All across America, fans and media are going to hate the Red Sox as never before

[5teamparlay]

Red Sox don black hats
They’ll be the villains vs. Rays
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By Steve Buckley | Thursday, October 9, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
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Photo by Nancy Lane


<!--//article Image//--><!--//article//-->It has become a familiar scene over the years: Whenever the Red Sox [team stats] travel to St. Petersburg, Fla., to play Tampa Bay, Tropicana Field is filled with thousands of Boston fans whose over-the-top boosterism makes life miserable for the hometown Rays.
But now that these two teams are meeting in the American League Championship Series, the Rays are getting ready for their close-up. They are new, they are shiny, they are fun, and they are guaranteed to have 90 percent of the baseball-viewing public on their side when the first pitch of Game 1 of the ALCS is thrown tomorrow night at the Trop.
Are you one of those people who thinks the national media always has it in for your team? Then fasten your seat belts, because it’s going to be a bumpy postseason ride.
All across America, fans and media are going to hate the Red Sox as never before. Just as they hate the Patriots [team stats]. Just as they now hate the Celtics [team stats]. And if the Bruins [team stats] ever challenge for a Stanley Cup, everyone will hate them, too.
Let’s be honest: This has been building for a long, long time. Since the 2001 NFL season, teams representing the Boston sports market have won six league championships. That’s three for the Patriots, two for the Red Sox and one for the Celtics.
And, oh, how it gnaws at the rest of America. If you live in, say, Cleveland, San Diego or Phoenix, you’d be thrilled to see one of your teams win just one championship. If you’re from one of those towns, you’ll be rooting for the Rays in the ALCS. This is because you hate the Red Sox, hate Boston - and its fans.
That’s kind of a new one, but it’s out there.
Not content with merely hating these Boston teams that win, the rest of America hates Boston fans who whine. Last November, when the Revolution lost the Major League Soccer championship game for the fourth time in fifth years, ESPN.com’s Jim Caple led his column with, “Having already suffered more than anyone else in any city in the history of the world, Boston fans woke up Monday morning to face another long, cold winter wondering, ‘Why us?’ ”
There has long been this perception that Red Sox fans, prior to 2004, were “long-suffering,” whereas Chicago Cubs fans were happy-go-lucky folks who didn’t much care if their team lost as long as the weather was nice out at Wrigley Field and there was enough beer to go around. That last part happens to be true: Cubs fans love their suds. But I have never met a Cubs fan who isn’t the equal of Red Sox fans when it comes to whining and complaining.
Now that the Red Sox have won a couple of World Series, the story goes that their fans have become whiny and arrogant. Oh, and complacent. The big complaint during the Division Series home games was that there wasn’t enough “noise” at Fenway Park [map], what with all the Pink Hats gobbling up the good seats.
Another reason to hate the Red Sox: The Rays have, I guess, “real” fans. This one is kind of a stretch, given the trouble the Rays had drawing fans this season, but no matter. A story line is a story line, and it’s going to be the young, upstart Rays and their loyal fans against the powerful, corporate Red Sox and their obnoxious, overstuffed fans.
Now it’s the Red Sox who are the Evil Empire.

 

[FairWarning]

Now the rest of the nation will know how I feel.

Is there a Ray Nation?

 

[arniesarmy]

Yeah, it consists of the 22,000 fans who went to their games this year. Wait, that's minus about 15,000 or so that were rooting for the other team after moving to Florida. So the Rays Nation is 7,000 strong--maybe make that Rays Neighborhood.

 

[barman]

Fun Fact - Rays in 2008 are now 23-1 when attendance is over 30,000

The ALCS and World Series will include seats that for past couple years have been tarped off - thus raising the capacity back up to around 44,000

Look for about 2/3 of those to be Rays fans this year since there's no way to really keep the 15,000 or so Florida Sox fans out of our yard.

 

[5teamparlay]

RAYS nation growing in leaps in bounds,



One of the newer members 5tp Jr. seen here at a game earlier this year. He's been to about a dozen games in his 3 seasons of rooting them on. He calls them Jersey Guys:

 

[MIKEY.1TIME]

Yeah, it consists of the 22,000 fans who went to their games this year. Wait, that's minus about 15,000 or so that were rooting for the other team after moving to Florida. So the Rays Nation is 7,000 strong--maybe make that Rays Neighborhood.

if the gators are playing, you can cut that number in half

 

[boombaby]

Lets go Tampa!!!

 

[TheWolf]

I actually like both teams. As a Pirates fan, any good team is a favorite of mine!

 

[lapdance]

the nation hates the fans, not the teams.

 

[Whoson1st]

Now all you big NY Yankee fans--explain to me:
They built a new stadium with FEWER seats...Were they selling out before and now are going to raise prises for the friends of Trump and Guiliana, etc. to make payroll...fewer seats.
Just another reason--I hate NY!

Beyond me.

 

[kingbill]

I want the Dodgers to win so Manny can win a world series away from the Red Sox.

then in a few months time we will all be able to watch a youtube of Manny rapping "Yo Dustin Pedoria tell me how my ass tastes"

 

[Whoson1st]

I want the Dodgers to win so Manny can win a world series away from the Red Sox.

then in a few months time we will all be able to watch a youtube of Manny rapping "Yo Dustin Pedoria tell me how my ass tastes"

Isn't Manny a free agent next year?
Free agents seem to play with passion the year before. I may be wrong about Manny.

 

[kingbill]

Isn't Manny a free agent next year?
Free agents seem to play with passion the year before. I may be wrong about Manny.

I know if they go to the WS vs the Red Sox he get a winners and losers portion of the playoff bonus

 

[5teamparlay]

Plenty of room on the bandwagon:

Switch Hitter: A Red Sox Fan Sees The Rays Light

Tribune photo by JIM REED

Bob Chick, former Tribune staff writer, looks over his Red Sox memorabilia. Now he's a Rays fan.

By BOB CHICK
Tribune correspondent
Published: October 10, 2008
Call it a breakup. After 40 years in the press box, a relationship finally ended. The Boston Red Sox were pushed out of the heart, replaced by the Tampa Bay Rays.
Easy, you say? Nothing like this is easy.
Not for someone who as long ago as 1946 cried himself to sleep when the Red Sox lost. Funny, the child never left me, only the crying. I could see the divorce coming, but it didn't entirely take hold until the Rays played the Red Sox in June. On an early summer night, I watched from the stands with my son David and his family, residents of Westford, Mass. He asked if I was pulling for the Red Sox or the Rays. Sheepishly, I told him Tampa Bay. Now it was clear. Now I had hope.
For too many years, the Rays looked like a used car beyond repair. There were always one or two good parts but too many bad ones. Nothing worked. They were hopelessly overmatched in the American League Eastern Division. The minor league system was in disrepair. Prospects few.
For me, it was tough to be a fan, especially when the team had a hard time drawing 10,000 for a midweek game. I felt like a loner. I needed something to cheer about.
Then along came 2008. A team that used to lose close ball games was winning those games in dramatic fashion. A team that for nine years was built without a solid bullpen, solid everyday players and a solid plan to turn it around, now was clicking.
Maybe it was the same annual hope that drives fans to the Red Sox or the Chicago Cubs. Maybe it was the way the team believed in itself. How could I ignore what was happening in our backyard? I wanted to be part of it. Now I am, almost like I felt so many years ago when the Red Sox owned my heart. Now it is Tampa Bay. And I'm not alone.
Love Affair Began Early
The Red Sox were still ingrained in me when they won the World Series in 2004. That helped erase the pain of 1946, when they lost to St. Louis in Game 7 after Enos Slaughter scored from first on a base hit, and the agony of 1948, when they lost a one-game playoff to Cleveland. I still carry that grudge.
My love affair with the Sox began early. As a high school student in the late 1950s, I drove to Sarasota to watch Ted Williams play because he rarely came to St. Petersburg.
And in the late 1940s, at age 9, I took a bus alone from my home in Quincy, Mass., to Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox, an unlikely journey today.
My dad would pull me out of school for a dental or medical appointment. I must have been the sickest kid around. The appointment was in the grandstand at Fenway Park.
Before I knew my multiplication tables, I'd fall asleep on the floor of the porch listening to the Sox on a brown standup Philco radio with its yellow lights on the dial that illuminated the room.
Red Sox crazy, it was.
No peak was higher than when my son, Bruce, played for the University of Georgia. The Bulldogs won the College World Series in 1990, and he was drafted by Boston in the 14th round. That day, my voice went on the disabled list. Maybe my mind as well. An official Boston hat rests on top of an old piano in the family room. Bruce tripled in his only major-league spring training appearance against Mitch Williams and the Phillies in Clearwater.
Rays Were Tugging
Yet the past 10 years, one eye has been on the Rays. A .500 season was but a dream. Manager Joe Maddon predicted Tampa Bay would move up in the standings, but what coach, manager or executive predicts a lousy year?
I purchased a Rays shirt and told my family I'd wear it when I went for my daily two-mile walk.
It was just another T-shirt, I said with a grin. I couldn't find a Rays hat anywhere outside the stadium, a vast change from my Boston heritage.
I looked once more for my 1948 scrapbook that still commands a position in the family room of my home. And the 25 pictures of the Boston Red Sox for 25 cents.
Yet the Rays were tugging.
It's easier to understand with one more quick brushstroke from the past. As sports editor of the St. Petersburg Evening Independent, I served on the baseball committee of the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce for several years and wrote as early as 1982 that the city seriously considered a downtown stadium where Al Lang Field was a landmark. The stadium issue was recycled a few months ago.
Yes, I've spent time watching rodeo on ESPN as it scrolls the Rays score across the bottom of the screen when the game isn't on television.
Yes, I'm a traitor even if a well-worn Red Sox T-shirt from the 2004 World Series hangs in my closet.
No, I wouldn't look good in a Rayhawk.
Thankfully.
Bob Chick was sports editor of the St. Petersburg Evening Independent for 19 years and later a Tampa Tribune sports writer for 15 years.

 

[billsfan]

-FH- was wearing the same last night at the game, as your above picture....a TB hat with a Boston shirt....I don't know who got cursed more him, or me for being with him