Red Sox Nation

It would seem that the Red Sox are going to the world series, or bringing it here, or whatever the process is. woo-hoo. My enthusiasm knows bounds.

I have been giving my deep burning hatred for all things Red Sox some thought. Aside from the rampant vandalism and general asshattedness and I think I have figured out why my disdain is so rabid. It's because they won't leave me alone.

It's sort of like Paris Hilton or fundamentalist chrisianity. Sure, it's there, but why do you have to keep bringing it too my attention. Why, indeed, should I have to care.

To quote the bard, "There's the rub." You can not live in Boston without caring about the Red Sox and you can not live a relatively peaceful life during ball season (which seems to get longer every year) unless you love the Red Sox. You have to be able to listen to people gabble on ad nauseam about baseball and at least affect some interest. Telling someone you really couldn't care less leads to long diatribes about the magnificence of an activity, if something as inherently dull as baseball can be considered an activity,and that there is something intellectually and morally wrong with you if you cannot dedicate yourself heart and soul to THE TEAM. For me baseball is a sport that has all the thrills of watching uranium metamorphose into lead. You know it will happen eventually, but it takes time.

Sox fans also refer to themselves as the faithful. It actually is appropriate. They exhibit a zeal that would have left Torquemada in tears with admiration and joy. Sox fans are like inquisitors or jihadists actually. There is no room for the unbeliever. They also seem to have a fondness for torching things. During the last World Series they burned several cars. Walking to the T station this morning I noticed that the first of what will be many trash cans have been set alight. (Who ever decided that plastic was an acceptable material for public waste barrels?) I suspect that if they could, they would start burning Yankees fans and anyone else who hasn't drunk the Kool-Aid as heretics in order to purify the world for "the faithful". And somehow, this is all acceptable because it's "just high spirits".

It will all be over eventually. For now, I will just have to live with the noise, the crowds of brain dead fans and mornings where the sidewalks which on normal post game days are a slurry of regurgitated stadium food and beer and broken glass has the added attraction of horse shit because they decided to deploy and extra 1,000 policeman, at the tax payers expense mind you, to try and keep the fans under control.

In the final analysis, it is like a plague of boils or Celine Dion. There isn't anything I can do about it so I am just going to have to live with it until it's over and try and take what joy I can in the knowledge that it isn't permanent. I bought some ear plugs to block out the noise from the stadium, the fans out on the streets who are standing around staring at the stadium as if they are waiting for it to levitate and transport them into heaven and the helicopters and blimps that will be droning over the area. Now, I figure if I can somehow score some valium I will make it to the end of the series without any unnecessary bloodshed.