Where have all the Bo Sox gone?
It was less than a week ago when eager and hopeful Red Sox fans filled GW screaming in that old familiar accent: “its aaare year,” and “bring on the damn Yankees.”
As a die hard Yanks fan who has had a navy blue Yankees hat attached to my head since birth, the days before the series I was given the evil eye, I was yelled at and I was forced to enter many heated conversations on who was really the better American League team.
The entire Red Sox nation was visible with T-shirts, and the abundance of Sox hats on campus had shot through the roof early last week. But now with the Yankees in command of the series, “the Nation” is quiet here at GW.
See, at this point in the series last year, I was called a “piece of dung” in Kogan Plaza, spit at outside Gelman and gawked at inside Funger. But this year, none of that has happened; the worst thing that has happened to me is one of my roommates wearing a “Posada is a Little (female dog)” T-shirt. He repeatedly screamed at me that this was indeed “the last year of the Yankee Dynasty.”
But by the weekend, with the Bo Sox traveling back home to Fenway a stadium with more nooks and crannies than a Thomas’s English Muffin, I saw fewer Red Sox hats and T-shirts on campus and I was not told that my team was going to lose.
So why did red Sox fans fade just as fast as their team?
It has nothing to do with the game actually being played on the field but with a mindset that has descended across New England and has followed “the Nation” where ever it goes.
Sox fans’ and players’ mindset is this: “Yes we are proverbial losers and yes the Yankees are our daddies.”
This year, the Red Sox clearly have better talent and better pitching, but what has happened on the field is what defines both teams.
The Yankees are calm and collected but with a fire inside that burns hotter than anyone who is not a Yankee fan could ever understand. The Red Sox players are emotional but know if they lose it will be okay because they have lost for 80-plus years.
The Yankees know they are going to win and the Red Sox know they are going to lose. Both teams’ fans have come to reality with their situation. Before some Bo Sox fans could be further humiliated by another loss to the Yankees, they gave up. With the Sox trailing 9-6 Saturday night, Red Sox fans I watched the game with appeared devastated. And this was before New York tacked on 10 more runs.
“The nation”, along with Kevin “Cowboy Up” Millar can only hope that next season will be their year.
If you’re from New York, sit back and relax. It’s easy when you’re in a “Yankees state of mind.”
