The Dangers of Wearing a Boston Red Sox Hat

Despite what you may think, even though America is a free country, this doesn’t necessarily mean you can walk around wearing your favorite team’s hat without being free from dirty looks and the possible side comment.  “Boston, huh?”  Um yes sir, you are absolutely correct…as if the hat didn’t already indicate as such.  Ah yes, I can hear all the non-New England fans screaming right now, “As if we have any reason to feel bad for any of you!”

And you’re all exactly right.  I don’t want you to feel bad for me.  The feeling Bill O’Reilly gets when he interrupts someone on his show only eclipses the feeling of elation I have over the success of my teams.  I’m somewhat ambivalent, too.  I never played football or basketball growing up.  I played baseball and hockey.  I fully admit to bandwagoning the New England Patriots and then later the Boston Celtics.  But I’ve been a diehard Red Sox and Boston Bruins fan my whole life.  My one wish after 2004 was to see the Bruins win the Stanley Cup, which they are able to do last week.

So don’t call me greedy.  I didn’t ask for three Super Bowls or an NBA Finals.  I didn’t even ask for another World Series.  I mean, call me crazy but the Red Sox wiped away 86 years of frustration and tragedy in 2004…would it really have been prude of any fan to ask for another win right away?  Do you know how many people wrote to the papers in New England about some family member who died before October 2004, saying all they wanted to see was the Sox finally do it?

But before I go too far (I may have already), I will stop myself.  My dream was realized when Zdeno Chara hoisted the Stanley Cup over his head last Wednesday night, much to the chagrin of the entire city of Vancouver.  This possibly made things even worse to anyone attempting to walk around other major cities sporting Boston colors.

I recently moved from Colorado.  I didn’t live in Denver, but frequented it enough with my Red Sox hat to know that Boston isn’t necessarily their favorite place.  But because Coloradoans are very nice and laid back, the incidents were on the whole pleasant.  They are reasonable people and for the most part the Denver Broncos are the most popular team.  They know it really hasn’t been enough years since John Elway to start complaining yet.  Avalanche fans hoisted the Cup not too long ago either.  Nuggets fans sure have a right to complain, but since I don’t don a Celtics cap, I never ran into that. And besides, Nuggets fans hate the Lakers just like everyone else.

However, Rockies fans are another story.  Actually, most of them talk about 2007 with a lot of respect.  They understand, on the one hand, that the 2007 Rockies improbably got hot during their historic run, winning 21 of their last 22 games.  I was in attendance for that one loss, ironically.  Given how sizzling that line-up was, the complete game performance by Arizona Diamondbacks starter Brandon Webb ranks as the second best I’ve ever seen in person.  They also understand that the Red Sox were really good.  The phrase I heard the most from Rockies fans was “then we ran into a real team.”

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t leftover hatred.  It’s a look that says, in so many words, you bastards.  I experienced the full brunt of this when I attended an interleague game last season at Coors Field between Boston and Colorado.  This was a regular season, interleague game, and nonetheless had a distinct playoff feel.  And it ended in playoff fashion – a game-tying 9^th inning homer by Ian Stewart, followed promptly by a walk-off homer from Jason Giambi.  Since I’m actually a fan of both teams (unless they’re playing each other), I was respectful and polite.  My brethren were not nearly as much.

That is definitely a major part of the problem.  I remember reading a piece in 2006 about how ever since the Red Sox won, Boston fans had taken their antics to a new level.  This didn’t surprise me and sometimes we do act like complete jerks.  It’s just part of the Boston culture and why everyone else in the country calls us Massholes.  But I’m not going to pretend like supporting our team in away parks is a bad thing.

Now, the only thing worse than the roads in the Twin Cities is the Minnesota Twins.  Actually, that’s a pretty good metaphor.  The roads are warped and riddled with potholes, a product of the stark contrast in seasonal temperatures.   The Twins are in similar shape, suffering from injuries left and right, and a general lack of winning.  I still haven’t been to Target Field yet, but ticket prices are rapidly falling, so I probably will soon.

That doesn’t mean it’s a wise idea to walk around Minneapolis wearing a Boston Red Sox hat.  This is another major sports city and has reason to be particularly hateful and envious of any New England fan.  The Wild and Timberwolves are downright pathetic, which would be OK if the Vikings hadn’t tragically lost to the New Orleans Saints in the 2009 NFC Championship.  But they love their Twins.  They love Gardy.  They know they’ve been able to be a great team without having a salary like Boston’s.  So, with the Twins being rather unremarkable (apart from Francisco Liriano’s no-no), they certainly aren’t taking politely to a guy wearing a Sox hat, walking around smiling.

This past weekend, I had my first chance to go to Chicago, a great sports mecca itself and the third largest city in the country.  Well, you can imagine how well my Red Sox hat went over there.  Actually, I’m being slightly unfair again.  Firstly, I got a lot of compliments on the Bruins, not because they won, but because they beat Vancouver, who knocked out the Chicago Blackhawks in an intensely fought first round series.  When the “hawks” were able to turn around an 0-3 series deficit and force a Game 7, Chicago fans believed that maybe their great title team hadn’t been dismantled after all.  But alas, no Byfuglien, no Niemi, no repeat.

While waiting at an L stop, I was approached by a fellow Bostonian.  Noticing someone wearing the hat in a foreign land, he had to make sure I was legit and not just wearing it for fashion reasons.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a smartphone and believe it or not, can go a few days without receiving up to the minute scores.  But still, he said, “Did we win tonight?”  I replied, smiling, “I don’t know, actually.”  His eyes became a little more discerning, “Well, are we in first place?”  I said, “I don’t know that either, but it’s only June, so it doesn’t really matter.”  He smiled and gave me a friendly tap on the shoulder, “We did, and we are in first place.”

I had passed the test.  I may not have known if we won that night, or what the standings were, but somehow my statement about it only being June revealed I was a true fan.  It was almost like running into an American in some obscure European town.  But beyond that experience, I received plenty of dirty looks for my allegiance left and right.  Chicagoans arguably care as passionately about their teams.  But come on, seriously?  Blackhawks won the Cup last year.  The White Sox won the World Series in 2005.  Oh yeah, and the Chicago Bulls won the NBA Finals only six times in the 1990s.  They had Michael Jordan, for Christ sakes!

Don’t get me started on the Cubs.  I never “related” with Cubs fans before 2004 just because both were storied franchises, playing in storied venues, and suffering from long championship droughts.  The curse of the billy goat or whatever?  Give me a break.  Unless it meant the Cubs just being poor, year in year out, which they always have been.  That’s nothing like the Babe Ruth curse.  Red Sox fans had to endure the failure of great teams that should have won.  Not perpetual mediocrity.  And 2003 doesn’t count.  I feel bad that Mark Pryor fell off the face of the planet, but some guy trying to catch a foul ball didn’t make you lose the next game.  Don’t forget that the Florida Marlins went on to mop up the New York Yankees in just 5 games either.

“What about the Bears?” my friend Pablo said. Oh please, they won the Super Bowl in 1985, and made it again in 2006.  I know they lost to Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis Colts, but let’s be honest here.  We’re not talking about an 86-year drought…we’re not talking about the franchise being championship-less.  Still, I had to ask, “what is it, then?”

“It’s because you guys are a bunch of a-holes.” Pablo replied.  And it’s true, I can only speak for myself when I say that not all Boston fans are jerks.  I have seen countless examples of our fans displaying behavior that we certainly take exception to if it’s another team’s fan in our city.  So, if that’s the case, then I will do what I’ve been doing – representing when I’m feeling up for it.  But the rest of the country should take a page out of Pablo’s book: “I’ll only say this once, and will never repeat it.  It’s really just envy.”

I don’t mind being envied now.  I don’t even really mind the looks.  It’s all part of being vindicated.  New Englanders know that before the Patriots upset the Rams, before the Sox pulled off the greatest comeback in sports, before the Celtics and Bruins re-found an elite status, we were ridiculed by the rest of the country.  If there’s one thing about our culture, it’s that we don’t forget.  So you may be envious, jealous, hateful, but don’t forget that we just don’t care.