I recall watching "Reverse of the Curse of the Bambino," a HBO documentary that followed Red Sox fans during the 2004 season. Of course, the fans were elated about the World Series win, and the film included touching scenes such as one woman's visit to a family member's grave, where she left a World Series flag for the deceased Red Sox fan.
But, the documentary also hinted at something else -- that deep down, perhaps on some subconscious level, the Red Sox fans didn't want to win the 2004 World Series. After all, their lack of winning is what has defined Bostonians for over eight decades. They were losers and proud of it. Regardless of their Red Sox's continual losing, the fans loved their team the same way a parent loves his or her child no matter what.
Then the Red Sox won, and they became just another baseball team. Their fans became just another group of fans. I no longer see the desperation in the fans' eyes. I no longer see that look of utter despair and intense longing -- that look that says, "Please, please, please, Lord of Baseball, let our measly Red Sox team win just one World Series. Just one."
No, the Red Sox are now a powerhouse, and their fans expect to win. A few journalists have picked up on the Red Sox's sudden image reversal and how it effects the team's fans.
David O'Brien of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution talks to Sam Morton, a 19-year-old Red Sox fan:
Then I had to ask him: Was it better to be the luckless underdogs the Red Sox had been for most of a century, or the big-spending franchise going for a second World Series title in four years? After all, it’s hard to call the Yankees the Evil Empire when the Red Sox are spending more than anyone but the Yankees, and when the Red Sox are the team going for their second ring in four years while the Yankees haven’t won one in seven years.
“That’s a great question,” Morton said. “Growing up we were always underdogs, always in the Yankees’ shadow. Now we’ve got this powerhouse team. We really pounded the Rockies last night.”
He didn’t answer my question, but that was OK.
The kid's refusal to answer the question made me chuckle. No doubt, some older Red Sox fan will be telling Morton stories about how, back in the day, the Red Sox weren't an unstoppable force. "When I was your age, son..."
A Bates College professor is saying that the Red Sox's success could trigger an "identity crisis" for the team's fans:
Decades of not winning have defined Red Sox fans as virtuous, stubborn loyalists who stick with their team even when their allegiance goes unrewarded, Margaret Creighton said.
"It's really quite jarring for Red Sox fans now to have to deal with success, and it might be repeated," Creighton told the Sun Journal of Lewiston. "Once could be a fluke, getting rid of the curse ... But twice? This is very challenging and, to a degree, upsetting."
Success, she said, would bring accusations that Red Sox fans are arrogant, haughty, "that the Red Sox are the Yankees," Creighton said. She questions whether fans can handle a second championship "with a degree of humility."
And USA Today's Mike Lopresti chimes in:
Meet the new Yankees. As empires go, the Boston Red Sox have everything they need, except for maybe pinstripes.
They do not spend as much of the GNP as George Steinbrenner, but more than anybody else. Nearly three times more than the Colorado team they are about to play in the World Series.
Forget the idea of long sufferers, and the anguish passed from New England generation to generation. This is post-curse Boston.
But Halloween is just around the corner. There's still time left for Colorado to re-curse the Red Sox. It could be "The Curse of the Haunted Humidor."
