ATLANTA -- This isn't quite baseball's Hula Hoop, but it is close. In other words, the suddenly loud and colorful explosion throughout the universe for anything involving the Boston Red Sox is a fad.It's just lasting longer than usual. So Red Sox fans should enjoy all of this before it is going, going, almost gone, because it is fleeting.
Here's the latest: The dominant color of the Atlanta Braves is blue, so you would expect their fans to dress accordingly. That said, when you studied the packed stands during each of the Braves' past three games inside of what had been a fairly barren Turner Field this season, there was nothing but red.
Red Sox red.
More striking, the Tomahawk Chant wasn't the most frequent sound you heard throughout the weekend. It was "Let's Go Red Sox," and it rang in mighty decibels from the box seats to the upper deck to the bleachers. That same chant was the rage in Washington, where the Red Sox played before coming to Atlanta. The hometown Nationals broke an attendance record during each night of that three-game series, but it was like this: The overwhelming majority of the crowd at Nationals Park came to hug anybody with "Boston" across the front of his jersey.
That's because the Red Sox Nation lives, prospers and seeks to spend a fourth season out of the last five drawing better on the road than anybody in the majors, including its pinstriped Great Satan from the Bronx.
Braves radio announcer Mark Lemke, a second baseman in Atlanta for a decade before ending his career with the Red Sox in 1998, frowned. Then he said, "I'm trying to think about my days playing in Boston. I mean, within Boston, yeah, the enthusiasm over the team was pretty huge. But when it came to playing on the road, I don't remember the Red Sox Nation being as big as it is now."
Well, it wasn't. Said pitcher Tim Wakefield, with the Red Sox since 1995: "My years are blurring together, but I think all of this was a gradual thing. Once new ownership took over (in December 2001 with principle owner John W. Henry), they did a better job of marketing the team and making it more popular."
Added veteran Braves manager Bobby Cox, who took regular trips to Boston while managing the Toronto Blue Jays during the early 1980s, "Actually, I can remember going into Fenway, and there were not many people there at all. And that wasn't very many years ago."
Contrast that to the eternal Yankee Nation, which was even vibrant in 1968 when Cox began his playing career in the Bronx four years after the end of that particular Yankee dynasty. "There were two (nations) back then -- the Dodgers, with Branch Rickey and the guys, and the Yankees. Especially the Yankees, [a team] that created the feeling of superiority with the organization, the players, the whatever it takes to win, we'll do it," Cox said. "It was big when we went on the road, because Mickey [Mantle] was still there and Whitey [Ford] was a coach. Prior to that, when they had everybody, there were Yankee fans everywhere for decades."
The Red Sox Nation involves years, not decades.
Consider, too, that the Red Sox weren't even much of a New England obsession until their Impossible Dream season of 1967, when Carl Yastrzemski led the franchise to a pennant out of nowhere. Prior to that, the Red Sox averaged fewer folks per season than the American League average in seven of the previous eight years. In fact, the Red Sox owned a historically sorry fanbase that left Fenway less than half full more often than not for decades after it opened in 1912.
Remember that Ted Williams ended his legendary Red Sox career with a home run in his last at-bat at Fenway? Just 10,000 folks showed up.
You have all of those Red Sox myths, though. The silly one that claims the Red Sox Nation has enjoyed longevity (see above) is perpetrated by the sillier one that claims no set of fans ever have suffered more than Red Sox fans.
All you need to know is that prior to the Red Sox winning it all in 2004, when the powerful East Coast media kept promoting the Curse of the Bambino and no world championships for Red Sox diehards since 1918, Chicago Cubs diehards were the true lifetime fans of woe. The Cubs still haven't won a World Series since 1908. Not only that, since their last pennant in 1945, the Red Sox have reached the World Series six times, including four during that stretch prior to 2004 when the pain of the Red Sox Nation supposedly was so dark and unique.
You can blame the perpetrating of these myths on the slew of spoken and written words on Red Sox Nation from such notable Red Sox fans as Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and author Stephen King.
If you add that to the Red Sox's ongoing record of home sellouts that began May 15, 2003, along with the fact that they are the only team to capture two World Series trophies since the turn of the century, you have the explanation for why a knee-jerk society is exaggerating the past, present and future of Red Sox Nation.
Some get it, though. There was Bob Smith, who was standing in a box seat at Turner Field for one of the weekend games wearing two Red Sox jerseys and a T-shirt commemorating the Red Sox's World Series victory in 2004. He has been a registered nurse in Atlanta for five years, and despite his roots in Plattsburgh, N.Y., he has been a Red Sox fan for the past 33 years.
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NEW YORK - JUNE 28: Chien-Ming Wang #40 of the New York Yankees pitches against the New York Mets on June 28, 2009 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Chien-Ming Wang
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NEW YORK - JUNE 28: Chien-Ming Wang #40 of the New York Yankees pitches against the New York Mets on June 28, 2009 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Chien-Ming Wang
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NEW YORK - JUNE 28: Chien-Ming Wang #40 of the New York Yankees pitches against the New York Mets on June 28, 2009 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Chien-Ming Wang
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NEW YORK - JUNE 28: Livan Hernandez #61 of the New York Mets pitches against the New York Yankees on June 28, 2009 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Livan Hernandez
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NEW YORK - JUNE 28: Livan Hernandez #61 of the New York Mets pitches against the New York Yankees on June 28, 2009 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Livan Hernandez
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NEW YORK - JUNE 28: Daniel Murphy #28 of the New York Mets can't hold onto the ball in the first inning as Robinson Cano #24 of the New York Yankees is safe at first base on June 28, 2009 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Daniel Murphy;Robinson Cano
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NEW YORK - JUNE 28: Mark Teixeira #25 of the New York Yankees scores a first inning run against the New York Mets on June 28, 2009 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Mark Teixeira
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NEW YORK - JUNE 28: Mark Teixeira #25 of the New York Yankees scores a first inning run against the New York Mets on June 28, 2009 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Mark Teixeira
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NEW YORK - JUNE 28: Mark Teixeira #25 of the New York Yankees connects for a first inning two run double against the New York Mets on June 28, 2009 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Mark Teixeira
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NEW YORK - JUNE 28: Nick Swisher #33 of the New York Yankees scores a first inning run past David Wright #5 of the New York Mets on June 28, 2009 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Nick Swisher;David Wright
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"Probably '86 is when this group of Red Sox fans began mourning together, because we were collectively destroyed by 'that,'" said Smith, 39, whose "that" was Bill Buckner's little gaffe at first base in the World Series. "But certainly in the last 10 years, the Red Sox Nation has been more prevalent than ever. Yet the truth is, now that it's at its peak, you've got folks saying, 'I've always been a Red Sox fan.' Oh, really, I say? Who played center field for the Red Sox in '76? I can tell you that it was Fred Lynn. Ask them about Dwight Evans, or who played second back then. They couldn't tell you.
"So how long will the Red Sox Nation continue to last? Well, that's a great question. The Red Sox will always have their diehards, but as far as this hysteria for the team involving John Q. Public, I don't think it will last, not unless we're successful."
You can make that not unless the Red Sox are "highly" successful, as in collecting enough World Series rings to have a slew of them overall. Like 26 of them, which is the record number for the Yankees, owners of the true "nation." Although the Yankees have trailed division-leading Boston in the American League East for much of this season and haven't won a World Series since 2000, the Yankees currently have a slight lead over the Red Sox in average road attendance per game.
Just wait a little while. It was the Yankee Nation before the Red Sox Nation, and it will be the Yankee Nation afterward.
Terence Moore is a national columnist and commentator for FanHouse. He is a frequent panelist on "Rome Is Burning", an ESPN show hosted by Jim Rome, that is seen Monday through Friday at 4:30 PM ET. Moore spent more than three decades working for major newspapers, including 26 years as an award-winning sports columnist for the San Francisco Examiner and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He resides in Atlanta .
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
6-28-2009 @ 11:58PM
jzz3skys said...
"All you need to know is that prior to the Red Sox winning it all in 2004, when the powerful East Coast media kept promoting the Curse of the Bambino and no world championships for Red Sox diehards since 1918, Chicago Cubs diehards were the true lifetime fans of woe. The Cubs still haven't won a World Series since 1908....You can blame the perpetrating of these myths on the slew of spoken and written words on Red Sox Nation from such notable Red Sox fans as Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and author Stephen King."
Have you read Dennis Lehane's latest novel "The Given Day," set in Boston in the "Red Summer" of 1919, the year of Ruth's departure? He's actually a character in the book, which you might say implies that the confluence of calamitous events of that year -- like the Spanish Influenza Pandemic, the Boston Police Strike, the anarchist bombings by Galleanists, and the Great Molasses Flood in the North End -- are in some way related to The Curse (or so I interpret it). The African American character is from Greenwood Oklahoma.
I thought it was a great book, although I didn't care that much for the depiction of Babe Ruth as the center of the moral universe. Lehane's Harper Collins interview is pretty interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYpuxAj0Cno
PS Why no Fanhouse coverage of the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships at the University of Oregon?
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6-29-2009 @ 1:02AM
don5565 said...
God! Don't you guys get it. ESPN has hyped the Red Sox and Yankees because it is their home teams. I remember them hyping UCONN and DUKE all the time. ESPN is in New England, so they are always hyping the Red Sox, the Yankees are just the natural rivalry. This has created more Red Sox fans around the nation.
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6-29-2009 @ 10:21AM
lsaidsltdown said...
Sorry there Bubba.....the Red Sox have been a nationwide lovechild long before ESPN Chris Berman had his born-again head of hair. They are a beloved franchise throughout the country, have always been, and will always be.
Yankee fans such as the author are just in denial. More fans may show up at away games because more fans across the country HATE the Yankees and what they represent and love to come to the parks and BOO them. I don't understand why people don't get THAT.
6-29-2009 @ 1:55AM
bjc61201 said...
Why hate Terrance? I think we all know why? Look at our 24 players and what do you see in 20 of them? Go write about basketball will ya!
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6-29-2009 @ 1:59AM
James said...
Terence Moore has become a tragic figure, like an old boxer who is way past his prime but keeps coming back for more punishment and continues to lose as crowds of people wince at his hopeless effort.
Put away your typewriter Terence. There comes a time when one's former skills diminish to the point of embarrassment. Terence, you reached that point a number of years ago.
http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2006/05/12/friday-fact-checking-terence-moore/
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6-29-2009 @ 2:16AM
bjc61201 said...
Terrance your ignorance is comical!! Where did you get your info from? Ozzie Guillen or the Washinton Nationals? You sound like an uneducated beggard. Why do you make up stats. or should I say blatantly lie. I know why because you can't stand the truth so you have to make something up. The Sox have a bunch of young, home-grown talented players and a never ending supply of them because of their minor leagues, best talent in the majors! Unlike the yankee's trying to buy teams, we draft them and have them bleeding red for their whole careers. I've been going to Sox games for 30 years and I haven't seen a game under 80% capacity yet! So stop acting like yourself and "act" like you're a writer! What a joke you and your article's are!!
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6-29-2009 @ 9:39AM
Your Majesty said...
dice k ring any bells, and the treatment of big pappi during his slump shows the "true colors" of red sux fans.
6-29-2009 @ 2:09PM
dewit202 said...
YourMajasty. Huh? You're nuts ! The Sox fans cheered Papi through his slump and hung in there with him. His first 3 HR after the dry spell brought standing Os.and it was worth it....he's back. Not like the booing A-Roid suffered at home when he's had his slumps. Only booed Frasncona for leaving Dice in there way past his effective pitching....different story and goes on in every team. Get your facts straight
6-29-2009 @ 2:43AM
bjc61201 said...
Everybody, let's start a campaign to get this idiot Terance Moore off the internet. His articles are filled with lies and he rambles on like some old hippie radical from the 60's! I can only wonder if he knows how bad of a writer he is, I mean why isn't this guy forced to go back to grade school in order to keep writing? Whenever I need to laugh I just look up his last article!! Let's stop the laughing and get him to stop writing so we don't have to endure his pain anymore!
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6-29-2009 @ 6:20AM
sarahjules said...
Does every piece have elicit a racial tone? C'mon guys. Let it be.
No doubt about it, the Red Sox are quite good,and have been since their dramatic come from behind ALCS win over their North East rivals. However, anyone who visits a major league winning team's home park will tell you that their fans relish their hometown team. when the Braves were doing fine, the Tomahawk Chop was in fine array. Now that the Braves fortunes have subsided, so has the chop. The same is true in other big league towns.
Big markets obviously get more pop in every category, from dollars in the payroll to media. So it goes.
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6-29-2009 @ 6:40AM
my93bella said...
I have been hooke since my first visit to Fenway in 1967. Yes Carl Yazstremski,George Scott, Rico Retrocelli,Tony COnigliaro and Jim Lonborg. The nation is a Boston thing but the media buzzards have tried to strecth it out just like every other winning team. Who ever heard of Steelers nation????? The media needs material and you can't knock a home town for loving it's team. I have been with the sox all through the 80's and 90's when they were average and the heartbreak of 86 loss to the Mucking Fets!!! I know who Bucky Fucking Dent is and what he did first hand cuz I was there!!!The nation is in Boston please leave us alone!!!!!
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6-29-2009 @ 7:03AM
quietmanrm said...
Red Sox fans- Moore is right. You may not want to admit it, but I've seen what happens when teams don't win world series.
No team can sustain forever what the Sox and Yanks have done in recent history. When the Yanks won 4 in 5 years everyone was a Yankee fan. That's not the case now. They all swore they were diehards. Where'd they all go?
Younger children do not have the history or memories with sports franchises anymore. Their loyalty is fleeting. They change their favorite teams whenever someone wins or there is a new hto shot player. How many people became Cavalier fans because of King James? How many fans do the Bulls still have compared to the Jordan days? The Magic after Shaq? How are the Knick fans lately without Ewing or without any wins? Everybody loved the Devil Rays last year, where are they now?
It's not a big deal. The Yanks and Sox still have the best diehard fans in sports period. You'll find it's all a cycle. When your team wins everybody is a fan. When they go three years without a title, the rats abandon ship and jump to a new team. I've seen teenagers wearing red Sox stuff, who were wearing Yanks gear 5 years ago.
It's just the way it goes. Let the bandwagon jumpers go away, and the diehard fans will still be there. Then we can get back to the best rivalry in baseball.
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6-29-2009 @ 7:15AM
DICK JENSEN said...
TERRENCE.......I'LL BET YOUR A MICHAEL JACKSON FREAKY FAN TOO. I CAN'T FIND YOUR NAME ON ANY ROSTER, SO I GUESS YOUR A WANNA BE. TOO BAD YOU CAN'T WRITE.
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6-29-2009 @ 7:46AM
Murph said...
Did you read your own blog Terrance? Were you going for comedy here? Because you sound like a sitcom writer. You’re showing your age Terence. And the age of the people you’re interviewing. Way back in 1960 no one knew it was Teddy Ball games last at bat, with the sox mired in another dreadful season and still we drew almost 1.3 million fans that year. 10 thousand not a bad gate for a 7th place team that finished 65 and 89. And a damn site more than watched Roger Maris breaking Babe Ruth’s single season home run record just a year later, Have you seen the film of all those empty seats in the Bronx? Or how many showed up for the LAST game the Dodgers played in the Brooklyn? Interviewing old men like bobby Cox pissed off as they look around their own stadiums filled with Red Sox Nation. Talking about the glory days of the skanks and the Bums is kind of sad. Two old men you and him both stuck in the WORST sports town in the country. While you can’t get a ticket here in Boston for a Wednesday night game to see KC, he you and Atlanta are begging people to buy tickets for Playoff games. SOUR GRAPES Terrence? And while you were asking that14 year old Sox fan in Atlanta if they knew who Freddy Lynn was? Did you ask anyone there if they knew who was playing center for the Braves in 75? Do you know? I didn’t think so. It was Rowland Office. I bet Bobby Cox didn’t know that either. Yes Sox Nation has grown over the past decade. Yes there are a lot of people who have jumped on our bandwagon. But once a Sox fan always a Sox fan. Like my father I will live and die with this team every year. My sons will and my son’s sons after them. Get over it Terence. We are the reason owners smile when Boston comes to visit. We are the reason interlague play still exists. The Nation Fills stadiums sets attendance records for pathetic franchises like Washington and pathetic fan bases like Atlanta. We are the reason Camden yards is called “Fenway South” and the force of the baseball world. It’s a new Century Terrence join it !
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6-29-2009 @ 8:18AM
claytor said...
Funny, i wasnt aware of this Fenway South jargon. Im from Bmore, and have disliked both teams, more the Yanks than the Sox, mostly because the Yanks had an owner worth hating, and tried to clean up on the FA market yearly(Mike Mussina will never be forgiven).
Its great and all to see a franchise that hasnt been very good for decades upon decades with the exception of a few memorable playoff runs up until finally winning something for a change all of four years ago to have super special fans and shit, but leave the other clubs out of it. Its definitely a case of bandwagonning, people clinging to that fairweather winner.
Just because someone buys a New Era cap in dark navy because it matches their denims doesnt make them a fan. Personally? I wouldnt be caught dead in either Yankee Stadium or Fenway, i stay a home fan, you know, because i actually grew up in the town itself? If Yanks and Sox fans can apparently afford that kind of stuff, why not ask ol thrifty John Henry to build more seats in the Fen(maybe even build a bigger stadium period), or uh, actually buy some of those gajillion dollar seats at the new Yank?
6-29-2009 @ 7:53AM
silv512 said...
Maybe its because of how the Red Sox front office has turned them into the best TEAM/ORGANIZATION in baseball
Front to back, Single-A to Major League, the Red Sox have set them self up to be one of the best MLB teams for at least the next decade
If you are a fan of BASEBALL, you cant help but be impressed at what the Red Sox have been able to accomplish
-Chicago, Illinois
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6-29-2009 @ 8:22AM
Mark said...
At first I thought Mariotti wrote this garbage. Being only 8 years old in 1978 i still remember bits and pieces of that sad collapse. At 16 in 1986 I remember Buckners play quite well. I challenge anyone without looking it up who played second base on any team 30 years ago. Just because they dont remember doesnt mean they are not a fan. Jim Rice was always my favorite and wore #14 when I played ball and Dewey was one of the best all around players in the game. A good clutch hitter and had a cannon for an arm. (Do you remember that throw he made in an all star game that kept Tim Raines of the EXPOS on third base on a deep fly ball) There's always been loyal fans of the Sox and always will be. Sure there are bandwagon jumpers (on and off) but every team has so called fans like that including the Yankees and your poll question is just plain ignorant
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6-29-2009 @ 8:37AM
derek said...
Red Sox Nation , Steeler Nation, anll these so called Nation teams? NO SUCH THING...The only legitimate Nation is the RAIDER NATION. Go to WIKIPEDIA and type in Raider Nation and it credits the Raider Nation as being the first of its kind and even calls the Red Sox Nation a so called Nation lol....
The term "Raider Nation," with "Nation" serving to describe the team's numerous followers, has inspired many imitations, the most notable being perhaps the so-called "Red Sox Nation." Even the Borland software company, having been started by Raider fans, refers to its employees and culture as the "Borland Nation."
Sports talk radio host J. T. the Brick, now nationally syndicated, but at one time local to Oakland, coined the term for the Raiders in 1996."
Denver Post staff writer Bill Briggs (and no lover of the Raiders), in a 2005 article wrote, “The Raiders may be the second-most popular team in Denver, as they are in other National Football League cities. Nationally, Raiders gear outsold other teams' jerseys three out of the past four years, according to the NFL.” (The latter point is not lost on Raiders’ majority owner Al Davis, who rues the fact that NFL teams share equally in profits from merchandise sold.)
Hunter S. Thompson, a Raider fan in the last years of his life, wrote, "The massive Raider Nation is beyond doubt the sleaziest and rudest and most sinister mob of thugs and wackos ever assembled."
Raider Nation has been the subject of a documentary entitled, A Look Into The World of the Most Notorious Fans on the Planet: "The Raider Nation,” currently for sale on DVD. In its review, Amazon.com states: “A cross between an English soccer match and a Halloween ball, an Oakland Raiders game is uniquely singular. From tailgate parties that start three days before the game, to legendary fanaticism both inside and outside of the stadium, the Raider Nation is a people worth exploring.”
The team's fans utter devotion is chronicled in "Better to Reign in Hell," a book written by San Diego English professors Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew, who are also Raider fans. The title is derived from an assertion by Satan in Paradise Lost by John Milton: "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."
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6-29-2009 @ 8:49AM
MR LAW said...
SPOKEN LIKE A TRUE YANKEE FAN MR. MOORE
THE SOX HAVE THE LONGEST AND MOST LOYAL FAN BASE!
THE YANKEES WERE GREAT AND USE TO WIN CHAMPIONSHIPS.
THIS FAD OF RED SOX NATION STARTED BEFORE 1918 SO I GUESS YOUR DEFINTION OF A FAD IS WAY OFF.
ANYWAYS, DONT BE HATING THAT YOUR TEAM ISNT BEING TALKED ABOUT ANY LONGER..
P.S. YANKEES SUCK.
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6-29-2009 @ 9:10AM
sj23karros said...
not sure why the dodgers have to be dragged into this cat fight (maybe Frank, "I sure wish I could sign a few more Red Sox players", McCourt's fault). anyway, they have a better record this year and clearly have been the better franchise historically. no contest. Fans? We sell out all the time. Lead the NL in attendance or close to it every year. Would have been an incredible streak if not for the stupid expansion team Rockies and their since abandoned football stadium. And we got more celebrities, too. You can keep Affleck. Gigli, wasn't it.
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