Let's get this party started

So, it's my first post. Since I'm a brand new baby born today to the blogosphere, it will likely take me some time to figure out how to navigate in this new world.

But hey, that's precisely what travelling is all about, right? All I ask is a bit o' patience.

Here's a topic I've been pondering these past weeks since the season and World Series ended that I hope will start things off with a bang.

The Red Sox have surpassed the Yankees as the most hated team in baseball. There are signs of Boston becoming the Evil Empire part three are everywhere. (I say part three because part one would certainly be the Yankees, and part two would probably be the one led by Darth Vader and the Emperor in Star Wars.)

When Boston won its first World Series back in 2004 everyone cheered. Good for you Sox, you got that big ape Babe Ruth off your back. The curse was broken. America loves you. You're the loveable losers no longer.

However, in order to cast off their overbearing neighbors to the south the Red Sox committed that fatal error and became exactly what they hated in the AL team from New York, and have become loathed themselves. Let's face it, at this point they might as well be wearing red pinstripes. With a payroll of $143 million and change, the only way this team can go on continuing the consider itself as an underdog is in a two horse race -- which the AL East has been for years, and the rest of the American League is soon becoming.

Since 1996, the two halves of the AL Evil Empire have made the World Series 8 times, winning six. The remaining 12 teams in the league have been to 4, winning 2. The NL got three of their own, with St. Louis, Arizona, and Florida--and each one seemed a miracle.

Perhaps worst of all, Red Sox fans have become insufferable at visiting ballparks. They obnoxiously dominate the ballparks they visit -- places like Tampa Bay--where they spout the dominance and destiny of the beantown 9, perhaps without a clue that their team's salary is more than 5 times the Devil Rays'. Does this type of fan behavior remind you of anyone?

It's embarrassing, Boston. Get over yourself. You're part of the problem with baseball now, not the solution.

Look to the White Sox fans as an example. Their long suffering team won it all in 2005. Nopw correct me if I'm wrong, but 1917 came before 1918, right? Did White Sox fans' spend all those years whining? No. They acted with more class.

Perhaps you might be formalting the argument that Boston had a right to their misery because they had come so close to their goal and had it snatched away so many times. Buckner, Bucky-effin-Dent, 1975. Okay. I'll grant you that argument. Boston got close enough to taste it a few times. And that hurts. But they got no closer than the San Francisco Giants of 2002. They got no closer than Pittsburgh in 1992. And none of these times have whined like Red Sox fans.

The problem with Red Sox fans is that they've convinced themselves that they've cornered the market on misery. They haven't. Seattle has. But seriously, baseball is about falling just short of the promised land more often than doing a testosterone victory dance all over it--unless you're the Yankees, that is. So don't be the Yankees, Boston. Please stop being the Yankees.

Okay, so I didn't really want to start off with a post that had a negative tone to it, so I'll throw some kudos Boston's way (as I am a former resident and have great love for that town).

Who can deny that the golden age of Boston sports may be upon us? The Red Sox, the Patriots, the Celtics - all are as good as they have collectively ever been. Well, the Celts are still a tad unproven. Until last week I might have added Boston College football to that list as well.