Fair Weather and Fair Weather Fans

I love my grandparents. While most grandparents fly their grandchildren down to Florida to visit them during the barren winter months, my grandparents instead call me and leave messages saying things such as: "The weather was terrible today, 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky," "it was only 65 last night so grandma had to wear her heavier coat to bridge at the clubhouse," or "it is far too sunny here, we are getting way too tan." They are so cruel. And while some grandparents send care packages and more importantly, cash, my grandparents send........... newspaper clippings.

It is my last point that is the focus of my blog. Last week my grandma called me every day until I hobbled (yes I am still using the cane) to my mailbox to pick up the mail. In it I found a newspaper clipping from the USA Weekend from March 21-23 2008 containing an article from the "humor" section about Red Sox Nation and the "unofficial travel guide to Fenway Park."

Humor really is a subjective term here. It was maybe the most confusing article ever and it bothered me for four reasons, 1. It wasn't funny 2. The author clearly thought it was funny 3. I think my blogs are funny 4. Maybe I am like this author and my blogs are not funny.

But that simply cannot be true. To sum up the contents of the article, it basically tells Red Sox fan's, in a "humorous" way, everything they should know about Fenway before visiting for themselves and about staying in "Chez Manny" and using the term "ya' moron" instead of "sir" (I'm not really sure what the author was on when he wrote this article but it was trippy. )

The article did get the ol' wheels turning though about new Red Sox fans. When reading the article, all I could think was "Why does anyone need an unofficial tour guide to Red Sox Nation? Shouldn't these be known facts already?" And then I realized that over night (in reality four years) Red Sox Nation has expanded exponentially. People who never cared about baseball now wear shirts with "Big Papi" and "Dice-K" written on their backs and most fans cannot recall who hit the homerun off of Tim Wakefield in the 2003 ALDS Game 7 to propel the Yankees to the World Series (it was Brett Boone). And you want to know why? Because the Red Sox are the modern day New York Yankees. They get the big name players, they win World Series, things go their way in high stakes games the way they never did before. The curse of the Bambino has been broken and fans are flocking to the Red Sox Nation.

And while I welcome all Sox fans with open arms, I am a little miffed by this recent realization. Isn't being a Sox fan all about understanding heartbreak and inconceivable loss? How can you be a fan and not wince at the name "Bucky Dent" or hang your head in shame over the day that the Sox traded "burned out" Roger Clemens to the Yankees? I just can't believe you're a true fan unless you've been dedicated to the Sox even when it looked like they would never win a World Series.

But maybe I am being too harsh. There are youngsters that were a mere glimmer in their mother's eyes when Bill Buckner let the ball through his legs in Game 6 of the World Series against the Mets in 1986 and so what if people are only fans because the Red Sox have won two titles in four years; the more the merrier!

All I can say is, if the Red Sox go on another World Series title drought (knock on wood) I wonder how many of the Fenway Faithful will stay faithful? My guess is not many. On the upside, it would put an end to "humorous" articles about Red Sox Nation and "humorous" blogs making fun of them.