The Red Sox reclaimed first place in dramatic fashion yesterday. Dave McCarty's twelfth-inning bomb into the centerfield bleachers (Did Terry Francona really give Dave McCarty the green light to swing away on a 3-0 count?), coupled with the Yankees' loss to the Devil Rays, gave the Sox a half-game lead in the AL East.
As I depart Boston today, it is difficult to describe how fanatical the local feeling for the Red Sox is right now. Maybe it's hometown bias, but I don't think there is another professional sports franchise that commands as much passion as the Red Sox do. The Canadiens? The Packers? The Redskins? No, I think Red Sox Nation is the strongest.
A movie about Red Sox fans, entitled Still, We Believe, is now playing in New England theaters. The Boston Globe's paperback nonfiction bestsellers list currently features three baseball books: David Halberstam's The Teammates, Michael Lewis's Moneyball, and Jerry Remy's Watching Baseball, which owns the top spot. Yesterday's game was the 90th straight sellout at Fenway, the 3rd longest streak in baseball history and the longest streak by a team without a gimmicky new park.
In Boston, baseball players are gods who go only by their first names--Nomar, Manny, Pedro. And as today's makeup game with the Orioles gets underway, things are looking up. Nomar played in a minor league game yesterday. Trot is weeks away. Young players such as Kevin Youkilis, and role players such as Brian Daubach, Mark Bellhorn, and Dave McCarty, are coming through. Just wait 'til...this year.
It's not hard to sell out a shoebox. What's Fenway got, 10,000 or 12,000 seats?
90 straight sellouts is a good start, I suppose. Wake me when they get close to 455 straight home sellouts, as the Cleveland Indians did starting in 1995. Jacobs Field opened in 1993, two years prior. Their streak in a larger park didn't begin until two years and a work stoppage later. In a larger park.
PNC Park, Miller Stadium, Enron-turned-Minute Maid Field, Pac Bell, Camden Yards, Comerica Park, Safeco Field, Coors Field, Bank One Ballpark, etc. Those are the other "gimmicky" new parks which have not even come close to threatening the remarkable stretch long-abused Cleveland Indians' fans put together at the Jake.
Why? Because regardless of the park, for the most part, the baseball played at those parks is of a lower quality, and the fans aren't as passionate. The parks where the baseball is good? That's says a lot about the fans.
Yes, the Tribe's attendance fell off a bit as they slid into rebuilding, but it's coming back even now with the exciting youngsters showing that they aren't too far away from being serious contenders once again.
Anyhow, yeah, wake me when the BoSox fans get close to 300 straight sellouts, let alone 455.
Crowe,
The "gimmicky new park" line about the "90 straight sellouts" was thrown in specifically to bait you. You lived up to expectations.
Cleveland's sellout run was impressive, even with a gimmicky new park. But being 3rd on such a list is impressive, especially when your park--even when it seats only 35,000 or so--has been around for more than 90 years. Crowe, jump on the Red Sox bandwagon while we're still accepting newcomers.
