Ugliness at Fenway (Red Sox 5, Yanks 4)

Just when you thought that these games would become watchable and respectful contests between two elite teams, just when you thought that Boston and its fans, after winning two world series and seeing the Yankees miss the playoffs last year, have finally gotten over decades of being destroyed on the baseball field, Boston showed its true colors once again.

For 9 innings the Yankees outplayed the Sox in every measurable category. And then Jason Bay, with his team down 4-2 and two outs in the bottom of the 9th, and a man on first, hit a heroic, courageous home run off of Mariano to tie the game.

The crowd erupted, the game was tied, and the rivalry was in full force. But then it happened again. Thousands of Red Sox fans began, not a "Jason Bay" chant, not an "MVP" chant, not a "Let's Go Red Sox" chant, not a positive and supportive chant, urging the team on to victory, something that would have been heard in EVERY OTHER STADIUM in the country, ESPECIALLY Yankee Stadium. No, what we heard, very clearly picked up by the TV microphones, was a full-throated chant from thousands of fans, "Yankees Suck".

Let's dissect this. We won't get into the vulgarity and unimaginativeness of the chant. After all, it's as simple an insult as one can think of, and it's incredibly vulgar too, because when you say someone "sucks" you imply that they "suck" a penis. So let's not talk about that too much. It's very, very vulgar.

Let's also ignore for the moment the fact this kind of viciousness focuses the opponent and makes them play better, while diminishing the achievements of one's own team. It adds insult to injury, marring a moment of triumph and elation, when rage should not even be a thought that comes to mind.

Let's talk instead about what it means. What it means is that Boston's fans do not know how to respond to winning. It means that they maybe mentally and emotionally conditioned to be unable to accept success. It means that even in the best of times, in incredibly dramatic and exciting moments of triumph, Boston's fans cannot derive real pleasure or inspiration. They refuse to give their own team the credit, choosing instead to ridicule the other team for supposedly playing badly, as if they can't believe that the Red Sox could win in any other way.

It shows that still for Boston fans this rivalry is not about baseball. It's about their pride being permanently damaged by years of domination by a superior team and a superior organization, coming from a richer, more powerful city so close to them. It's about the fact that many of them seem to have gone mad from losing so consistently for so long. It means a culture of losing and self-loathing is branded into these people. And it means that until they get over it, the Yankees will continue to punish them.

Boston fans won't get over it, though, because they and the team have never taken responsibility for their ineptitude. They think they lose because of a curse. No, they lost because they failed to integrate their team, and for a long time many top black players found other, more friendly organizations to play for, rather than the notoriously racist Red Sox. To put it in perspective, how many black players have the Sox sent to the hall of fame? Only Jim Rice? They lost in 1986 not because of Bull Buckner, but because the Mets that year were one of the most dominant baseball teams of all time. They displayed amazing courage and poise under pressure in that 6th game, in which they came back with a two out rally that was only capped by Buckner's gaffe. They lost to the Yankees for so long not because of bad luck, but because the 1998-2001 Yankees were the best ever, a special team of special players that no Red Sox team could ever hope to duplicate. And they lost because of Fenway Park. How many elite players have shied away from playing at that ballpark? If you had the choice would you work in a beautiful new office or a 100 year old dump? And how much potential revenue have the Red Sox forfeited because their park is too small, revenue that could have been spent signing contracts to elite players, just so fans and management can indulge in some fantasy that Fenway has some importance or history behind it, an imagined tradition that simply must be sustained? The only tradition I saw today, indeed the only baseball tradition that exists in Boston...is a tradition of losing, making excuses for it, and then seething with hate.

I hope the Yankees punish Boston and their fans once again for their behavior. Of course, they've done it many times before.

In the clip, there's a reason the guy holding the camera says, "The good Lord is a Yankee fan." It's because, at the time, Aaron Boone's home run meant one thing to Yankee fans: Justice.