The Red Sox Are The New Yankees - Or Maybe Worse

It's gotten beyond the point of contemptful toleration. The whole Red Sox thing is sickening. With all the attention, media coverage, East Coast bias, fan idiocy, transplants worldwide, and the like, the Red Sox are the new Yankees. But I'm going to say that it might be worse.

The Yankees are those pinstriped bunch that the whole world loves to hate more than any other team, Dodgers from Giants fans excepted. I've hated the Yankees my whole life, and for all the regular reasons. They're always on TV, in the media, constant press. ESPN is their superstation. Their fans are everywhere. They always get the prime time TV slot for the post season; no wacky day games in bizarre time zones for them. They have the highest payroll. They are the first topic of conversation even when they aren't involved. Jealousy? Yeah, maybe. Wanting David to beat Goliath is normal. And now the Red Sox have all this.

But there's a difference. As much as I hate the Yankees, I can have respect for them in the very reasons I hate them. "And how many rings has your team won?" This isn't arrogance, it is accomplishment. New York is the largest market there is by way far. So I can expect them to be on because of ratings. I expect them to sell out. I expect their manager and players to be the highest paid. Their fans have the confidence and swagger. And they have won 26 championships after all.

The current Red Sox thing goes beyond this. It took them 86 years to win one. And now they (Red Sox Nation) think they deserve the same. They think they're America's sweetheart losers now on top. They assume that their own terms of endearment are everybody's. They're not. "Big Papi" is to them more than simply their nick name for Ortiz, it is assumed that it is everybody's. It's one thing to say, "Big Papi Ortiz" as a nickname because it ties his nickname to his real name, but quite another to use "Big Papi" by itself, as if I would, too. He's just not my big papi. Or "Manny just being Manny." Huh? Papelbon's dance, the permanent image of the bloody sock, the steal. As I heard one fan say, it used to be that watching the Red Sox in the post season meant seeing 35,000 fans terrified of the next pitch. It took faith. Now it's all presumption. I might be rooting for the Yankees to beat them next year.