcher will make future recruitment of Japanese players easier. I tell myself this because get a knot in the pit of my stomach every time he pitches.
J.D. Drew — there’s no excuse for that.
Amen to that, Sars.
@Jessica – That’s why I was a WUSA season ticket holder when the league started and will be again when it starts up in ’09 since the Boston Breakers will be back (although I have no idea where they’ll be playing.)
The only downside is that the sound of 5,000 small girls screaming every time a goal is scored is the stuff of nightmares.
On topic. I am a Yankees fan in Boston who takes a lot of shit for it. And even I have to say, Boras’s announcement during the clinching game? Tasteless, classless, greedy, etc. (Same with A-Rod’s refusal of a face to face actually.) Jesus, let them win in peace for God’s sake. It is not all about you.
And I actually didn’t mind A-Rod on the Yankees prior to that.
Thanks for the sincere congrats on the Red Sox win, Sars! My best friend, a Yankees fan, still hasn’t acknowledged to me that they won even though I did my best not to mention anything related to baseball to her this post-season.
With A-Rod leaving (and I also say NIMB!), aren’t Yankees fans kind of excited about some possible big changes in the team lineup? Rising from the ashes and all.
Sars – so much word. I’m also Red Sox Nation born and bred (Dorchester baby!), and I have a Jesus Hates the Yankees shirt, for kicks. But I respect the Yankees (as a team and individually) when they are playing well because as much as I don’t like Jeter for no good reason, he’s still a good ballplayer.I’ve always thought that a rivalry should consist basically of good-natured ribbing and jokes at the expense of the other guy, but the level of nasty and/or whiny that some people can take it to is just sad to me. I think I understand why Shaughnessy perpetuates it though – he basically made his career off writing Curse of the Bambino, so what’s he going to do if not keep adding fuel to the fire? (Good book, by the way. So many ‘coincidences’ that you start to wonder, even if you don’t believe in that crap.) p. s. another vote for A-Rod = DO NOT WANT.
Congrats to the Red Sox and their fans on a truly decisive and well-deserved championship win.
PS to the Red Sox Nation: The “underdog” hairshirt now belongs exclusively to the Chicago Cubs.
@MizShrew: What, the Phillies can’t have an underdog hair shirt, too?
And congrats to the Red Sox, of course.
Anne-Cara: If my research is correct, (and I’m no baseball historian, so let me know if I’ve got it wrong,) the Phillies last won a World Series in 1980. The Cubs last won a World Series in 1907, and were last in a World Series in 1945.
So, nope, no hair shirt for you. hee.
I don’t even think King George of Today is the same as King George of 5 or 6 years ago. I’ve read an article or two and apparently George is, uh… not doing so hot in the “Playing With a Full Deck At All Times” Department.
Preach it Sars.
I couldn’t agree more except for two things. The Yankees won the season series with Boston largely because Manny was hurt and I don’t think you can call Simmons hypocritical. Unabashed homer with an acknowledged double standard – yes, but hypocritical – no.
I just walked back into my office from the “rolling rally” in downtown Boston, and while out there witnessed one fan in the crowd try to start a “Yankees Suck!” cheer and the rest of the crowd…not join him. We all collectively rolled our eyes, sighed “irrelevant, dude” and kept cheering for the team as they paraded by. So while journalists may think that angle still sells, I believe the fans, at long last, are ready to move on. At least they were at Boston Common today.
Please. If there’s an underdog hairshirt going around … “Look, up in the sky!” … it belongs to the Toronto Blue Jays.
They have the whole nation basically in their back pocket, and they get to share their division with both the Yankees and the Red SoX. Talk about starting out behind the proverbial 8-ball every season – cause you just know one of those teams (if not both as this year) is going to spend gazoodles of cash more than the Jays have to win the division … and that leaves us scraping it out with the other one for the wildcard.
It’s like MLB decided … yeah, we want a team in Canada, but we don’t ever want them to win anything … can’t have America’s past time becoming too popular up there.
I mean, I know that conspiracy theories have nothing to do with it … but if you were gonna screw the Jays and baseball in Canada over … you couldn’t do it much better than that.
I’m sure some don’t consider me a “true” Sox fan. I’ve only lived in the region about half my life. I only decided I respected baseball in about 2002 or so. (I miss him.) I don’t really care about the history of the game. Unless I’m watching a specific team, I often don’t bother watching postseason games. I only started following the Sox when they picked up Orlando Cabrera; until them, I just found them amusing, the way they had a reasonable shot so often and always fell short in some particularly painful fashion.
That said, I think the whole Yankees/Sox “rivalry” thing is stupid and beyond tired. (Some fans buy into it, but the media really seem to be the ones pushing it. FOX may be the biggest pimps of that trope.) The smug media bullshit could stop any old time now. The Sox did well this year; good for them and I’m happy. The Yankees have a good team, too; in fact, I called them to take the Series when my work group filled out postseason brackets.
Other than the Yankees, the Sox have the biggest payroll in baseball by a very long shot. Management pays big bucks and trades away quality from the minors or the active team based on, as far as I can tell, big ol’ crushes. (Lugo for Alex Gonzalez? Really? J.D. Drew? Gagne? Who did we get for Hanley Ramirez again? They didn’t want Lowell; they didn’t want Okajima. They wanted Clemens — and can I just throw some extra love to the Yankees for saving us from that circus?) Beckett has turned out well, and they hope Matsuzaka will do the same; quite a few players this year have been outstanding; but there is no sense in which this team is perfect or has been built perfectly.
And since it would mean losing Lowell, I’ll chime in on the DO NOT WANT for A-Rod. Like that’ll make a difference. Who wants a solid, reliable, proven, steady, comparatively affordable (heh) but “boring” guy when they can get a younger superstar? Feh.
As for the writers, Pierce … meh. And Shaughnessy can take his made-up now-debunked “curse” nonsense, roll it up with his holier-than-thou “hate this player yet? how ’bout now?” mudslinging, and stuff it. Jerk. Realizing I’m reading him is almost as bad as realizing I’ve accidentally started reading a Jeff Jacoby op-ed. ::shudder::
I think, for some (not all!) Red Sox fans there’s this weird defensiveness about how the team is SO SO different from the Yankees that manifests in these slaps. And, uh, I like the Red Sox and they’re not so different. (Also, Cashman seems to have done some good work holding onto “homegrown” talent this year at least, with Joba and Phillip Hughes, right?) And it’s OKAY. I hate the St. Louis Cardinals and I would never ever have one on my fantasy team (except Pujols because I’m not stupid) but there’s no deep moral philosophy present. Cards beat the Tigers in the World Series last year, it bummed me out. This is the entirety of my beef with the Cards. And that’s OKAY. Seriously. I feel like Sox fans can just, you know, hate the Yankees. No need to dress it up. Division rivals! And Yankees fans can just hate the Red Sox. It’s all good and fun, or it should be.
Also, I totally do not understand people who do not want A-Rod on their team. Fine, the monetary reasons are strong and prevalent, but come ON, he’s an awesome player. I’d be freaking THRILLED to have that kind of offensive production in place of Brandon Inge next year and I like Inge.
Greetings from Boston – just back from the parade! Dropkick Murphys on a flatbed truck – a bit surreal.
I think the feeling here is definitely more “champion” than underdog. Thanks to the Pats and Sox, we’ve been feeling damn good about Boston sports for quite a bit now.
The Sox fans I know are delighted to give up the ghost and underdog status, and should not be judged based on Pierce (who the eff is that?) and Shaughnessy (we hate him MORE than you!), or a-hole bleacher creatures for that matter (you’ve got ’em too, don’t try to hide ’em!).
It’s a little disingenuous for Yankees fans and writers to say that they could care less about the Sox and Boston. It’s a great rivalry.
So when you say….
“Just enjoy winning, for God’s sake, because I can tell you, when the Yankees won that string of rings back in the day, nobody gave two shits what that meant in comparison to Boston.”
…it kinda snaps my girdle. We are, thanks. The writers are making a big deal of it because of the money issue, and because this is the first year in a looong time that the Sox won the division, and as you so kindly pointed out, the Yankees came EXTREMELY close to overtaking them. You’re wrong – Sox fans (and press) were excruciatingly aware of the situation. Oh but wait, you also insinuate that we’re losers for even thinking of the Yankees at all — and that you more levelheaded (ha!) NY fans don’t even consider Boston at all. Oookay. I’d say it was lose-lose, but I’m really happy about how it all worked out.
Anyway, no hard feelings, and thanks for the congratulations mixed in with the dissing. Massholes are used to it – whether for our accent, politics, sports — or Ben Affleck.
You know its bullshit, it was A-Rod and Fox Sports who put themselves in the limelight. So then the people of Red Sox nation merely responded. A-Rod and his agent wanted to steal the thunder from the Red Sox and from Mike Lowell. We don’t give a shit, the fans on the ground don’t, after 2004 that storyline is dead. We are now like every other team in that we start each year fresh without 86 years of history bearing down on every swing of the bat. I just returned from the Red Sox rolling rally or whatever you wanted to call it, and people were chanting “Resign Lowell” and not “Yankees suck”, (I am sure a few did, but not within my earshot). I think all this scorn should be heaped on the writers like Bill Simmons who can’t seem to move past this, because for the first time in my baseball fanhood the people, slowly but surely (I mean yeah there are a lot of idiots-both ways) are starting to move past that same old line of thinking. We just get annoyed with A-Rod (and unfairly by extension, The Yankees) and his manager when he “breaks news” in the 8th of inning of the world series, and they and Fox Sports try to take the thunder away from the Red Sox because A-Rod wants tod opt out of his contract. Believe me, someone said it better waaaaaaay up there, but really people really, truly don’t want ARod around here. I have even heard people say they would stop watching if he came there. (Okay that was my fiancee and I will believe it when I see it)
Believe me, most Sox fans like myself are more than happy to give up the underdog role, which we pretty much did in 2004. A fellow Sox fan sent me an email the other day, that stated nothing more than this:
“I like being the new evil empire.”
@Rab: A double standard is hypocritical, no? I’m not blaming the fans for Simmons, but “do as we say, not as we do” is hypocrisy.
@fair: I’m not saying I envy Jays fans at this point in the franchise’s history, but didn’t they win back-to-back WSes in the early ’90s? Still, you’re right — weird position to be in, division-wise. It’s been a decent team the last few years but between the Yanks/Sox nonsense and the Os/Rays sucking newsworthily, it’s hard for them to get any ink.
@Jen: “Oh but wait, you also insinuate that we’re losers for even thinking of the Yankees at all — and that you more levelheaded (ha!) NY fans don’t even consider Boston at all.” Not what I said. Go back and read my baseball entries from ’03; obviously that isn’t true, or even possible. But when we were *celebrating Yankee WC wins*, no, most of us weren’t obsessing about Boston, because it wasn’t Boston we had just beaten.
Thinking about Boston for *next* season, wondering how in the hell we’re going to contend (because guess what, we…aren’t)? Now, when we’ve been out of the postseason for nearly a month and are looking at a new manager and a bunch of free-agent losses? Sure. And I wouldn’t put it past Lupica to drag the rivalry into a “going forward” analysis of our ’08 prospects. But on the eve of a victory parade? No.
Of COURSE we want to beat you guys. We can’t get to October if we don’t do it consistently; we play Boston like a squillion times. I’m talking about the tendency, at least in the Boston-supporting press, to bring EVERYTHING back to the Yankees whether it’s pertinent or not, and in this case, it’s not. Boston beat the Rockies, not the Yankees, and didn’t win the season series — and *didn’t need to have*. No real reason even to bring it up. THAT’S my point, not “Boston? What is that, somewhere near the border?”
@ Kevin & RS
Don’t know where along the route you were, but there were several enthusiastic choruses of “Yankees Suck” down in Government Center. At least one round of which was, incidentally, incited by Manny Ramirez.
@fair_n_hite_451: I don’t want to go too far off topic (sorry, Sars!) and I absolutely see your point on the difficulty of winning your division, but: The Baseball Almanac tells me the Toronto Blue Jays won the Series in 1992 and 1993. Am I mistaken? If the Cubs had won a Series that recently, they’d *still* be celebrating. hee.
I have to correct my post above, however. In looking more closely at the Baseball Almanac, it appears that the Cubs actually last won a Series in 1908 (they won in 1907, too.)
Still. Nineteen-oh-freaking-eight. Mail that underdog hairshirt to Wrigley Field, because at this particular point in baseball history, Chicago Cubs fans define the spirit of continuing to root for the underdog and believing in weird baseball “curses.”
Now, with all that said, I think the sportswriters should let the Boston fans enjoy their victory without bringing the Yankees into it. Even here in the Midwest, you hear a lot of Yankees-bashing, and I just don’t get it.
1. Congrats Boston.
2. I was a bit miffed that the Sox swept the series. Colorado had such an amazing run going into the post-season that they deserved at least one win, if only to give Denver all three games.
3. All of the Boston vs. Yankees talk is a bit funny when you realize that the rest of the country wished they’d just go away. I’m still hoping that the Patriots get taken down a peg this weekend, just to avoid another year of New England sports elitism. (That and my fantasy teams are Colts and Cowboys heavy.) I know that it’s a minor subset of all Yank/Sox fans that cause the problem, but you can understand the consternation in the rest of the country.
I don’t blame the rest of the country for wishing obnoxious New England sports fans would shut up. I live here, I love baseball and football, and *I* wish many folks would cram it. Though I enjoy that SNL skit with Seth Meyers and Derek Jeter doing the point/counterpoint on the whole “Yankees suck” issue. If I go the rest of my life only hearing that phrase while watching that repeat on E!, I’ll continue to be a happy gal.
Okay, a few points.
1. If Boston fans do not sack up and stop acting like moronic blowhards about this stuff, I am going to start the slapping. It makes it WICKED FREAKING HARD to be a Sox fan, because with these dipshits on the loose, whoever discovers this fact immediately goes “oh, so you’re a douchebag, I see. Continue.” (This principal also applies to nutbar liberals. STOP RUINING LIBERALISM FOR THOSE OF US CLINGING TO SANITY.)
2. I think some of the persistent Yankees comparisons/dissage comes from the relatively new and shiny World Championships…Sox fans are used to feeling like they did well only to have people fawn over the Yanks. This is stupid, but true nonetheless.
3. Even some of us Sox fans think O’Shaughnessy is a moron.
4. Even some of us Sox fans think Simmons is a moron.
5. Please, please, PLEASE, A-Rod, don’t come to Boston. I can’t handle the endless bitching that will ensue. Go somewhere where they will appreciate your actual, you know…skills. Which are substantial.
And some of us baseball fans are sick and tired of the Red Sox, the Yankees, A-Rod, Manny being Manny and the entire dialect that threatens to block out the sun and all life forms.
“Here’s what you probably can’t correct me on: that money was to keep Matsusaka away from the Yankees. I mean, come on. Babe Ruth himself isn’t worth that kind of scratch unless the front office wants to cockblock Cashman — and since when is “Japan” considered “homegrown”?”
Cockblocking is a legitimate goal in this rivalry. Cockblocking cements fan loyalty, it pisses off the other team and possibly causes them to do something stupid and it gets a load of media attention. I don’t see the Matsuzaka move as any dumber than signing Clemens, especially when one considers the Japanese fans Matsuzaka can attract.
Of course it’s a legitimate goal. Further, the Yankees signed Matsui in ’03; the signing of Dice-K per se, I have no issue with. I’m interested in him, I was interested in seeing if the Yankees could hit him, he’s good for U.S. baseball, that signing is not the problem.
I mean, hello — A-Rod was in talks with the Sox a few years ago. Damon. You think the Yankee front office doesn’t do a little jig when they can deke the Sox like that? Sure they do. It’s an historic division rivalry, not a Montessori school. Neeners are allowed.
What I have a problem with, for the umpteenth time, is absolutely NOT the Red Sox doing their damnedest to win the division, psych out the other teams, cockblock the Yankees for the best international players, or whatever else they’re doing that’s supposed to help them win. That’s the order of things. I DO however take issue with Pierce, or any smug baseball-media dink, making it out like the Red Sox are somehow morally superior to the Yankees because they do not need to indulge in this sort of bottom-line-minded, win-at-all-costs, git-‘er-done competition, when it is THE SAME THING. “Oh, the SOX would never overpay for an overrated star.” “Oh, the SOX would never trade away a hometown here.” Um: 1) Drew. 2) Didn’t meet Damon’s price.
The Sox are a great team; 95% of their fans that I’ve dealt with are reasonable (more so as a breed than Yankee fans, frankly, in my experience); their front office is obviously doing a rocking job. But casting the Red Sox as Luke goddamn Skywalker in this passion play of good versus evil is annoying, because it is horseshit. Sox management does the exact same shit Pierce gets all pissy at Yankee management for doing, which is hypocritical, and they do it better in the first goddamn place, so why all the crying.
JUST so we’re clear. I am not saying the Red Sox Base-Ball Club should not zealously pursue players and deals that improve their chances to win. I am saying baseball writers who root for the Red Sox need to shut the FUCK up about how, when the Yankees do EXACTLY THAT, it’s a pox on the game. IT ISN’T. IT’S…THE GAME. THAT’S IT.
*hero, not “here,” derr
“DO however take issue with Pierce, or any smug baseball-media dink, making it out like the Red Sox are somehow morally superior to the Yankees because they do not need to indulge in this sort of bottom-line-minded, win-at-all-costs, git-‘er-done competition, when it is THE SAME THING.”
Absolutely. I can see that that particular bit of mythology would be extra annoying to a Yankee fan.
When the Yankees play the Pirates or the Royals we can talk about David and Goliath. Yankees/Red Sox is Goliath and Godzilla.
But hey, if A-Rod wants to come back to Seattle all is forgiven. Frankly he should have never left. A man with his delicate sensibilities needs to be in a town with the MOST forgiving fans ever. We’d cheer him through every slump, overlook his whoring around and chant MVP every at bat every game. Too bad Mariners management is so damn cheap.
A couple of things:
1. All you “A-Rod=NOOOOOO!!!!” people, there’s an online petition to keep Lowell and voice an objection to pursuing A-Rod here: http://www.petitiononline.com/mikelwel/petition.html
2. Thanks for the gracious congrats, Sars. I’ve defended you as a respectable Yankee fan to many a diehard Sox fan friend (“You *have* to read Tomato Nation…I have to warn you, she’s a Yankee’s fan–I know, but wait!”) for your allegiance to the sport of baseball over any of this kind of self-justification stupidity. Both teams are huge, rich, and playing to win. Get over it.
3. I’m a Red Sox fan since 2004–(serendipitously, as it happens. My husband is a huge born & bred fan (in a house divided, yikes!) and he converted me from my outdated childhood Braves allegiance just in time for all the fun.) However, long before I was a Sox fan, long before I even cared that much about baseball, I always hated the Yankees. And it had nothing to do with money, or any of the other crap reasons ya’ll are complaining about. I hate them because most of them just seem like real assholes. Obviously what I mean is the team dynamic, because the specific players change all the time. And yes, I know the Red Sox have individual dickheads too. But the vibe I get from the Yankees as a whole has always been the same one I get from smug frat boys, and I’ve never seen much to counteract that, on or off the field. The only real difference I see between the Sox and the Yankees is just that: vibe. That’s all it takes for me to love one and hate the other–no need to justify it with fake excuses about who pays more or has better or worse trading ethics. The Yankees just mostly make me want to punch them in the face, and the Red Sox make me want to have a beer or twelve and throw some darts with them sometime. End of story.
You’re absolutely right that both teams have a lot of cash and spend it however they think will get them a championship, and that both teams have made good and bad buys. Lately, though, I think there is a difference to how the Sox and Yanks are spending their money. Lately, it seems like the Yankees have made more bad decisions than the Sox and than previous Yankees iterations, and that those mistakes have become more and more costly as management throws more and more money and long-term contracts at the not-winning-championships “problem.” Partly, they’ve been forced to do this by the Sox—Boston and New York drive up the bidding for players the other is interested in, but the new Sox ownership has refused to sign long-term deals for older players, which means that more years are the only thing the Yanks can put on the table that no one else will. Meanwhile, the Sox’s shorter contracts mean that even if they’re overpaying for the guy, and even if he proves to be a bust, they can kiss him goodbye after two years, so the mistakes they make don’t cost them as dearly as the Yanks’ do. They’ve also rebuilt the ravaged farm system and started picking more players up off the scrapheap (most famously Ortiz), so even some of the new big stars aren’t making big bucks. As a result, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Sox payroll actually went down a little bit over the next few years as the last of the Duquette-era signings clear the system and more of the team is made up of kids who came up with the Sox. The payroll will still be one of the biggest in baseball, for sure, and the Sox will definitely still spend big on vets to plug whatever holes they see in their lineup, but it’s no longer the case that anyone with a good free agent year gets to write his own check with the Sox, which has been bloating the payroll for years.
That said, even if the Sox are spending their metric assloads of cash more intelligently than the Yanks are spending theirs, it doesn’t make them morally superior. It makes them better at managing their money and better at building a baseball team, but it doesn’t qualify them for sainthood.
“Also, I totally do not understand people who do not want A-Rod on their team. Fine, the monetary reasons are strong and prevalent, but come ON, he’s an awesome player. I’d be freaking THRILLED to have that kind of offensive production in place of Brandon Inge next year and I like Inge.”
Um.
1. [Slaps baseball out of Bronson Arroyo’s glove]
2. “I got it!”
Asshole.
This is why the Yankees are always talked about — they have the most expensive payroll, A Rod is a big ole baby (ok, he’s talented, but yelling “I’ve got it” and swatting the ball away during a playoff game … bush league), and let’s face it — they are the team to beat. Torre’s leaving, which makes news because every American knows who Torre is. Few know who Terry Francona is.
They’ve won the World Series about a million times, while the Sox went 86 years before winning one. If the Washington Redskins, after losing against the Patriots by 30 or so points went on to win a game against the Colts, the New England Patriots would certainly be referred to in the article, right? They are the greatest team in football history (shut up, it’s true), so it’s natural that they are part of the conversation.
I have to say, I’m kind of sick of this “poor me” Yankee fan thing that I’ve been witnessing these days. I went to dinner recently, and the waiter was a Yankee’s fan. I teasingly asked him about Schilling’s bloody sock being a hoax, and he was convinced that it was fake. This is a grown man, who thinks that SCHILLING PUT KETCHUP ON HIS SOCK TO INSPIRE HIS TEAMMATES. Now if was Alex Rodriguez, maybe ….
;)
And while I’m on the subject, how do you think it makes Red Sox fans feel when the Yankees are talked about when our team has won the Series? It’s annoying. I’d like to see another team win — as a lifetime Bostonian, I would have liked to have seen the Cubs win this year.
What we should really be talking about is how much of an ass Tim McGarver is. A direct quote, when David Ortiz hit a home run:
“Mt. Everest erupts again!”.
Yikes.