Sox snag a fan from Mets

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

It's official--I went to a game at Fenway this week, and loved it liked I've loved no baseball game at Shea since about 1999, and maybe ever. This was just the best baseball experience I've had in--well, I don't know how far back my memory can stretch. Rooting for the Mets in 1973 was great, but this was just as good.

I don't know where to begin--fabulous seats (right behind the Sox dugout at field level) though I could get those at Shea if I were willing to pay, of course, but the fans around me were really into the game (The game itself was terrific, a 5-2 Sox win, after a heartbreaking 12-8 loss the night before on a Foulke-blown grandslammer.) By into the game, I mean not only that they seemed informed and caring (a little too caring for my undemonstrative tastes, actually--the woman behind me kept screaming "You're my hero, Johnny!" to Damon, approximately 83 times during the game, as Damon swung his bats in the ondeck circle maybe fifteen yards away) but really involved. When "Sweet Caroline" came over the PA, people were singing the lyrics, of course, at the top of their lungs, but you could see they were really enjoying singing it--though the connection between that song and baseball, I could not tell you. Compare to the semi-bored rendition of "Finiculi finicula" at Shea, which no one really sings along with, and most Mets fans don't even pretend to understand.

The biggest difference, I would say, was that in numerous small details, the Sox management team showed that THEY cared just as much about the fans. Some small examples: they flashed an announcement (and repeated it--so I knew it wasn't just for show) to the effect that "If anyone is impairing your enjoyment of the game, please telephone [local number] and Red Sox security will come to the seat location you mention." There was zero fan-crap at this game--maybe because of that policy, maybe because Sox fans are wonderful people---I saw no drunks, no fights, no beer spilled (actually the guy behind me spilled his on my poncho, but apologized so profusely and sincerely I couldn't count that), no standing in anyone else's way, no obnoxious behavior of any kind, (An usher tried to move me when I lingered in a ramp, but when I pointed out that I was just waiting to see a single pitch--the Indians' reliever was deliberating for about two minutes between pitches--he graciously conceded the point.) My cell phone camera stopped working, and the fans around me all whipped out theirs and offered to take photos of me and my daughter and e-mail them to me--when they found out that we were from NYC and rooting for the Sox, they couldn't do enough for us.

The other detail I want to point out is the amazin' (by Mets' standards)high level of the Sox program: it contained your standard articles about Sox management and players--but it also contained therein real wit and insight--digs at players' weaknesses and limitations and quirks, acknowledgement of Sox goofs and errors in judgment, all good natured and Sox-friendly, but someone reading those remarks out of context might conclude "Wow, this guy really hates the Red Sox." Not at all, but Sox fans are much more tolerant of the concept of Sox-friendly harsh remarks than Mets fans are. In the program and in the stands, both--when Manny threw the ball to second base, twice, on standup doubles (that an alert Indians' baserunner might have hustled into 3B on), the guy next to me was screaming "Third! Third!" and when I said to him "No one ever accused Manny of being too bright," I had a brief vision of myself being lynched by Red Sox Nationalists but instead got just good-natured accord. Not anti-Manny, just acknowledging Manny's mental limits.

Mets' fans are defensive, IMO: if I'd ever posted a remark critical of a Met's mental abilities here, for example, I suspect Edgy would be all over me, peppering me with Jack McCoy-type interrogatories: "Do you in fact know what [bonehead Met]'s IQ is? Is it your view that IQ scores are reliable indicators of ballplaying abilities? Do you know the ratio of IQs of Hall-of-Famers to those of major leaguers in general? Did you know that Rube Waddell was intellectually challenged? Are you an expert in assessment of intelligence in general?" yyybbb, when a Sox fan just goes "Yup, he's dumb as a rawk, but what a hittah, huh?" (Actually, I didn't hear that much of a Bahston accent this time around.)

The magazine also had a very insightful article about the subtle changes in the type of fan that Sox management is trying to encourage to the park, and the more traditional fan they were subtly trying to discourage. It was a persuasive, not at all defensive, analysis of a strategy that seemed sound to me. Again, none of this "How do you KNOW what Wilpon's thinking?" nonsense I often encounter in these parts. I was surprised to see that the Sox allowed such incisive criticism to be distributed in the ballpark until I remembered "Oh, yeah, there's no rule that a program has to be written by lily-livered company men."

The reason for the Sox' lack of defensiveness about their team is obvious: they're the only game in town. It's assumed that if you're in Boston you're a Sox fan, and though your antipathy for the Yankees is strong (and it was great to share that with people who hate the Yankees as much as I do) it also was pure antipathy--no jealousy, no back-page envy, no pointless carping about a team whose lack of success doesn't improve your own lot. Yankee-hatred was ferocious but it was also very purposeful. The Sox compete directly, so every bad thing that happens to the Yankees is immediately benefitting the Sox.

I spent 46 bucks on Sox caps (Blue w/red bill for my daughter, Red w/blue bill for me) and wore them proudly the whole game. I'll only get to one or two Sox games a year, and I may catch some games at Shea and watch some Mets games on TV (no sense in letting a lifetime's knowledge go completely to waste) but I'm going to try to sustain this feeling as long as I can. It was a great experience, and if your experience rooting for the Mets feels as good as mine did this week with the Sox, then you've had a very good time in your lives.

[Guest KC]

Glad you had fun. It's a great place to see a game, especially in good seats.
There are plenty of bad ones and you were lucky to only see the utopian
side of Fenway and Sawx fans. Good luck with the red and blue glasses,
Polly. Did you put a quarter in the Jimmy Fund box? I bought a Green Mon-
ster tee shirt first time I went and wore it ragged.

Put on Boston talk radio if you get a chance if they go on a four game slide
even if they're eight games in first.

They play Sweet Caroline at the Jets games sometimes and the crowd
does that "so good" "so good" thing ... makes me want to vomit.

[soupcan]

I'm glad you had a blast at the Fens. I always do when I go to games there. It is a wonderful place to be if you are a baseball fan. You did not mention though, how uncomfortable your actual seat was and we both know it was.

I can honestly say that I've had very similar fan experience at Shea. I love going to Shea and while the area where my seats are lends itself to the transient fan more than the diehard I find that the people that are usually around me are, for the most part. likeable.

[sidebar} Those people include but are limited to:
The very inebriated hispanic fan who kept screaming through a latin-accented drunken lisp 'Do jew know wha Mess stanz for? MY ENTIRE TEAM SUSS!" Loved that then. love it now.

The effeminate hispanic man with his male friend who when hit by a peanut shell tossed by an obnoxious friend of mine got up turned around and yelled very angrily "Who hit me with the penis?! Who? Who hit me with the penis?!" This guy walked straight out of Seinfeld. Remember the gay couple who would intimidate Kramer and Jerry? Guy was a dead ringer.

It was just a coincidence that both of these men were latino, no bias here. I'm a native - Tito Puente is the soundtrack to my childhood.[/sidebar]

I have heard from friends and fans in the Boston area that the there is a 'new' crowd going to the ballyard up there these days. I think there's a name for them. Oh yeah 'bandwagon jumpers'. Why are they so pleasent and accepting of their teams shortcomings? Because these are people who are not or have not been emotionally invested in that team for their entire lives. They are there for the event. Nothing wrong with that but let's see how fan-friendly and accepting that same crowd is two-three seasons from now with the sweet taste of chamiponship firmly behind them.

All this being said - I love going to Fenway, I love the atmosphere there and I truly like the Boston Red Sox - my second favorite team. A distant second but still second.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

I've sat in the bad seats plenty. (I went to grad school about three blocks up Comm Ave from Kenmore Square, when I couldn't afford better than the cheapest seats). But the demographic may genuinely be changing--that's what the article in the program was about, how the Sox are reaching out to corporate groups and family groups, and deliberately pricing games out of the beer-spilling working joes' reach. This elitist policy is leaving the WJ fans watching the game in the bar, where they're probably better off, and the families (like mine) attending a game or two per season are willing to shell out--and Fenway is packed every game.

OE--_Soup, I was thinking of you during the game, since you're the only Met fan I know who regularly sits in Shea's field boxes (actually my seats were fine to sit in--I brought cushions, and didn't use them.) I'm not so sure these were bandwagonners--most of the folks I spoke to had been coming out for years and years and knew the palayers and their traits in some detail. We'll see what happens in a few years, I agree, but this management team seems smart enough and gutsy enough to keep them in contention that long, so your point about "when the Sox play badly" may not apply within the next few years. Being in first place without Pedro or Schilling or Lowe seems a real accomplishment to me--and Schilling's coming back in a few days.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Maybe you should edit out the insulting derisive stuff about your friends here, and shoot a copy off to Fred, just to let them know.

[Guest KC]

Bret, pass the kool-aid over here ... I wanna get high too.

[MFS62]

My trip to Fenway was a few years ago, and had a different perception.

Of course there are some possible reasons:
They were playing the Yankees.
I was sitting in the bleachers.
The curse had not been broken, so the fans were feeling the "pressure".
They still served beer throughout the entire game (not the current seventh inning cutoff).
I was there with about 40 Sox Fans from my company.

Later

[soupcan]

Bret -

I've actually sat in similar seats to the ones you described at Fenway years ago. Sox were playing the Tigers and Cecil Fielder was playing first. My man's ass was so big It felt like he was sitting in my lap.

You didn't think that the actual seat was just a tad too narrow? I'm nowhere near Cecil size and I can barely fit into them.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Maybe you should edit out the insulting derisive stuff about your friends here, and shoot a copy off to Fred, just to let them know.

Yeah, I'm sure Fred not at all defensive about his short-sighted policies, and would be eager to change them if only someone would suggest doing to so to him. I can just see him hiring Bill James, for example, and listening to radical "insulting derisive" criticisms of the self-defeating policies he's instituted.

Soupy's comments about the Mets' problems stemming from the role they play in Fred's mind, as ancillary to his larger real-estate concerns, are an interesting comparison to Fenway, which is thriving despite having several of the Mets's stadium problems, some of them worse than the Mets', but have somehow made a chronic source of irritation into one of the team's strengths.

OE--Soup, I'll stack up my fat ass to anyone's here, but I honestly didn't even notice any problem with the seat.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I've been to three games at Fenway, on consecutive days in the summer of 1986. I even saw Tom Seaver pitch for the Red Sox. He's the only pitcher I'm aware of who I saw pitch for four different teams in three different parks: (As a Met and Red at Shea, as a White Sock in the Bronx, and as a Red Sock at Fenway.)

Anyway, on Friday night I sat in right field, and the seats were awful. Saturday and Sunday were day games and I sat in the center field bleachers, and that was a lot of fun.

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B08010BOS1986.htm
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B08020BOS1986.htm
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B08030BOS1986.htm

[Guest Spacemans Bong]

You sit in the plastic seats and you won't be noticing much problems with legroom or width. It's the wooden Grandstand seats that are tiny.

That being said, I would easily pick Fenway over Shea 7 days a week.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Yeah, why bother trying when continuing to behave like a caustic fucktard here is so much more fun.

I didn't promise how effective sending it to Fred would be; I merely suggested it.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

No, being a caustic fucktard around here isn't fun at all, though it should be. This is my point, Dickshot: Sox fans (and the Sox program) basically say the same kinds of things I do about their team, only instead of being perceived as the enemy, it's treated like just about nothing.

I'd love to scan a page from the program and post it here to show you. Any suggestions as to how I get some picture off my hard drive to post here? I've rarely posted images, and am basically clueless (I think I need a site to put the photos on, no?) , but if anyone can talk me through it, or lend me a site, you may be surprised by the Sox vitriol that passes for mere informed opinion. I suspect that that quality is, for me, the most attractive part of the Sox experience. I was all, "Holy shit, you can SAY that kind of thing and not get tar-and-feathered by your fellow fans? What planet am I on?"

[Willets Point]

Hi Bret, glad you had a good time at Fenway. Sorry I didn't have more time to spend with you and your daughter.

Just out of curiousity, did you buy your program outside or inside the ballpark? The one sold outside is independent and known for harsh criticism of the team, while the one sold inside is Sox-produced and more sycophantic.

[Elster88]

]Sox fans (and the Sox program) basically say the same kinds of things I do about their team, only instead of being perceived as the enemy, it's treated like just about nothing.

I'm glad you had fun and met some nice fans, but I think you're being a little naive. I'm sure if you were to post the same things on a message board, or say them in a bar, you would get the same mix of responses that you would in a Mets' forum or Mets' bar.

Of course, I am a relatively young punk, so what the hell do I know?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I also think that "perceived as the enemy" is a little overwrought.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I didn't disagree with anything you said about the Red Sox, and in fact I trust it.

I said "this is the kind of stuff that Fred should know!"

My problem is that:

a) you seem to have gotten incapable of telling a story without taking shots the people you're telling it to.

b) Your reaction to my "tell Fred" suggestion is to use it to further this overwrought "me against the world -- including you" agenda which I find as an insulting and derisive way to carry on discussion with friends.

[soupcan]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: I'd love to scan a page from the program and post it here to show you. Any suggestions as to how I get some picture off my hard drive to post here? I've rarely posted images, and am basically clueless (I think I need a site to put the photos on, no?) , but if anyone can talk me through it, or lend me a site...

You can upload images to this site for free and then link them to the 'Pool. [url=http://www.imagehosting.us/index.php?type=main&uerr=0&picid=474507&ext=jpg]Let's see that Sox anti-propaganda[/url]

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: I didn't disagree with anything you said about the Red Sox, and in fact I trust it. I said "this is the kind of stuff that Fred should know!" My problem is that: a) you seem to have gotten incapable of telling a story without taking shots the people you're telling it to. b) Your reaction to my "tell Fred" suggestion is to use it to further this overwrought "me against the world -- including you" agenda which I find as an insulting and derisive way to carry on discussion with friends.

a) not at all. Was my tone unfriendly overall? I was just making fun of Edgy's hyper-defensive manner of providing deflective crap to any mildly anti-Mets post here. Otherwise, I don't think I was being hostile to this site at all.

OE: a few weeks back some hapless poster here labelled some Mets' move "stupid." (Was it Rotblatt?) Edgy was all over him, until he backed off "stupid" and changed it legally to "foolish," I think. A more stupid and foolish waste of bandwidth I cannot imagine, and it sent the none-too-subtle message"Give the Mets any grief whatsoever, and I'll force you back off or else I'll accuse you of saying things you won't back up." Getalifeawready, indeed.

b)ftr, I was specifically NOT including you. I just find it hard to post stuff here when my motives, my agenda, my loyalty to the blue and orange, etc. get raised most of the time I post anything at all, whether it's relevant or not. If you don't think I've gotten a lot of undeserved flak around here--well, that's kind of my point. I get a fair amount of crap, and everyone thinks "Hey, that's the way we treat people like him. Why does he have a problem with it?" If you are my friend (and I believe you are) then why turn my disagreements with you into challenges to our friendship? We see some things differently--it doesn't make you a bad person. You can support weenie principles, and I'll still respect you, though I may make fun of your weeenie principles from time to time.

Don't you see the humor in my accusing you of being defensive, and your reaction is--to be defensive? I know there's very few ways to win that argument, but you might say, "Well, that's his opinion, I'll let it slide" instead of defending your non-defensiveness.

It's interesting that the scenario projected onto the Sox (above) is the same one the Mets are currently experiencing: when the Sox go a few seasons after winning their long-awaited pennant (it was sugggested) just you wait and see how loyal their so-called fans will be then. I don;t think that's going to happen (because the Sox seem to do some long-range planning, and spend their money wisely) but that's exactly where the Mets are: five years past their last pennant, and in last place most of that time. Maybe I'm just comfortable in an environment, exactly as was suggested above, where the fans feel it's appropriate to blast, mock, criticize and second-guess management and players for being in that spot. If the Sox DO screw the pooch the next few years, their fans will turn on them probably--and deservedly. I think that recognition of reality speaks more highly of the Sox fans' perceptiveness than does the mostly clueless, mostly defensive, mostly pom-poms 'n' pajamas reaction around here to the Mets' pooch-screwing. If that does happen, I expect to be fine with it--and surrounded by a lot of company.

Look, I don't want this discussion to be about me anymore than you do--but I do find it ironic that not only do my posts attract hostile reactions, much more so than they would in a less pom-pom infected atmosphere, but you actually have the balls to post here "WHAT turd got thrown at you? I didn't see no turd. Did anyone see any turds flung in Bret's direction? Bret, I have no idea what you're complaining about--I promise you, you're defintely NOT covered in shit up to your eyeballs. Is he, folks? Of course not." Please don't pee on me (to mix metaphors and excrement) and tell me it's raining.

WP--It was sold inside AND outside the park, I thought. It was published by an independent group, Boston Baseball (bosball@aol.com), but I can't even imagine some group selling a program critical of Sterling Mets at Shea without Fred rousting them and suing them and making their lives miserable. They were being hawked openly on the street a few feet from the turnstiles, where I bought mine.

[Guest KC]

>>>my motives, my agenda, my loyalty to the blue and orange, etc. get raised most of the time I post anything at all, whether it's relevant or not.<<<

Never mind all that, I'm beginning to question your ability to be realistic. Sure,
there have been ups and downs, but this constant complaint that you are treated
on some other plateau of postership frankly is old, tiring, and kinda frightening
if you really perceive things that way.

Good luck to you, Sir.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

I can live with that.

If you were in my shoes, you might not feel the same, but you're not and I am. That's how I perceive things. It's cool with me that you see stuff differently.

[Guest cooby]

Good luck with your new team Sal. Cool that they're already World Champions, no sense starting over with a bottom dweller, right?


See ya.

[Guest Iubitul]

Sal, I had a similar great experience at Fenway, but my seats were even better ;-)

(Oh man, I sound like Avi)

[Guest KC]

>>>If you were in my shoes, you might not feel the same, but you're not and I am. That's how I perceive things.<<<

*whistle*

Sounding like Ms. Met, Bret Salamander, fifteen yards ... still first down

*whistle*

[Theoldmole]

It's possible to root for both the Sox and the Mets. I do. My roots are New England, and my wife's family New England also.

I saw Ted Williams at Fenway, and Jimmy Peirsall during the "Fear Strikes Out" summer. And I saw a big fat guy knock down a little kid my age (12) going after a foul ball in the stands.

[Guest KC]

I think most of us are Sawx fans, they've been my second team long before
we all started posting on forums.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think Red Sox-Mets (or the other way around) is an easy transition.

Here's how I see a few teams being related, starting with the Mets:

The Brooklyn Dodgers would be the parents.

The New York Giants would be an uncle.

The Boston Red Sox would be a first cousin. (But not a child of the New York Giants.)

The Chicago Cubs would be a first cousin of the Boston Red Sox, but not of the Mets. (They'd be related on the other side of the Red Sox family.)

Obviously, because of chronology, nobody could go from being a Mets fan to being a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers or New York Giants. But many have gone in the other direction.

I could also see someone going from Brooklyn Dodgers to Red Sox. (Doris Kearns Goodwin is a famous example.)

Mets to Red Sox would be an easy transition.

Red Sox to Mets should be easy as well. Although some Sox fans might have a hangup about New York that could make it more difficult.

A Red Sox fan moving from Boston to Chicago should be able to slide right into the whole Cubs thing.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

I almost forgot one of the Mets-related high points of my day at Fenway: I got to sit a few yards away from a pleasure I never thought I'd have again: John Olerud playing first base for the home team and driving in runs for the same (Olie drove in his 1200th RBI that day), and I got to cheer him. Also we got to see Wakefield throw live--I've never watched a knuckler from that close before. 69 MPH, 68 MPH knuck, and occasional 76 MPH fastball--and they couldn't touch him.

Soupy--still having trouble with that site, though I'm working on it. I';ve posted the photos there, but they keep timing me out. Worse come to worst, I'll quote some snippets from the articles, though I want you all to appreciate the full context.

[seawolf17]

Aren't knuckleballers awesome up close? We saw one (I don't remember his name) in Rochester a few years ago. My friend and I realized in the first inning that he was throwing knucklers, so we moved down right behind home plate to check it out. It's awesome to see; the ball really does move all over the place, and you can really see the seams. Very cool.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

I may have oversold the movement on the knuck by telling my daughter to look for the ball to dance and dip and dive. I think I got her expecting to see it do the mambo on its way to the plate.