While We’re on the Topic of Contemptible Fans: Boston
Fans, NBA May 11th. 2009, 5:45pm
Hey! No need for Miami and New York sports fans to tear one another limb from limb – can’t we all just get together and dislike Boston? The Celtics are easy to loathe due to their success in the 80s and Kevin Garnett; the Patriots because of their recent dominance and Belichick’s smugness; if anyone can find a redeeming quality about the Red Sox, we’d love to hear about it. Almost on cue … Norman Chad writes this week for SI about his contempt for Boston fans.
* There was not a traveling call on a Celtic in the postseason between 1957 and 1986.
* Eddie House wears his socks too high, for my tastes. I also wouldn’t mind if, just one time after hitting a three-pointer, he didn’t go frolicking back down court like he just won the lottery.
And even though a commenter here referred to Scalabrine as Michael Rappaport, Chad’s likens the headbanded redhead to Screech, which isn’t a reach.
Orlando, get’er done.
Everyone, and with good reason, hates Celtics and their smug fans (SI)
72 Responses to “While We’re on the Topic of Contemptible Fans: Boston”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
May 11th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I’m ok with it if Rafer wants to go ahead and slap Mark Wahlberg.
May 11th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Thanks, TBL, I missed the earlier discussion and now have a chance to repost my question here:
Can someone explain New York fandom to me? I get that whether you’re a Yankees or Mets fan depends at least in part on where you live. But how do people choose between Giants and Jets since they play in the same stadium? My guess is that generally Yankees fans are also Giants fans, and Mets/Jets, but I have no idea if that’s true.
May 11th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
The Red Sox run their organization better than anyone in baseball. There’s something redeemable.
May 11th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
It is about time you went hard on Boston. Question, did Boston turn to the darkside after the Jimmy Fallon/Drew Berrymore/Red Sox debacle or was it K.G’s “I’m the king of the world” foolishness that signaled the turn?
May 11th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
generally, you are correct. However, there are exceptions, such as RWH. He is a Giants/Mets fan. the Giants played in Yankee Stadium for a long time, so that is why a lot of Yankee fans are also Giants fans. Of course, they did play in the Polo Grounds at some point.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
I think the worst part about Boston fans is that they couldn’t be found 10 years ago.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
I think the issue with Boston faux fans is the sheer number of colleges in the area. College football and basketball fans can be some of the most vicious (and douchiest) in sports. Since no one gives a crap about any of Boston’s college teams, the college kids get fan blue balls and end up blowing their wad with the local pro teams.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
yeah, Hef was still only a Diamondback fan back then.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Thanks Sparty. I either didn’t know or forgot that the Giants played at Yankee stadium, I was mostly basing my guess on some sort of little brother theory — Yanks and Giants have been much more successful than Mets and Jets.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
and around much longer. The Jets and the Mets showed up in NY around the same time.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
One good thing about the Red Sox is they own the Yankees’ soul since Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Why – because they don’t have any black players?
May 11th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Sorry, Game 4. Ninth inning, rivera on mound, Roberts on first, Mueller at the plate.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I think the worst part about Boston fans is that they couldn’t be found 10 years ago.
Obviously you have never been friends with anyone from Massachusetts. Even when the C’s were horrible and the Pats got whupped by the Packers, we were still watching every game and had the best and largest sports section in the country (The Globe).
I wonder if TBL being a Jets fan has anything to do with him making this silly little post.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Fuck Boston. Surprised The Sports Hernia didn’t have a picture of the guy with the Bruins jersey under his Celtics jersey While sporting a Red Sox hat. That guy should be fed to a gang of Cannibal Necrophiliacs.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
I’m a Met fan because they were good in the 80s when I was growing up, same for the Giants. From age 6-10 the Mets won a world series and the Giants won two Super bowls. The Yankees and Jets did nothing. Thats the only reason I can think of for myself anyways.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Speaking as a non-biased observer, with zero ties to either Boston or New York…I hate boston fans more. Granted, my #1 sports wish would be to have a nuclear bomb go off in Fenway during a sox/yankees game, but still, I’d rather listen to a New Yorker talking about the Yankees than a Bostonian talking about the Red Sox.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Oh, and after reading this article, Orlando now has the worst fans, if only because of this one guy:
http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/extras/celtics_blog/2009/05/magic_fan_angry.html
May 11th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
This is my post.
Red Sox fans didn’t exist in the sheer numbers until 2004, and their fans generally be less knowledgable.
Do the Red Sox have black players?
I’m a Yankees/Jet fan, mostly because my entire family were Yankees fans, and I just hated the giants.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Can someone explain New York fandom to me? I get that whether you’re a Yankees or Mets fan depends at least in part on where you live. But how do people choose between Giants and Jets since they play in the same stadium? My guess is that generally Yankees fans are also Giants fans, and Mets/Jets, but I have no idea if that’s true.
Jets used to play at Shea and practice on Long Island which made them overlap much more geographically with the Mets. Giants moved out to Jersey first and it is far easier for most Jersey people to get to the Bronx than to get to Queens. Also anyone who was around NY in the 50’s or is a kid of someone around in the 50’s is more likely Yanks/Giants.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
The Pats? Seriously? NE fans did not exist until 2001.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
First football game I was ever taken to was a Jets fan. It was the last game of the 1-15 season against the dolphins and my stepdad took me home early because it was freezing and someone ripped the hat off my head tailgating. The jets were up, scored another touchdown before we started the car going into the 4th, ended up losing. Grandfather loves the yankees, so I’m a yankees fan.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Screwed up the bold and italics. Sorry.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I’m the son of one of these people. That is why I have the Giants/Yankees love.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Are Boston fans themselves really that odious? Or have they become odious since the teams got good? – Never received any shit for wearing a Red Sox hat before 2004. (Only place outside NE I don’t receive it now is New York because Yankees fans have no retort)
May 11th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Sparty and Tampa still suck… TSH is awesome… NDub, he’s ok
/Still seething a little from the last post
//Blue and Gold forever
May 11th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
I do, go jump off a bridge.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Yankees fans are still in shock over the Sawx’s tainted titles.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
That’s how defeated Yankee fans are. The barbs have no grounding, so they just get personal.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
bet you n ever wore it Nov-Feb. Honestly, the die-hard Sox fans aren’t the issue. I have relatives and very good friends that are fans of the Boston teams. It is the Pink-hat fandom that knows nothing about how horrible the bottom of the ninth was in Game 6 (they know of Buckner, but not that they were an out away forever before he let it go through his leg). The Pats fan who talk trash about Bledsoe suck too. The guy gave was a class act and played great and he gets shit on by those fans. Manny helped them win 2 fucking titles and now the fans are gloating over his suspension? gimme a fucking break.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
The Pats? Seriously? NE fans did not exist until 2001.
When we were little my friend would add a zero to the end of the Patriots’ final score to give them a better chance of winning. ie, a 27-3 loss became a 27-30 win. Yet still they lost more than you would think using that method. Sad, maybe, but we were still watching the games, so don’t act like you know.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Jason Grimsley, Jose Canseco, David Justice, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Chuck Knoblauch – When Champions were clean.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
what tyduffy didn’t tell you is that this is his boston hat.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
@Sparty – Fair enough, but the “pinkhat” phenomenon happens everywhere that teams are good. Tigers fans started showing up out of the woodwork in 2006. In 2003, I could sit in my own section behind homeplate at a weeknight game.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
i was in boston this spring, visiting people and their kids, and i saw the quintessential boston red sox fan cutting across a youth baseball field that was covered in youths playing baseball and teeball. It was registration day, so there were hundreds of kids there.
So a guy with a red sox hat and a pretty skanky looking girlfriend (but hittable) were cutting across the field to walk by the lake with their big beautiful golden retriever. Right when they got onto the kids field, the guy let his dog off the leash where it bolted into the outfield of the kids game and took a ripe crap.
The Red Sox fan (he had a really dirty hat to prove he was authentic) looked at his skanky girlfriend to see if she was going to do anything about it, saw she wasn’t and shrugged his shoulders, then hustled down the path, leaving the steaming turd in the outfield.
Oh, and he had a black eye. It was a Saturday morning about 10.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
ty- come on dude, The Tiggers lost 119 games! They had been terrible forever. They had not been in contention for anything since they traded Cecil Fielder to the Yanks. New stadium, higher ticket prices, of course they wouldn’t go to games.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Jason Grimsley, Jose Canseco, David Justice, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Chuck Knoblauch – When Champions were clean.
Personally I think the whole steroid thing is crap and don’t think any less of the Sox championships now then before. But if your retort is really going to be that the Yanks weren’t clean either, well then you still have a big step to come down.
The Yanks championships were, rightly or wrongly, always thought of as bought and dirty products of a juggernaut and a bad system. The Red Sox and their fans held themselves out as smarter than everyone else. Overcoming the “evil empire” by doing the right thing. If you are going to use it to play into the mythology, you have to accept that it is a bigger fall if it ain’t true.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
The Black Players Argument – The definition of “black” seems not to include Latin players. David Ortiz would fit in just fine at a KKK meeting.
Even accepting that definition, the Yankees have one African-American player, Sabathia. Jeter is half. It’s not exactly a bragging opportunity.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
That was before MLB banned steroids in 2002. Since then, there has only been one multiple World Series winner. Coincidence? George Mitchell thinks so.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
I’ve always found the problem with Boston fans is that every white male who grew up either all over America because his dad was moved every three years OR that guy who didn’t really care about sports until all his friend did in college/mid 20s… that guy on the East Coast ALWAYS becomes a Red Sox fan. Always. Single, white male without a real sports team? Become a Red Sox fan!
And the whole “has anyone ever seen a minority wear a Boston hat” thing annoys me.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
they like Latinos? who knew?!
May 11th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Who gives a shit if teams have black players?
May 11th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
that’s racist!
May 11th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Pats fans didn’t exist before 2001…they’ve only sold out every pre-season, regular season and postseason game since 2001
how’s this for a mind blowing stat: i’m a yankees, patriots, ny rangers fan
let the bashing begin
May 11th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Can’t be any worse than a Twins, Heat, Penguins fan.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
wow i screwed that comment up, they’ve sold out every pre-season, regular season and postseason game since 1994…i suck
May 11th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Haha, nice clown, Mr. Yankees and Cowboys fan.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Cosmo- always been a Pens fan? I know a lot of people that started following them because of Crosby.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
is that when Kraft took over?
May 11th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Always Pens and Avs, although after the lockout I kinda dumped the Avs. Still follow them though.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I don’t know, but it was around the start of the Parcells/Bledsoe era
May 11th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
yeah kraft bought the team just prior to the ‘94 season sparty…one more comment too, people claim that pats fans didnt exist, but they existed. what people don’t understand is that the pats were a distant #4 behind the sox/celts/and bruins up until the parcells era came around and only until they actually won a super bowl did they start earning respect from national media and (to a lesser extent) the local media.
the problem is the pats acted like a second tier franchise for the first 30 years of their existence, therefore they were treated like a second tier franchise nationally – the fans were there (for the most part) but nobody cared nationally.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
speaking of Bruins fans, fuck’em. See, this is where you get the douchebaggery. They have convinced themselves that the Hurricanes are still the Whalers. Even though the Canes have actually won a Stanley Cup much more recently then the Bruins, and it is this reason that they think they are going to win this series. But they won’t, because the Canes will win game 6.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
“RED SOX ARE MY LIFEEEEEEE, GO BOSTON, I SKIPPED SCHOOL FOR THIS PARADE! GOOOOOOOO RED SOX!”
quote from a 19 year old Bostonian girl during the 2007 World Series Championship, that was played constantly on the Bob and Tom Radio Show to show how obnoxious Boston fans are.
/wishes Cleveland wouldn’t have blown the 2007 ALCS
1. Red Sox
2. Cubs
HUGE DROPOFF
100.Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears Fans
May 11th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
i don’t mind the bruins fans sparty, i’ve had a chance to go to a few b’s games this year and they’re pretty passionate, know their hockey and its a good atmosphere. when it comes to the red sox in this town though its painful to be around
May 11th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Red Sox fans turned me from a lifelong Yankee-hater, to a “Yankees?-theyre-not-so-bad”-er. And I’m sure I’m not alone.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Yanks/jets.
And yeah, I’m bitter about 0-5 and the last few years … But I met my wife on the night Boone went yard, so there’s that.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
that’s a hell of a night TBL, talk about a life changer
May 11th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
You are definitely not alone. I never thought I would root for the Yankees but now I do when they play the Sox
May 11th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
i woke up the neighborhood that night.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
@clown – Don’t pull that 2002 crap to justify your World Series.
Fay Vincent banned steroids in baseball in 1991. They did not institute testing until much later, but the use of illegal drugs was banned.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Of course you do, b/c the Yankees haven’t won anything since 2000. Is it really that big of a secret how things work? We’re indifferent to teams that suck (Royals, Pirates) and we hate the teams that win, mostly because winning brings out the non-diehards who talk a lot of unwarranted shit, i.e., the morons who weren’t around in, say, 1986.
I’m a Red Sox and Steelers fan, so I hate the Yankees and the Patriots, so it irks me when people lump fans together as “Boston fans.” It’s just lazy thinking. Besides, where do people get all their hate from people people from? Meeting them in person? Not likely. They hate them from message boards and from seeing them on television in the stands, celebrating. Remember when the Red Sox always came up short? Most non-Yankee fans felt empathetic to the fans’ plight. Then they start winning (2004 and after) and non-Yankee fans have no sympathy anymore.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
I’m a Yankee/Giant fan because my dad was/is.
As far as combos, by far the weirdest is Yankee/Jet. I know plenty of Mets/Giants fans, but the other way around is as rare as a lefty thrower/righty hitter.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Wally Szerbiack looks like Ben Stiller.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
I sat on the stall in the dorm bathroom and cried.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
The 95-98 Yankees were the reward of patience by the organization (Gene Michael, specifically) that would have never happened had Steinbrenner not been banished. If there is one thing the Yanks are lacking now is more of a presence from Michael, or a guy with Michael’s talent evaluation skills. Cashman has none of that, but thinks he does.
May 11th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Love the astute comments about how Boston fans all are bandwagon jumpers, when most of you either weren’t born or were still pissing in your bed in 1986 when the World Series debacle occurred. You do know that the Sox have been a New England (regional) institution for almost 100 years, right? That, as someone else above said, the Pats had the least amount of fans due to the fact that between the Sox, Bruins, and Celtics, someone had to be the 4th favorite team, especially when they weren’t very good for most of a 20 year period. Since the Pats revival, the Bruins have fallen back to #4, because until this year, they have sucked for 15 years. However, the Red Sox will ALWAYS be #1 in Boston/New England.
Jets fans are THE worst fans in all of sports. They are the most obnoxious, and have absolutely no reason to gloat in the last 40 years, which they incessantly seem to do anyway.
May 11th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
JPQ1999… I, personally, have no problem with anyone who is from New England and is a fan of the Boston team. That’s fine. It’s the guys who rooted for the O’s or Reds or whoever growing up, then get to college in the early 2000s, suddenly ‘feel the BoSox pain’ and ditch those teams for the Red Sox. And then they wouldn’t shut up about it. The Bandwagon jumping onto the Red Sox wagon over the last ten years has been insane.
Now imagine that this happened to every Big Ten and MAC frat boy after they graduated from college, moved to Lakeview, and now gets drunk, yells CUBBIES!!!, and sings “Go Cubs Go” as if it was totally normal. That’s 40% of Cub fans.
May 11th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Now imagine that this happened to every Big Ten and MAC frat boy after they graduated from college, moved to Lakeview, and now gets drunk, yells CUBBIES!!!, and sings “Go Cubs Go†as if it was totally normal. That’s 40% of Cub fans.
@Otter: As a Purdue grad “frat boy”, I gotta agree w/ that one-lol. 95% of the guys I knew were Cubs, Cards, or Reds fans, but mostly Cubs.
As for the other part, most people are bandwagon jumpers, except for me (check out my avatar-no one is jumping ON that bandwagon-lol). When the Sox and Pats got good again and won, people jumped on. Wait until the Cubs, Jets, Cowboys, Yankees or Notre Dame ever win again. It will be the worst
May 11th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Agree – worst fans:
1. Red Sox
2. Cubs
The Cubs are exactly where the Sox were before 2004 (Sox were Yankee wannabes). The Cubs and their fans are so pathetic – curses and other insane crap.
Just imagine the d-baggery if the Cubs ever win the series – from pathetic non-factors for over a hundred years to the best damn franchise in sports history – a 2004 Sox replay is what it’ll be. God help us.
May 12th, 2009 at 2:24 am
Saints fan. That’s it. That’s the only team I have lived and died by. I like, the Rockets, Texans, and the Texas Rangers(just started following them last week) as my favorite pro teams.
May 12th, 2009 at 2:27 am
/oh, and the Hornets(are still dead)..