Revenge of the Nerds

Growing up in New Jersey, being a Red Sox fan was unique - and often unbearable. These were the days when there was no fierce Boston-New York rivalry - only an annual embarrassment at the hands of the Yankees, followed by my showing up to school to be laughed at by friends, strangers and, worst of all, teachers. During my high school years the Yankees were the champs when I was a freshman, junior and senior. Granted, the Red Sox also made the play-offs during the latter two years, but even a naively optimistic young fan like me knew that even if we got past the first round, there was no getting past the Yankees. In ‘99, their fourth starter was Roger Clemens. Ours was Pat Rapp.
I learned to develop some thick skin. The gym coach - Coach E - gave it to me the worst, never missing an opportunity to rub it in, after Heathcliff Slocumb blew another save, or Paul O’Neill got another nail-in-the-coffin hit. As a freshman, he gave me the unimaginative nickname, “Boston.” By the time I was a senior, I was “Merloni.” Gym softball games took on a whole new edge. There was the coach, every time I stepped to the plate, leading a steady chorus of “Loouuuuu....” If I hit a pop-up or a slow ground ball, as I often did, it only further proved Boston’s inferiority.
But there was never a thought of switching sides - not even to the Mets, who in high school were about as hapless as the Red Sox. My Dad, a Chelsea, Massachusetts native, had told me before I was old enough to protest, that I didn’t have to be a Red Sox fan, that could root for the Mets if I wanted, but that under no circumstances was I to root for the Yankees. The agreeable kid in me just stuck with the Sox. And sure, it was tough to come to school after a tough loss the night before, but there was also something about rooting for Boston that was akin to being in a secret club. I would wear my warm-up jacket to school and exchange a knowing smile with the only other overt Sox fan - a kid two years behind me who occasionally wore a faded 1995 Division Champs shirt. We didn’t even know each other, but dammit, we were in this thing together: two Jedi in a sea of Storm Troopers (and this was before 2004, when the media beat the whole Star Wars angle to death.)
I’m not sure when I realized that I was one of the Storm Troopers, but I do remember that when I returned to college for my senior year, I couldn’t help but notice the unexpected profusion of Red Sox hats around campus. It was late August of 2003 and the Sox were in the thick of another race with the Yankees. Whether people had caught the fever of Papi’s breakthrough season, or whether they were simply tired of a Yankee stranglehold on the division, a student body that once seemed fairly indifferent to east coast baseball (this was in Ohio), now seemed decidedly pro-Sox. Of course the new support didn’t change the outcome of the season, but it did mean that I had a few more people with whom I could drown my sorrows, after Aaron Boone took Wakefield deep.
By 2004, the breakdown of Yankees and Red Sox fans in the country seemed just about even - with maybe a slight edge going to the Red Sox. The Sox had earned the sympathy factor after eighty-six years of dashed hopes. Or maybe formerly impartial fans were just tired of the Fox promos reminding us of those eighty-six years every time we turned on a game. Or maybe they were tired of hearing bitter Sox fans whine. Or maybe the Sox were just the more likable team, and all factors being equal, did you really want to root for a corporate sellout robot like Jason Giambi, when hairy Johnny Damon (in his pre-corporate sellout robot phase) was on the other side of the ball?
But during that series, I was back in New Jersey. And since high, nothing had changed. When Damon hit the grand slam to bury the Yankees in Game 7, I celebrated loudly and obnoxiously in a bar full of shocked guys in Jeter shirts. This was the cliched story of the high school nerd getting the last laugh against all the high school bullies. This was an even worse B movie script than Kirk Gibson circa 1989.
Throughout the end of the season, I had gotten into the habit of listening to Michael Kay on ESPN radio. There are few people in sports - people in general - who bother me more than Michael Kay. My Dad and I never fail to refer him without his complete title: The Insufferable Michael Kay. Or IMK, to shorten things. On the Morning After, IMK was more or less at a loss. I have almost never heard him this way - without any cheap dig at the Red Sox. (This is the man who earlier in the summer said he could never support a team whose rampant facial hair demonstrated such disrespect for the game.) This morning, IMK was ranting about the Red Sox losing their identity. “Boston fans will rue the day they lost their identity!” he whined. He sounded like Skeletor - the cartoonish villain who, after being soundly embarrassed when victory had once seemed imminent, pathetically whimpered, “I’ll be back!” I laughed at IMK and promptly forgot about him.
Fastforward to 2008 - in the wake of another Sox championship, which unlike the first, was really fun for Sox fans and absolutely no one else. I am in Washington, DC, which should be impartial territory - at least impartial to the Red Sox. The Post covers two (inconsequential) major league teams, one of whom the (perpetually rebuilding) Orioles, is in the same division as the Sox and Yankees. And true - I see my share of curly W hats down here. But for every curly W, I also see a big red B. Shouldn’t this make me happy? My team has become iconic; the B is the symbol of the American Dream, the hope that one day the nerds can overtake the bullies. I have to be happy - or else Michael Kay wins.
But... last week, walking down Connecticut Ave, not far from the zoo, I went into Starbucks to see a family of four in full Red Sox regalia. The dad had his Schilling jersey. The two boys were Manny and Papi. I was also wearing my Sox hat, and it occurred to me that maybe I should say something - a simple “Go Sox” perhaps. This is what I would have done ten years ago if I had seen old B in an unfamiliar locale - just a little nod, to say “Stay strong - we’ll get ours some day!” As the family passed me to leave, I thought about at least making eye contact. But I didn’t do it. Do you stop someone on the street who has on the same fleece as you? Or the same shoes? Conventional thinking says that this just isn’t an important enough reason to talk to a stranger. And neither is the same Red Sox logo - not any more.
Does this make it any less fun to be a fan? Sometimes. Until I console myself with the memory of two championships in the last four years. And until I think about the abject misery of ten-year-old boy approaching me after a tough loss at Yankee Stadium and shrieking in my face, “Boston Sucks!!” and his father patting him on the back as if to say, “God job, son.” (This actually happened to me - at least twice.) In a column a while back, Bill Simmons also lamented the condition of the hardcore Sox fan, post-2004. “Believe me,” he concluded, “We don’t miss being on that island.” And he’s right. And Michael Kay is wrong - I don’t rue the day we won that first championship. If being a Sox fan makes me a bully now, then so be it - it still beats being a nerd. But give me a little time. The transition from the bottom to the top happens as quickly as you can say, “Foulke underhands to first,” but it takes a lot longer than that for a true fan to get accustomed to a new identity.