How Did You Become a Red Sox Fan?

[Taz]

"Careful, kid. They'll break your heart."

 

This quote from the movie, 'Fever Pitch', got me to remembering how I first became a Red Sox fan & thought it would be worth sharing & am interested to learn how others also joined 'the Nation'.

 

Here's mine:

 

Growing up in Australia in the late 80's there wasn't much baseball on TV, except for delayed telecasts of the ALCS, NLCS & World Series, which would be shown after midnight - nearly 14 hrs after they'd been played.

 

I remember as a kid when I was supposed to be asleep, slipping into the lounge from my bedroom at these crazy hours to watch these games & can still vividly remember watching Kirk Gibson's HR off Denis Eckersley or that great 1991 World Series, between Kirby Puckett's Twins & the Braves.

 

This went on right through high school, and although I enjoyed watching and playing baseball, I can't say avidly followed any one team, rather just couldn't get enough of watching whatever game was on the TV.

 

That changed however, on my first trip to the States. I was visiting some distant relatives that lived in Connecticut & I told them that as part of my trip I wanted to get to at least 1 MLB game. That it happened one of my these cousins took me on a trip to Fenway in early June 1995.

 

There was something just felt right about the place. I remember so many details of the day, but the one thing that caught my imagination more than anything else was Tim Wakefield's knuckleball. Back home playing cricket, I had been a spin bowler, when everyone else wanted to bowl quick, so I felt a kindred spirit with this guy that was slower than anyone else in the game, but could make major league hitters look foolish.

 

Wake pitched a 10 inning complete game to beat the Mariners. I remember talking to folk, about all aspects of the Sox, the game and especially the knuckleball. A week later, I was back at Fenway, and as fortune would have it, Wake pitched another CG, this time beating the A's.

 

Anyhow, for better or worse, I became a Red Sox fan and have been, ever since.

 

This year has been a weird one, as it's the first time that Wake was not there, as he had always been something like a reassuring presence for so long. From the time I first started watching the Red Sox he was always there. I've witnessed so many of his successes and failures since then, along with the mixed fortunes of the team over the years since. In 2003, for instance, I remember him dominating the ALCS and was in line for the series MVP with his 2 wins, but as fortune would have it... well, we all know what happened. Talk about highs and lows, and breaking your heart.

 

The next year... well, what more needs to be said about 2004?

 

Anyhow, I just wanted to say, thanks Wake, for making me a Boston fan. I've had my heart broken, but I wouldn't swap the Sox for anything.

[Behindenemylines]

I don't think anyone would choice to be a Sox fan and go though all the sh__ we've gone through. Just look at recent history: '75, '78, '86, the short playoff runs of the '90s, and '03. I think unfortunely its something you are born with. Why else would an individual go through the crap we seem to have to deal with?

[Bellhorn04]

I've been a fan since 1969, when I was 13 years old. Boston was the closest team to Halifax, and still is, and I could pick up the games on the radio. But I think it was Yaz who attracted me to the Sox.

 

After Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS I was convinced I would never see the Red Sox win it all. 2004 and 2007 actually made me feel happy to be a Red Sox fan.

[Spitball]

I think we had this thread before. I grew up in Topsfield, Massachusetts, and it was just part of the culture. In the early 1960s, the team was bad, but we lived Red Sox baseball. No matter whose house you were in, the game would be on the radio. Our elementary school always scheduled a fieldtrip to a game.

 

The Partriots and Bruins were pretty bad when I was a kid. The Celtics were the class of the NBA, but they just bridged the time between baseball seasons.

 

Loving the Sox in the early 1960s was a blind love until 1967. That season was magical and made being a faithful fan all that much sweeter. Yaz, Conigliaro, Petrocelli, Reggie Smith, Scott, Foy, Harrelson, Elston Howard, Lonborg, Santiago, Bell, Brett, and others were names everyone knew.

 

Being anything other than a Red Sox fan never seemed to be an option. It just happened.

[mvp 78]

I grew up a Dodgers fan as a young boy in Brooklyn. They broke my heart when they moved and I didn't choose another team until I visited Fenway in 2000 when I fell in love with that cathedral. I then asked for a test tube of dirt from the infield and cried. The aristocrats.

 

[v2freak]

I was living in Massachusetts at the time and they had just come back from 0-3 against the Yankees in the playoffs. I even remember where I was when Damon hit that grand slam.

 

I do qualify as a bandwagoner because I caught on after they had just won. I will own up to this.

[Sox Fan on Cape]

In the early 60's, I was living in Belmont, MA. My best friend's dad was the shortstop for the Red Sox, Eddie Bressoud.

[BillBuckner]

Born in Seattle, I would watch Pedro pitch in 1st grade (early 2000's) became a fan. I guess you could say that im a bandwagon fan but in my defense I was in first grade!