[HAPPY HOUR] Chaos Engulfs The Red Sox Nation Bandwagon
Don Orsillo, Hawk Harrelson, Jerry Remy, Rocco Baldelli, Scott Dohmann October 14th. 2008, 3:45pmThe general rallying cry right now in the Pink Hat Nation is that the Red Sox have been down before. 3-0 to the Yankees, 3-1 to the Indians last year. In other words, instead of discussing what is wrong with the Sox or *gasp* that the Rays might actually be a better team, the fans still just assume that this team will win with the status quo. Somebody remind us when the World Series became a Boston birthright.
DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- Should the Rays host a game 6 and/or game 7 in the ALCS (Rays could still clinch in Boston, how sweet would that be?) the tarps will be removed from the upper deck adding 5,762 seats to the capacity. Originally this was only to happen in any potential World Series games. [MLB]
- How delusional are Red Sox fans? At least one thinks the Red Sox are Rocky in this series. [SawxBlog]
- The first sign that a population has exceeded carrying capacity? Turning on your own. In this case the population is The Red Sox Nation Bandwagon. And they are turning on their own…This will get worse before it gets better, and by worse we of course mean “better for us”. [Barstool Sports]
- There were a lot of empty seats in at the end of game 3 in Fenway…Hmm? We thought the Rays fans were on the bandwagon and “fickle”. [Boston Dirt Dogs]
- We have argued this before…How is Cliff Lee a better comeback story than Rocco Baldelli. That voting was the equivelant of Jack Nicholson and Keanu Reaves co-starring in Speed 3 and giving the Academy Award for Best Actor to Reaves. [Bugs and Cranks]
- Tim Keown of ESPN.com is praying for the Rays and Phillies to win their LCS, knowing full well that the media coverage for a Dodgers-Red Sox series is something none of us will be able to stomach. [ESPN]
- Here is the problem when your home town announcers are homers. When you watch an unbiased national broadcast you think everybody is against you. Case in point: “All series (and the last one), [TBS has been doing] the same thing: Here’s what the Rays have to do to succeed, here’s what the Red Sox can do to fail. Surely people are noticing this.“…Don’t get us wrong. We love Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo. Even though they are always rah-rah for the Red Sox, we never seem to mind as they still tend to be fair in their analysis, unlike many others *cough* Hawk Harrelson *cough*. But Remy and Orsillo are biased and by comparison everybody else will seem anti-Red Sox. [Red Sox Fan from Pinstripe Territory]
- Scott Dohmann, who appeared in 12 games for the Rays this season, has been granted free agency. Dohmann was designated for assignment by the Rays in May, accepting an assignment to triple-A. Dohmann recorded 20 saves in 33 appearances for Durham. [Baseball America]
Related posts:
All I have to say is this. The biggest bandwagon fans in ALL of baseball right now have to be the Rays fans. There was like 10 of you pre-2008 (exaggeration is fun).
That said, you guys have a great team that’s very fun to watch, and if they do topple the Sox, I’ll be rooting them on with AL East pride in the W.S.
-Derek, Sawxblog
PS – Great site by the way, have added you to our blog roll.
The new Rays fans are not bandwagoners… they are out of hiding.
At least Rays “bandwagoners” reside in Florida (for the most part). Red Sox bandwagoners are all over the friggin country.
In all seriousness, success is how ALL teams build a fanbase. All teams with large contingencies of fans got to that point through a series of successes i.e. the Steelers- widely known as having the best and most well-traveled fans in the country. If they hadn’t won 4 super bowls in the’70′s that fanbase would’ve never grown like it has. Or the pathetic Patriots all of a sudden having such a huge fanbase…its all thanks to success.
So the Rays are just the latest team to join the staus quo by building a fanbase through the advent of success.
Sox/Yankees fans need to relax and quit falling back on the time-tested “bandwagon argument”… at least the Rays don’t have to buy their fans.
@ Steve – A very large part of that is because:
A) The Red Sox have been around for more then a century, the Rays a decade. People do move from city to city, and they do pass down the traditions of rooting for certain teams.
B) There’s a TON of colleges and universities in Boston which in turn infects and then supplants a lot of Red Sox fans across the country once they get jobs elsewhere. This first started happening prominently after the “Impossible Dream” year in 1967, with a team that’s comparable to the 2008 Rays.
C) The Red Sox don’t just represent one city, or one state even, but the entire region of New England.
D) Yes the Sox have their fair share of bandwagon fans, but that’s the price of having a good team year after year. (Also see Yankee fans, Cowboy fans, Laker fans, etc.)
I mean, look at the Rays fans you have now compared to….oh, April? They certainly weren’t all hiding that’s for sure, and it took playoff games for you guys to actually sell-out.
But like I said great teams will draw great crowds, and have a great team, it’s just as a whole your fan base has been pathetic for…about a decade.
- Derek
Pathetic? I think that’s a poor choice of word, but whatever, we are not worthy.
I cannot understand this obsession people have with attendance. Of course it is a critical issue for management and significant for the success of a franchise, but people seem to treat it as if there is some great moral issue involved, as if residents are required to demonstrate fandom and team loyalty.
It is not a criticism to note that attendance is low; it is simply a fact (or factoid in many cases) and is something the business always seeks to address. I attend ballgames a lot more often than I go to art museums or concerts; that does not mean I am uncultured or derelict in my duty as a Tampa Bay resident. I would be saddened to see the demise of the Dali museum for example and would consider it an indictment indirectly of the region’s cultural standing, but I will not start visiting because I am being badgered to prove my commitment to culture here.
If people stay away from ballgames it is entirely within their right to do so and says nothing more than that the game is not appealing enough to them. Perhaps more people like kayaking or fishing or back yard BBQs. And if the winning draws in new people, that is great and hardly an indictment of the fans who prefer attending successful events than unsuccessful ones. Those of us who have stuck with the Rays for 11 years have no claim to higher status than someone who got interested yesterday. Why would any management team try to win unless they hoped it would draw bandwagon fans? It really seems to me a stupid conversation topic except in terms of the viability of an area as a major league venue, a purely practical question.