To those about to lose for the 84th year in a row, we salute you.

I actually *like* the Boston Red Sox. They're a perenially good team, many of the best players ever have been 'sox, and there's a couple current ones who could be Hall-of-Famers, and they have one of the coolest logos in sports. I'd love to be able to wear a cool Red Sox jacket, since I get a pretty good discount at the team store.

But I can't.

It's kind of like the reason I've always given for not getting the BSD daemon tattooed on my bicep. I'm one of the more rabid Free/Net-BSD advocates out there, and it's always come up when the "what would you get a tatoo OF?" question gets asked. But mom killing me for getting a tattoo notwithstanding, there's just a part of me that feels a little off-put by the idea of tattooing a devil (not THE devil, but a devil, nonetheless) on my skin, all permenant and stuff.

Those not in-the-know would always assume the wrong thing about it, and it's safe to say they wouldn't be assuming "Hmm... that must be the mascot for some open-source program/operating-system/project out there... I wonder which one, and whether their license meets RMS's facist worldview." They'll almost always assume either:

1) Hey, this guy's ok! Let's invite him to the next potluck supper down at Black Sabbath Hall...
or
2) No, you can't date my daughter, you devil-worshipping scum.

...neither of which are ideal. Plus, the gnawing thought of ending up at the pearly gates someday, chatting with St. Peter by the turnstyle about the baby birds I'd rescued, and my boycott of whaling countries, and how great a person I was until my untimely but heroic death just recently, when suddenly he's all "what, sir, is THAT?!!?" and points at my Devil-festooned arm, while with his other hand, pulls the big lever that makes a trap-door in the cloud open, and me tumble down into firey crap-land with the devils, and the fire, and poking, and BLA-ven!!!

That'd just suck.

Anyway, back to my point (I had one, I think.) For all their coolness, and cool logos, and whatever, I CANNOT EVER root for the Red Sox. People who pull the whole "I root tor team X, whenever they're not playing team Y" are wimps. In addition to this, these people are apparently ignorant to the one of the most important aspects of strategy in baseball, that being that there's 162 games in the season. It's all about getting to the playoffs, and even if team Y isn't playing against team X, they're each still putting numbers up in those columns in the paper...

Put in a simpler way, I not only can't wish the Red Sox well, I have to actively, and on a daily basis, root for them to lose. In that sense, I can root for another team (call them team Z, a.k.a. Tampa Bay), but only when they're playing against the Red Sox. Sort of a "the enemy of my enemy" thing, because the team that's behind my team in the standings is the problem, and them getting the shaft is the cure.

So, yeah, they're good. That's why I don't like 'em. Yeah, they have a long, honorable history, and they're way overdue for success. Let 'em wait. I'll respect them, as players, like I respect the Ebola virus, and similar things that can hurt you. But I can't respect their fans, since all fans are mostly jerks (Yankees especially included, god love 'em), and Sox fans in particular are a little bitchy about the whole "not-since-1918" thing. And there's nothing that feels better than watching them almost get there. It's like the Mets (who I can almost support, since they're National League) with their "You Gotta Believe" stuff... with slogans like that, you're setting yourself up as the automatic underdog. Kind of like a t-shirt that says "Hey! We could stop sucking at any moment!" Sad.

So root, root, root for the home team.

And root for Trot Nixon to pull a groin muscle.

Posted by ryan at July 22, 2002 01:11 AM