red sox fans are insane...

I was in the nose-bleed seats at Camden Yards in Bal'mer. A couple of years ago. The Sox were in town and Baker always made a point of getting in 1 or 2 of a 3-game series in and bringing me along.

These days, if you didn't know, Red Sox fans are everywhere. Often it is the case when the Red Sox fans outnumber the home team's support, or at least they're way louder. I found it terribly amusing when the Sox, who, in recent years, have owned the Orioles, would rally, and Red Sox Nation would start chanting "Let's go Red Sox!" Boom Boom BoomBoomBoom "Let's go Red Sox!" Boom Boom BoomBoomBoom. Until, finally, O's fans would be roused from their malaise and start booing the Red Sox fans in return. This always brought a grin to my face.

On one occasion, I could hear two O's fans sitting behind me -- and keep in mind this was before 2004; I know this based on the content of the conversation. One says to the other, "Are there any more obnoxious fans in baseball than Red Sox fans?"

The other guy says, "Yankees fans!"

"Well, yeah, they're obnoxious too, but at least they have a team that backs up their obnoxiousness. The Red Sox haven't won anything since -- what? -- 1918?"

He was right, of course. I mean, empirically, Sox fans annoy the bejesus out of non-Sox fans from New York to Florida to California. In almost every stadium there is a sizable Sox-loving contingent; surpassed only, I've heard told, by Yankees nutbars.

Well, I gotta tell you: Sox fans annoy the hell outta me! And I'm a Sox fan. Oh, not like I was in the 70s, when I would run out into the street after midnight, say, when Pudge Fisk hit The Pole in Game 6, yelling my fool head off; or in the 80s, when I raged nigh-upon uncontrollably against the inside of my car's windshield as I drove home after Bill Buckner let the ball role thru his legs.

But I've been away. D.C. for the last 16 years. Oh, I'd keep up -- reading the Globe and the Herald online. But throughout the 90s and the early 00s, I could sense my passion for The Old Towne Team was ebbing. When Boston finally ended the Babe's curse in Yankee Stadium in '04, part of me wanted them to blow the World Series against St. Louis if for no other reason than to maintain the allure of the hard-luck put-upon team. When Keith Foulke tossed the ball underhanded to Doug Mientkewicz, it was like the fever lifted. The Sox were no longer special to me.

And then I moved back to town last winter. I got interested again listening to the radio. Did any of you know Boston has, like, four (4) sports-talk stations? Not like it was when I left UMass in '90.

And you might think that the fever might've broken for others. Not from what I can see. The callers today, they're so damned shrill and inane! The Sox are up -- what? -- like 13-1/2 games on New York and were when they met again last weekend's series in Fenway. They lose Game 1 and all you could hear was how Tim Wakefield, a knuckleballer with a not insubstantial record over the last 1o years in Boston, was washed up and they should kick him, not just to the bullpen, but the back of the bullpen.

And how stupid is the general manager for bringing in dogs like J.D. Drew and Wily Mo Pena. Of course, the favorite whipping boy in April was Dustin Pedroia -- a rookie -- who struggled for a month and a half coming out of the gate, but is hitting over .300 now, making clutch hits, and is wowing the crowds with his defensive play. He's the golden boy now.

All I want to do with these whining dill-holes is bitch slap 'em upside their pointy heads.

Get a life already, you guys!

And one more thing: My issue may be with Red Sox fans, but when the Patriots take the field, be ye warned: They are my compadres and Don't Fuck with us unless we're at a commercial!

Got it!??