Tuesday, May 09, 2006
To everyone who complained about the Damon booing, and who will, with this upcoming series, continue to complain about Sox fans' treatment of him:
We're not Italian soccer fans. No one's thrown FLAMING FLARES at him. Until such time as this or a comparable event occurs, no one is allowed to say that Red Sox fans are overreacting. Because the Yankees are our rivals. RIVALS. Yes, SHOCKING. We are bloody lucky to be in the midst of one of the best rivalries in sports instead of trying to halfheartedly get our dander up for matchups with some mediocre team we're vaguely aware we're supposed to dislike. Can people stop pretending that the fans are not supposed to care about the rivalry? It's occasionally irrational and always passionate and it makes the sport WORTHWHILE AND INTERESTING instead of THE FLORIDA MARLINS.
Johnny Damon played well for the Red Sox. The people loved him. Johnny Damon was quoted as saying he would never play in New York. Johnny Damon signed with New York. The Yankees are rivals of the Red Sox. He was not traded to the Yankees, he signed with them of his own accord. The people hate him. I don't think that's unreasonable. I also don't think you can say a person deserves praise because of their past if they've done something nasty in the nearer present.
"But all he did was sign with New York! And back in Boston he won you a World Series! What a fickle city!" Indeed. And if he'd signed with, say, Toronto, we'd still be cheering him. He knows as well as anyone what the Red Sox/Yankee rivalry is, and he should know as well as anyone that Red Sox fans root for the laundry more than anything else. He made a decision, now he can marinate in it.
We're not overreacting. We're reacting exactly as we should. Anything less would be an insult to the rivalry and one of the most exciting aspects of the game; a game that, in much of the country, needs all the excitement it can get, quite frankly.
Anything more, and we'd be Italian soccer fans.Labels: baseball, Johnny Damon, MLB, rant, Red Sox, rivalry, Yankees
4:44 PM
|
|
