Friday, March 07, 2008

The Passion

There is a certain child-like excitement and passion that exists with the members of Red Sox Nation that few other fan-bases have.

This is not a knock on the fans of other teams, nor is it all inclusive with the members of The Nation. It does not exist with the Pink Hatters...those whose allegiance to The Nation depends upon the team's ability to stay on top of the pile, those whose allegiance is predicated upon the fact that it's the "in thing," that it's fashionable to root for the Red Sox.

It does exist with Cubs fans and Packer Backers. You see it with Cleveland fans, and the Baltimore faithful who still sting from the move of the Colts to Indy.

These are the people that can speak with authority about team members that played 20 years before they could have witnessed them on the field because the history of the team is important to them.

Most of all, it is notable that these people can be reduced to a child-like I-received-exactly-what-I-wanted-from-Santa excitement over the simple discovery of a piece of memorabilia lost to time.

I wanted to comment on this because the blogger of Somewhere on the Masthead, evidently a card carrying member of RSN, has a story of just such a instance of child-like excitement.

If you have a few minutes, go over there and read it. Fellow members of the Nation will understand.

4 comments:

Dave said...

It's like God performing a miracle just for you. I remember getting the same thrill from getting my program signed when I was a kid. I don't think Dave Stapleton had a bigger fan in Boston than me after I got his autograph.

Anonymous said...

LOL, I felt the same way after I got Todd Benzinger's

David Sullivan said...

Magazine Man is great; you must have found him through my cuz. I recently while doing some basement cleaning found my scorebook from a game I went to July 4th, 1977 when the Sox hit 7 vs the Jays. Along with the glossy pictures and beer ads I had forgotten that I actually kept score and going to frame the score card.

Kevin Smith said...

Actually, my wife is a long-time regular reader. I hit him more occasionally, but do enjoy his writing.

I remember meeting Jim Rice at the Star Market in Sudbury. I think it was either '75 or '76. It didn't change my two favorites at the time - Dwight Evans and Carlton Fisk, although I was really excited to meet him.