Natives and outsiders alike know that Boston stands unrivaled as the most hated sports city in the country and arguably the world. Why? Simple: their teams are too good.
The respective twenty-seven and seventeen championship victories of the widely maligned New York Yankees and Los Angeles Lakers, for example, have inspired envy and ire in sports fans for almost as long as their leagues have existed. So it stands to reason that while the Boston Celtics (eighteen championships, most), New England Patriots (six championships, T-most), Boston Red Sox (nine championships, T-3rd most) and Boston Bruins (six championships, T-4th most) are the pride and joy of aptly named “Titletown,” they’re the archnemeses of most everyone else, including myself. Being an avid sports fan from nowhere near New England, I’ve lived with the anti-Boston bug all my life, but a recent visit to the city challenged me to reconsider my perspective.
I recently allowed my Arlington, Massachusetts native girlfriend, who is no stranger to my anti-Boston jeering, to give me a thorough tour of what the city had to offer, as I’d only been there once before. Aside from our culinary crawl, through which I discovered my profound affinity for lobster rolls, the most rewarding aspect of the trip was our first stop: Fenway Park.
Anyone who knows me knows that I love baseball. Anyone who knows me a little better also knows that I detest the Red Sox. It’s not that I’ve been personally wronged by their players, organization or fans. It’s only that I was taught that this was the thing to do. If you watch baseball and you aren’t from Boston or certain parts of New York, the Sox and Yankees are just as dead to you as they are to each other.
That being said, it was laughably ironic how instantly I fell in love with Fenway. I’ve only been to a handful of ballparks in my life: Busch Stadium, Nationals Park, Camden Yards, Progressive Field, and apparently Wrigley Field before I’d developed episodic memory. For me, Fenway crushed them all the minute I laid eyes on its verdant, freshly manicured outfield grass.
The towering majesty of the Green Monster, its manual sheet metal scoreboard and light-up ball-strike counter, the Prudential Center saluting in the backdrop, the thousands of unsolicited autographs swarming Pesky Pole–I could taste Boston’s love for the sport in the air. Love the team or hate them, you know immediately upon entry that Fenway Park is pure baseball.
Soon after the game, my girlfriend had me watch Fever Pitch, a rom-com following a couple during the 2004 Red Sox season, in which they famously ended the 86-year-long Curse of the Bambino. I was amazed to learn from her that the Sox unanticipatedly broke the curse during the production of the film, prompting an emergency rewrite of the ending, and further convincing me of the club’s palpable magic.
I of course knew about the curse, the Sox’ improbable comeback to beat their mortal enemies for the pennant, and their 2004 World Series victory, but something about seeing these events dramatized in the film while the stadium’s electricity still lingered in my veins fixed their gravity in my mind for the first time.
The entire history of the Red Sox unfolded before me as an ode to the great American game. From winning the first modern World Series in 1903, to winning four between 1912 and 1918, to selling who would become the greatest ballplayer of all time to their rivals, to watching him lead those rivals to their first four championships before helping themselves to another twenty-two, to finally breaking the curse in history-making, fairytale fashion, the story of the Sox is among the baseball gods’ finest work.
Herein lies the Boston hater’s central issue, for the simple fact is that the city is great for baseball. As firmly embedded the bug is within me, it would be ludicrous to deny that the team’s history illustrates exactly why the sport is so uniquely enchanting. The scandal, intrigue, tradition, trial, and glorious, glorious triumph–in no other franchise can you find this all so elaborately and evocatively represented.
But don’t expect my boos to go anywhere.
Featured image/photo by Monica Volpin courtesy of Pixabay.