If, like everyone, you’ve grown murderously weary in recent years of the so-called “Red Sox Nation” – that growing allegiance of people who once stopped by the Fenway gift shop and now pass themselves off as Sox fans in stadiums across the country – then last night’s Indians-Sox game in Cleveland seemed like the place to be.
For starters, there were plenty of alleged Sox fans on hand, including dozens in the bleachers where I sat. Most of them looked to be from Strongsville – or was it Parma? – and as they shouted jubilantly for Tim Wakefield’s knuckleball to knuckle, I detected not a whiff of a Boston accent, with which I am expertly familiar. (I just watched Gone, Baby, Gone last week.) Then again, they were obnoxious little pricks for the most part, so maybe they were real Sox fans after all. …
This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2008.