Flashes of Panic

…can we be cranky about winning, for pity’s sake.

Eric Wilbur’s sports blog entry in the Globe is worth reading because it has some cute images—waking up his three-week-old son to watch the Sox win the World Series—but his central point, that Red Sox Nation is top-heavy with dilettantes who don’t understand what it means to be frustrated for decades, is a little too wrong-headed for me to get along with.

Sure, the Sox have plenty of new fans since ‘04, but what did ‘05 and ‘06 do to bring them in? Sure, plenty of old-school fans get annoyed about pink or green Red Sox hats “that allow them to better match with their evening apparel.” (Not me, by the way. I wouldn’t go there myself, but if my nieces want pink Sox hats, let ‘em have ‘em. Doesn’t change the way I feel about the team.)

The problem isn’t “Johnny-come-lately fans,” as Wilbur implies. The problem, if there is one, is this curious belief that there’s a “right way” to be a fan, and if not everyone does it right, it somehow devalues everyone’s appreciation of the game. Does that sound ridiculous to you? If I may risk being a little too heavy, that’s like saying that there’s only one “right way” to be religious, and anyone who does it differently is devaluing the faith of those who do.

Especially in New England, a part of the country which has long been fond of the idea that one’s relationship with God was a private matter not for public display, this dogmatic intolerance in the Church of Baseball smells ugly to me.

And wishing all these “new fans” could wait 86 years for a World Series victory, so they too could have “a lifetime of emotion in the waiting,” as Wilbur says, is just sadistic. Should we now require all new baseball fans to serve apprenticeships as Cubs fans?

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