Knuckles and Gyros

Letting Off Some Baseball Related Steam…

I’ve noticed this season that my ability to give a fuck about the Red Sox has been at an all-time low. 

Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean that I’m not a fan anymore. I am. I do have people on the team I love, I enjoy the game of baseball quite a bit, and I still read up on it passionately. So the love is still there. I just have lost any ability to give a shit about if the Red Sox win or not. And quite honestly, it really fucking sucks. 

I began to wonder why I was feeling this way. I wondered if I was becoming a terrible fan and I suppose that’s a legitimate thought. Maybe I’ve just given up on them because they’re doing terrible. But, on the other hand, I gave a damn in 2010 and they were pretty terrible that season. I had reasons to care that season and I did. And 2011 had a shit start and I watched then.

Then, I began to wonder if it was because of how 2011 ended. That was a cough up of epic proportions. Players just either stalled, took advantage of Tito, and just sucked donkey balls down the stretch. But that was then. Sure a good chunk of the players are back, but I’ve tried to downplay my sour feelings with most of them…though I can’t help but feel some element of bitterness towards Beckett. I suppose that’s hypocritical, but I’m only human. 

And I also wondered a few other things. Maybe it was due to Wake retiring? Nahh, because Papi is still there and I still love him. Maybe I hate the entire team? No. I like Papi, Aviles, D-Mac, Cody Ross among others. Maybe it’s because they’re losing? Once again, I watched in 2010 and they sucked then. 

Then I began to think of what exactly began to make my blood boil about the team. What was frustrating me more than anything. And that was where my answer came. That’s when I realized why my amount of fucks were at quite a low. It was so clear and obvious to me, it was the thing that was clearly pissing me off all throughout last September with every loss. 

It’s the fans. 

This is going to earn me so many haters, but I’ve lost my ability to care. I hate Red Sox fans. I fucking HATE Red Sox fans. And I hate that I have to feel like I need to apologize to every other baseball fan just because I’m from the New England area and support my local home team. I hate the feeling of having to explain myself every time I wear my Red Sox hat out in town and see someone judging me as being like every other Red Sox fan they met. I hate being lumped in with the other fans who base their fandom more on being a Red Sox fan than being a BASEBALL fan. 

You see, when I became a fan of the Red Sox, I was a baseball fan first. Sure I lived in the New England area, but I didn’t associate myself with a team for the longest time. I just liked to watch the game, read about the game, look at statistics, all that stuff. It wasn’t until Pedro Martinez came along that I found myself becoming a Red Sox fan. He’s the reason that I’m a fan and though he left after 04, I found other reasons to root for them. Even though I am a Red Sox fan, I do like baseball in general. Sure the Yankees aren’t my favorite team, but I actually don’t hate them as much as other people do. I respect them. You see the only two teams I really truly absolutely hated were the 2003 Oakland A’s and the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays. Those teams made me so soothingly angry…

But as I kept being a fan, I had to deal with all these fucking asshole fans who make me feel embarrassed to be a Red Sox fan. These guys who can’t name anybody in the fucking bullpen, the assholes who act so damn elitist to anybody who legitimately wants to be a fan but needs some guidance, the ones who base their fandom on hating the Yankees (there’s surprisingly a lot more of these guys than you think), and just pretty much all those negative fatalistic folks who believe that being a real fan is about wanting them to lose. 

And that’s what brings us to this season. 90% of Red Sox fans I see today don’t’ want to see the Red Sox win. They don’t. They all want to see them lose and lose badly. You may be looking at me and saying “Your thoughts are bad and you should feel bad!” but you just aren’t seeing it how I am. There’s three different degrees of this shit.

• The “Fuck Bobby Valentine, let’s get him fired” crowd. Look, Bobby Valentine isn’t going to be winning any Manager of the Year awards, but you know what? I’ll take him. It’s not HIS fault he got hired. It’s not HIS fault that the players took advantage of Tito last season and how everything went to shit. It’s not HIS fault that the team has gotten to a shitty start…okay, well some of it isn’t his fault. He could use some work on the bullpen hook. Lay off fucking Bobby Valentine, at least until midseason, okay?! Yeah I wasn’t a huge fan of his calling out Youk shit, but I’m willing to overlook it for now. Also, who hasn’t had a shit manager before? Did you ever see any other team’s fans root for their teams to lose just because they hated the manager? No, because they are actually of a sane mind. And even if they did, they at least waited until midseason when their record was shit anyway. And if it wasn’t shit, they at least waited it through.
• The “Fuck the ownership” crowd. Okay, I get the reasoning here. This is a legit area that I can understand. They fucked up last offseason. They fired Tito, they were the ones who fucked up that whole situation. And yeah, I’m not a big fan of how all of that turned out. But to want to see the Red Sox lose just because you hate the ownership?! That’s fucking stupid. You never saw Yankee fans rooting against their team because Steinbrenner overpaid guys. You don’t see Mariners fans acting like it’s sacrilege because their team was owned by Nintendo or what not. And hell you don’t see Marlins fans — FUCKING MARLINS FANS — abandoning their team because their owner is a fucking piece of shit. It’s a piss poor excuse to root for a team to lose just because you have a vendetta against the ownership. 
• And finally, there’s the “Fuck the players” crowd. These are the folks who are so bitter from 2011 that they want to see the players suck so hard that they lose any chance of competing and what not. This is stupid, shitty, and extremely unfair to the other players who either showed up or weren’t even on the team last year. Just because the pitching rotation got drunk and ate too much fried chicken doesn’t mean that everybody else should suffer. Sure, I may smirk a bit if Lester and Beckett do shitty, but I’m not going to root for them to suck. They’re a part of the team and I’ve learned to root for them IN SPITE of everything. There’s never going to be a team where you like every single player on that team. Hell, I look at the 2004 Red Sox and I can pick out a few players I can’t stand from the team (Johnny Damon (I hated him from wayyy before he went to the Yankees, mind you. I’m at least consistent), Schilling (douchebag), Lowe (whore), and Millar got on my nerves at times). Even the 2007 team who I sometimes like to claim I hated nobody on that team ((I liked Beckett and Lester at the time), Schilling, Lugo, (Manny hadn’t gotten on my bad side yet), etc) had a few that I didn’t really care for. 

So basically my point here is that with all these negative angles, they all have that one thing in common: They want to see the team do poorly and lose every game possible. Meanwhile, fans who legitimately want to see the team do well (like myself) are left to suffer with everybody’s fucking bullshit and everybody’s whiny entitled bitchings about how they aren’t how they used to be. They’re not just sounding like Yankee fans, they’re sounding WORSE than Yankee fans. And yes, I know that’s fighting words up around here, but I’m ready to put up my dukes. 

And, as I’ve said once and again, I don’t know who hate the Red Sox more — Yankee fans or Red Sox fans. It’s really hard to tell. 

The truth of the matter is that my ability to give a fuck has been heavily stunted by the bullshit that I have to deal with from everywhere. All the negativity, all the hate, all the fucking douchebag entitlement. Yes, 2011 sucked, but get the fuck over it. Yes, Bobby V isn’t exactly the greatest managerial choice ever, but if the players hadn’t taken advantage of Tito in 2011, then he wouldn’t be here. And yes, the ownership fucked up, but how the hell can you guys forget the good they’ve done?! I know it’s hard to think of, but you can’t tell me you weren’t loving that pre game ceremony today! And yes, I know that some players are fucking douchebags, but I’m not going to let my disdain for certain players make me want to wish for the team to lose. It’s not fair to the others. 

And I’m pretty much sick of everybody’s shit. Shit happens, you can’t dwell on it. I know Red Sox fans seem to LOVE to dwell on this shit and call it out whenever they can. Oh no, they choked in 2011…oh no, they didn’t make the playoffs in 2010…what about 2003? 1986? 1978? And so on….my god, you people fucking suck! Let it go. Also, how dare you compare 2011 with those other years?! (well not 2010…that team was always hurt and it didn’t suck that much when they didn’t make it to the playoffs). Those years weren’t chokes. They were gutpunchingly heartbreakers…okay 1978 was a about 80% choke but they did make an effort to come back and tie them, so there’s that I guess. But it just pisses me off that people just can’t let it go. 

Deep down, we’re all Red Sox fans and even though I hate about 90% of you right now, I know you’re all not that bad. You have some legit rooting interests in the team, so how about letting go of the shit you don’t agree with and actually ROOT for the fucking team. It’s fine to complain, but don’t get so fucking whiny about it. The beauty of this game is no matter how shitty one day may be, the next day is always a new start. And it doesn’t matter how many runs one team scores, in the end it only counts for one. 

I really want to start investing my fucks in the Red Sox again, but all this negativity is making me go into Rick Pitino levels of bitchery, and I really don’t like going there. So please, for fuck’s sake, stop acting like a bunch of spoiled whiny shitheads and perhaps, maybe actually, you know BE A FAN OF THE TEAM?!

So in conclusion, Fuck You. The End. :P