It’s Thursday evening, and I’m doing what any Boston sports fan would be doing on a night when she wanted to avoid the talking political heads: I’m toggling back and forth between the Bruins – who just won 6-4, and the Red Sox, who’ve blown a 3-1 lead and ended up losing 5-3. (A grand slam’ll do that to ya.)
Ah, the Red Sox…
I am a sports fan in general, but a baseball fan in particular. And a Red Sox fan in particular particular.
As far as the Red Sox go, I’m a lifer.
How long have I been a Red Sox?
Well, I was a Red Sox fan when Ted Williams cryogenically preserved head was still attached to his body. And, in my first game ever (July 1960), I even got to see Teddy Ballgame hit a homer.
I was a Red Sox fan even before then. Back when this was the Red Sox logo. It was retired in 1959, so if you run
The main reason I became a Red Sox fan was that my father was one, and we listened to games on the radio together, and watched the televised weekend games. But this logo didn’t hurt any. So cute!
Fans didn’t have as much team-related gear back in those days, so I didn’t have anything bearing this logo until a couple of years ago, when they offered caps with the retro logo. So I got me one. (I have been asked man times what team it represents. Pretty obvious to me that this is a Red Sock…)
Anyway, through thick and thin, and in there has been plenty of thin, especially back in days of yore, I’ve root, root, rooted for the home team.
I watch a bit of most games, and get to a few games each year.
My first game of the season was last Monday, Patriots’ Day, when the Red Sox were trounced by the Orioles 8-1.
As my sister Trish said after we’d watched a few lackluster innings, “This is a really lackluster team.”
Last year, the Sox were anti-lackluster. Their record was 108-54, and they won the World Series.
I don’t expect the Red Sox to have a record like that, let alone win the World Series, every season.
But given that they consistently have one of the highest payrolls ($224 million this year!), highest ticket prices, and highest concession prices in the major leagues, I don’t expect lackluster.
And game in, game out, that’s mostly what the Red Sox have been this season.
If they’d pull out a win tonight – which they didn’t - our cellar-dwellers would have been 7-12 on the season. With a loss, they’re 6-13. At the rate they’re going, their record will be the observe of their 2018 outing. Ouchie…
How bad was Monday’s game? Well, there were four middle-aged guys sitting in the row in front of us. At the end of the 7th, when they stopped selling beer – by the by, a can of Bud Lite was going for $10.25 – one of the guys stood up and announced, “If I can’t get another beer, what’s the point of staying for this game?” His buddies agreed, and they all headed off to the Boston Beer Works.
Everyone in the vicinity made light fun of them. What kind of fans…
But it got me thinking.
Here we were, soaking in the lackluster and hunting for the peanuts in the pack of Cracker Jack. I turned to Trish and said, “I feel like I’m owed something. I’m thinking they should give us all a bobble-head doll or something on the way out the door.”
Those tickets were $129 per. Crazy money, I know, but I don’t go that often. And I really love going to a game.
But when you’re putting such a cruddy product out there – and it wasn’t just the game I was at; tonight’s 5-3 loss, while respectable, followed an 8-0 blowout at the hands of the Yankees the night before – I really do feel that I’m owed something.
Especially when us fans are the ones paying that bloated payroll with our subscriptions to NESN (for the televised games), more for tickets, more for concessions, and a ton for gear. (My estimate is that at least two-thirds of the fans at any game are wearing a Red sox and/or a shirt and/or a jacket. Or in the case of my sister Trish and myself, Red Sox earrings.).
So a modest proposal for owner John Henry.
How about this:
If the Red Sox are playing less than .500 ball, and they lose a game by four runs or more, we get a little something or other.
Hand every fan a coupon for five dollars at the concession stand for their next game. It wouldn’t get you much: a bag of Cracker Jack, a Sports Bar. But, as the saying goes, “The gift is small, good will is all.”
Give us all a pennant to wave A coupon for a free tour. A bobble head doll. (I’m sure you’ve still got a closet full of Manny Ramirezes somewhere in the bowels of Fenway.)
For the 50-50 raffle, if the Sox are down by four in the seventh, when the winning number is drawn, give away the ENTIRE amount, and make up the amount that would have gone to the Red Sox Foundation out of your own pocket. You can afford it. Better yet, spread the wealth. Give the winning number half the amount collected – which is what they bought the tickets thinking was the prize – but pick two more numbers and give them 30 percent and 20 percent. At least three people will walk away happy. (Or if they left the game early in disgust, three fans who’ll be pleasantly surprised when they get home and check the winning number on line.)
I will continue to root for the Red Sox.
They can’t win ‘em all.
But this bunch better pull their sox up.
I’m scheduled for three more games this year. And I may do an impromptu, game-of walk out to Fenway to take in a game by myself.
I’m really hoping that the high point of all those games won’t be singing “Sweet Caroline” in the eighth inning. That or booing the lackluster performance of an overpaid, under-lustered team.
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