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Congrats, Sox
Demonstrating how a well-built high-revenue team does it.
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Twittah
It’s funny how Chuck Armstrong says the M’s have the best front office in baseball while the Red Sox go about their buisness and win 2 rings in 4 years.
I hope that’s something that’s mentioned the next time someone cancels their season tickets around these parts.
Did Chuckles really say that? He can’t be THAT stupid… can he?
It was fabulous watching Ellsbury make his first mark, and watching Lowell have great Series to top off his season.
Varitek has a special place in my heart now after the interview where he was holding back tears and thanked all the guys and women fans.
Just please, Boston, stay the hell away from ARod.
#2: It was mentioned in a previous post from this week.
#3: Don’t worry, the Cubs will sell their souls for him.
Was tonight the worst three hours in the history of the Yankee organization? Losing $21 million, A-Rod and a BoSox sweep.
Awesome.
The only bad thing about today is that we have to listen to even more of the Boston drab for the next six months.
It’s going to be a long winter.
#5: Thank you George.
Has Ben Affleck been interviewed yet?
#8: No, but I hear they are already talking about Fever Pitch 2. . .
And yes, I know that’s Jimmy Fallon and not Ben Affleck.
Yeah, even though I was cheering for the Rockies, Ellsbury and Lowell were the high points for me as well (I’m still shaking my head over all the clueless folks — mostly BoSox fans — who earlier in the year smugly insisted Boston was going to sign Ichiro; I guess they know who Ellsbury is now). Crisp better have his bags packed.
Ellsbury, Papelbon, Pedroia, Lester, Buchholz… they’ve got quite a slew of talent cheap and under their control.
I was worried the series was going to end before Manny could misplay a ball in the field, but like the clutch player he is he came through late in the last game.
But holy crap are Boston fans obnoxious. I actually left a bar a couple of nights ago because three or four of them were being so unpleasant. It was fun cheering along with them in ’04, if for no other reason than they seemed to be hoping against hope, convinced Boston would find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and coug themselves yet again. But now they have all the sense of entitlement of Yankees fans, with even less good manners.
#11: At least you don’t have to listen to one most of the time. . .
My dad has been a Sox fan since 1967. So I’m betting I know what kind of things to hear when I come back from college in a few weeks.
12 – Give your dad a break. That’s when I started rooting for them, and there have been a lot of lean years since then. With just enough close, tantalizing tries to keep you interested, but break your heart.
Oddly, though, I guess because of the Mariners, I feel like tonight’s game closed a chapter for me. I hope it doesn’t mean I have to wait decades again before my team gets to the Series.
13 – it won’t be that long. With their veteran presence, the Mariners shouldn’t have a problem competing for a WS next year.
I’m sort of looking forward to the day when the M’s are the last team in the majors never to have played in a World Series. Including the teams in Portland and Las Vegas. But nobody will notice, because the Cubs will be well into their second century without a ring.
Will the fans eventually come up with a curse of some sort for the Mariners never making a world series?
#13: hahaha, I have no choice but to give him a break. Otherwise he wouldn’t be so nice about paying my tuition maybe. . .
#14: No, no, it’s called veteran “grit”, get it right.
#16: A) The Curse Of The Howard & The Chuck
B) The Curse Of Sweet Lou
C) The Curse Of Chief Seattle
or D) The Curse of The Trident
Yeah, it’s just a shame the M’s don’t have an exciting kid like Ellsbury to watch, who’s fast, plays good defense, and can hit. You know, if we just had one of those we could plug into the lineup when our outfielder couldn’t pull his weight. But, where oh where could we possibly get one of those?
Speaking of which, has AJ started winter ball?
Anyone else think Papelbon is a complete psycho?
22 – That could be a recruiting poster for closers.
Pitchers, and especially closers, have a long tradition of quoting strange philosophies, swapping wives, writing books, and dancing to a different drummer. Papelbon is either going to be a Legend, or out of baseball in a couple of years.
Just please, Boston, stay the hell away from ARod.
They won’t go near him. I hear Jason Varitek (team captain and soul of the Red Sox) really dislikes the man on a deep personal level. No idea why.
watching Boston win it made me wonder when Bavasi or hopefully another GM will build a legit contender in the M’s. None of this thinking Batista, HoRam, Washburn, and Weaver can actually be part of a playoff rotation.
#24: You mean like a Mark Fydrich?
16, 19, 20: Perhaps a bit of a reach, I know, but how ’bout:
E) The curse of Fox Sports constantly trying to meddle with the game so that their Large Market faves always/usually always seem to be near the top.
11: I was just thinking that, too. Probably the worst thing about the Sox getting this one is that “The Nation” will now become more boisterous and obnoxious than ever — thinking that they’ve got some kind of “dynasty” to build on.
Ok, I was just listening to the BBC news and they actually covered it, in their inimitable way:
“The Boston Red Sox ” (pronounced “Red…pause…Sox” — perhaps the announcer was thrown by the spelling?) ” have won the baseball World Series. They defeated the Colorado ” (another, shorter pause) ” Rockies to take an insurmountable 4-nil lead in the best-of-seven series.” Yes, that would be an insurmountable 4-nil lead. I do like those nil-hitters, too.
As for Red Sox Nation, well there’s an old joke that goes:
Couple of asshole frat boys at a party see a beautiful woman in a strapless dress sitting on a couch talking to some people. One says to the other, “Watch this.” He sneaks up behind her, unzips, and lays himself on her shoulder. She continues her conversation without pause, ignoring him. Nonplussed, he taps her on the shoulder and points, saying, “Hey, don’t you know what this is?”
She looks at it, then up at his face.
“It looks just like a man’s penis,” she says. “Only smaller.”
Well, that’s the Red Sox. They’re just like the Yankees. Only smaller.
Isn’t that kind of like someone laughing at the guy in the winner’s circle because winner drove a Porsche and not a Ferrari like the guy smirking?
I wonder what the guy in the winner’s circle thinks about the penis size of the guy who makes it a point to drive his Ferrari one last time in front of the grandstand even though the race is over…
the Papelbon dance was a highlight, but that whole ALCS celebration was an outstanding illustration of the Mind of Pap– beginning with the dashing ensemble of t-shirt & jock worn in the clubhouse, which led to some yipping during his (waist-up) interview as teammates walked behind him & snapped the elastic, to the post-dance shots of him walking around the mound with a beer carton on his head (with eyeholes) and champagne bottle in his hand.
29: That was funny. I would agree with you that the Red Sox are smaller than the Yankees financially. But at the same time, I would guess that the Red Sox ‘Nation’ at this point is bigger than the Yankees ‘Nation’, in respect that there are probably more fairweather Red Sox fans now than fiarweather Yankees fans. Maybe some of the fairweather Yankee fans became fairweather Sox fans within 2004-2007 timeframe.
Probably the least entertaining playoffs I can remember…end to end.
I can’t believe the haters here. I used to think the Seattle fans were more cerebral than what I’ve witnessed here daily. I have been a Mariner fan since their first game and I am still mad at Bud selig for stealing the Seattle Pilots. My wife was born and raised in New England and went to her first game at Fenway at 5 years old. She lives and dies with that team. I can forgive her myopic nature due to the entertwined passions of the Red Sox and New England. But Seattle has no such history. We’ve only had 9 winning seasons in 30 plus years so I think that we should be directing our energy towards the Mariners front office who literally gave away a whole roster full of future hall of famers for little or no return. We have a beautiful stadium and dispassionate leadership. As long as you can get 12 dollar sushi and 8 dollar microbeers without having to get up from your seat, Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong the two happiest guys in Seattle. They kicked Lou Pinnella to the curb and he has forgotten more about baseball than Howard Lincoln will ever know. The advertising campaign at the beginning of the season last year touted the 20 game package with the “…Yankees, Red Sox and the reurn of Ken Griffey Jr.!!” How sad is that. You can direct all the hate you want towards the Red Sox but the real problem is closer to home. As for me, the Red Sox have about 20 more championships to go before they even approach the vile behavior level of most every Yankee fan I have had the displeasure to meet. Congratulations to the 2007 World Series Champs Boston Red Sox!
The Red Sox have have intelligence + money. This is the future and the M’s are nowhere near it. Scary.
Did anyone else notice that, far more than in years past, the talking heads during these playoffs discussed the front offices of the various playoff teams, discussing how teams were built, rather than just the product on the field? I didn’t always agree with the analysis, but this is definitely a new trend, brought on by the fact that the last four teams standing all featured strong player development systems and/or uniquely progressive and intelligent front offices.
What’s said in the booth doesn’t educate as much as it reflects what baseball fans are already paying attention to, and baseball fans are paying attention to team construction and organizational philosophy more now than ever before. Maybe we M’s fans should feel privileged to have a team run by dinosaurs. Kids love dinosaurs. And it won’t be long before they’re extinct.
34: People complain about Red Sox fans because of the way they behave. It’s that simple. Not all of hem, of course, but enough of them that it colors everyone else’s view of the fan base in general. No one is directing hate at the Red Sox team or organization, and if you’ve paid any attention at all here you know well that people here have no pattience with the Mariner organization, so what argument exactly are you making here?
I just hate all the new Red Sox fans in their pink and green hats saying they were fans in the early 90′s. No one outside of the New England area unless they had ties there was a fan, you rarely saw Sox gear before 2004. At this point they are just rooting for Yankees 2.0.
This is partly just hate cause the Mariners are destined for nothing and the Rockies just got swept. Baseball is dead to me until spring.
Congratz Cards, who are close to hiring Chris Antonetti as new GM.
With regard to Red Sox fans, I think they’re mostly getting this treatment because of how many of them there are, for no particularly good reason. But I think a lot of the recognition of how annoying Red Sox fans are serves to occlude how annoying fans of many, many teams are. I know I hate Yankees, As (to my surprise, actually), Angels, Indians, Cardinals, White Sox, and Giants fans just as much if not more (though obviously not all of them, that would be crazy). And I’m none too fond of fans from a variety of other teams either. The Red Sox and Yankees loom over the rest, but I think only in their quantity. We’re just not as subjected to the obnoxious fans of other teams, because they don’t exist in such numbers outside the markets of the teams in question.
In my estimation, though, Yankees fans (in general) are still the worst, despite the general obnoxiousness of so many other kinds of fans, because they’re not just rude, they’re also extremely condescending. I’ve never gotten the same level of snobbery from Sox fans. I guess that’s a personal thing; I can handle drunken idiots, even arrogant mean ones, much easier than I can deal with being talked down to.
BTW, I meant that there’s no particularly good reason that there are so many Red Sox fans, not that there’s no particularly good reason they get characterized so pejoratively.
I have witnessed far more bad behavior from Mariner fans towards my wife and daughter in Safeco just for wearing their Red Sox gear and yes they both have pink and green if that matters. The pink gear is for charity for breast cancer research, to which the Red Sox contribute. I was embarrassed that some Mariner fans would go out of their way to heckle two women who weren’t bothering anyone. I wore my Mariner hat to Fenway last year and the most I got was “Thanks for Varitek!”. It’s all a matter of perspective of course, but sometimes we really come across as a bunch of jealous haters. Some years back I went to an Oakland game and I couldn’t get out of there quick enough for fear of my life! I just think the Red Sox are the latest fashion statement and it makes it hard on the folks who’ve been there through the lean years.
I think it’s hard for those of us who live and die with our favorite teams (you should have seen me coming out of Husky Stadium on Saturday) to comprehend that there is a substantial portion of our population for whom sports, both amateur and professional are nothing more than an occasional distraction.
There is also a large segment of our population that is so dispassionate and ignorant that they will latch onto whatever trend comes down the pipe, regardless of hour ridiculous or sublime it may be (see: Hilton, Paris; armband tattoo, tribal; Kinkade, Thomas).
The fact of the matter is that many of these people, in the past few years, have dumped out their Yankees gear and swapped it for shiny new Red Sox gear. They know very little about the team, they players, or the history, but in their dim little minds, that is overshadowed by their driving need to be associated with what is considered to be fashionable at the time.
Let’s face it, if a miracle happened and the M’s suddenly became the most successful franchise in baseball over an extended period, we would suddenly start seeing people in M’s gear everywhere, and not just in the Pacific Northwest. The “Mariner Nation” would extend to the other coast. And we would have to put up with them showing up at Safeco Field, being incredibly obnoxious, and having no idea who Lou Piniella is, albeit Alvin Davis or Omar Vizquel.
Congrats to the Boston Red Sox, and incredibly well-run organization that deserves the success.
Others have noticed it too (and right here in Seattle).
As a long-time Red Sox fan, I have to admit, I get annoyed by newbies who have never heard of Yaz or Fisk talking to me like I’m an old hick from Oregon (that part is true) who couldn’t possibly know as much as they do about the Sox or baseball or life.
On the other hand, as a baseball fan, I’m happy for new fans to the game and new money for the game. Baseball is already a second tier sport in the US and in the ’90s was in danger of becoming a complete joke. It’s a lot easier to ignore a few boors and actually have the game still played at a high level than it would be to see baseball implode. In that regard, much as I hate it, I guess the policy of ignoring steroids worked.
as a lifelong Red Sox fan, I’m on cloud 9 today. In 2004 I was unable to soak in the fact that the Sox finally won a world series in, not only my lifetime but in the life time of my father (who turned 82 this week) and my father in law. Watching both those fans go year after year without a world series victory was tough to watch.
This year, I was able to relax and enjoy the team and the games. As I watched the games a couple of thoughts kept going through my head….
1….I hope I don’t have to wait until I’m 80 before the M’s win a world series.
2….I’m glad the Sox have a manager with enough stones to value talent over veteraness.
3….Having money and brains at your disposal trumps having just money every time.
4….The playoffs are still a crap shoot, build your team for the regular season.
5….Power arms top finesse pitching.
6….Remember when the M’s used to grind out at bats like the Sox do and take pitches?
7….Double switches and pulling guys for late inning defense isn’t rocket science.
One last thing about Sox fans. Go to New England. Observe the number of people wearing Sox merchandise. If someone is wearing a cap, it’s a Sox hat. The people of New England support their team. The M’s would kill to have a fan base as loyal as the Red Sox. Sure, you think they’re coming out of the woodwork across the US but it’s always been that way in New England.
I was born and raised in Michigan, and first moved to the region in 1994. Though the M’s are now my first team, I’ll admit I still have a “soft spot” for the Tigers (except when we were battling each other for the WC about two months ago) — and, hell yeah, I was stoked to see them win the pennant last year for the first time since 1984!
My neighbor, who’s lived in Seattle for about twenty years, was born and raised in the Bronx. He remains a true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool Yankee fan. He is, however, first and foremost a fan of the game…and as such, is none too fond of many of the obnoxious louts who show up at Safeco pretending to be on-board the “Yankee Nation” bandwagon as a reason to get drunk and act belligerent and stupid.
I really don’t have that much of an issue with TRUE Red Sox or Yankee fans — or even any other fans who show up to root for their team — as long as they do so in a civilized manner. The folks who piss me off are the ones who come in and try to TAKE OVER the park to the point where they’re intimidating/menacing the home fans who are merely trying to enjoy the game. That kind of mentality smacks of the hooliganism which often takes place at certain Europoean football (soccer) parks and elsewhere — and a lot of the time, it’s perpetrated by these bandies who claim to be “lifelong” fans of certain popular teams depite NOT being from that city or region, not having any family connections there, never even having BEEN to a game at that team’s home park, and not even being able to tell you from personal knowledge who some of the great players of their so-called “favorite” team are (i.e. Sox “fans” who don’t know who Pudge Fisk is, Yank “fans” who’ve never heard of Bucky Dent, etc.).
I realize not every fan is going to have the entire history of their team memorized (speaking from my own experience, there’s a lot of early Mariner history that I missed and had to dig up on my own — a little something to do with living 2300 miles away and the M’s not getting a hell of a lot of press at the time)…also, that teams which are/have become successful are bound to attract casual fans or bandies. That being said, MLB has done its job in “growing the game,” so to speak…however, someone who’s paid their money to simply try to enjoy a game should never feel threatened by the behavior of others.
47 – I used to live in Grand Rapids and the best date of my life was a spontaneous trip in an MG convertible to a Tigers’ doubleheader at old Tiger Stadium. I also have a soft spot for them.
The whole Red Sox mystique was the years of not winning. It took a special kind of masochist (like me) to keep thinking that it was just a year or two away…
Now that they’re winners, they’re just attracting a different crowd, and that’s probably why they don’t seem special to me any more.
It’s also much harder for me to be a fan of any team outside the Northwest “just because.” It’s not like when players stayed with the same team for most of their careers (and as annoying as that can be to me as a player, I thank Curt Flood on behalf of the players and the game). I still follow the Dodgers as my NL team, but I rarely get to see them play and the personnel turns over so often, it’s hard to keep up.
OK, I live in New York and know my fair share of Yankee fans and can say that right now Red Sox fans are more obnoxious. While they’re both equally condescending toward me for being a Mariners fan, Red Sox fans beat you over the head with their suffering. They act like the 86 year title drought somehow makes them true fans and everyone else a bandwagoner. They also have to believe that they are underdogs who are beating the odds to win and it gets on my nerves.
#25. One story which I heard but can’t confirm is that, along with seeming like a tremendous phony, ARod once shouted for a runner approaching the plate to bowl over Tek, in an instance where such a choice was pretty questionable. After the runner didn’t and the out was made, Varitek supposedly turned to ARod and said “You wouldn’t dare.”
Possibly/probably apocryphal but that’s one I’ve heard.
Regarding fans, I don’t know how you can possible try to judge hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of people on the basis of encountering a few people in a perhaps unusual circumstance. To give you an idea of the problem of doing this, the single most obnoxious couple fans I’ve ever encountered at Fenway were not yankee fans or Mets fans or Braves or any other team. They were a couple of Mariners fans who sat behind me and my friends in July or August 2001. I’ve had yankee fans sitting next to me at a Sox vs. yankees game and never come near to a fight. These guys had 6 or 8 people wanting to go at it with them. They laughed derisively at any play that went against the Sox, shouted insults at the Sox players and were jackasses toward girls who went by with Sox gear on. They were so over the top smug about the Mariners that I almost–almost– felt good about Justice’s hit off Rhodes. I think I pictured those two assholes having the smiles wiped off their faces.
There are jerks in every bunch.
James T, your story about Varitek and ARod is apparently true. I happened to click on a Ken Rosenthal story for SI.com from 4/4/05 following up on some speculation that his Yankee ex-teammates might speak out like his old Ranger ex-teammates did.
The story you mentioned was practically the first thing I read.
It seems like A-Rod and Varitek also came to blows one other time a few years back, but I can’t remember specifically when.
As for a-hole fans, James, those guys you ran into at Fenway back in ’01 were just EXACTLY the kind of jerk-offs I’m talking about. Maybe they were bandies (there actually WERE a few of them around that year), maybe they actually were M’s fans who were on vacation…but I have a hunch that I personally wouldn’t have minded seeing them get their asses kicked myself — since those are the kind of louts who ruin the game for everybody else.
BTW, congrats — your guys played a great season and earned that banner. Enjoy your offseason!