Red Sox fans show off ability to put things into perspective

"This is owah Poorl Hawbor, bro"

On Wednesday, the Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves completed historic collapses to keep themselves out of the playoffs. Over the last day, we’ve been flooded with pictures of the players despondent and upset over their monumental failures, but what about their fans? How were they dealing with the gut-wrenching ordeal of sitting back and watching their favorite team fail at a game? In the case of Red Sox fans, about as well as you would expect…

From the Wall Street Journal:

“They killed this city. This city is in mourning as of right now, no doubt about it,” said Alan DeAngelis, an Amtrak worker at South Station, where tired commuters staggered past, many looking as though they were still emerging from a bad dream.

But in the Boston air is a blend of heartache and contempt – for high-priced players who some locals believe lost their hunger and performed as if a spot in the playoffs was inevitable. “They deserved everything they got,” Mr. DeAngelis said.

“Those fackin’ guys, MURDERED OW-AH FAIR CITY,” seems like a totally reasonable reaction to grown men playing a game. It only makes sense, though, that the players would play as if a spot in the playoffs was inevitable since they play for a city who thinks a playoff spot is theirs by right of birth.

“Oh, it’s like a bad hangover,” said Brian Gibbons, a 45-year-old worker in Boston’s financial district who said he was “tossing and turning” all night and then woke Thursday feeling detached from reality. “It’s like, ‘did that really happen?’” he said.

“This is nawt my beautiful home, this is nawt my beautiful wife, and these are nawt my fackin’ Sawx!” If your favorite baseball team losing is all it takes to snap your fragile tether to reality and send you careening into an unknown reality/dream state, maybe you need some other hobbies to get yourself grounded.

Already an undercurrent was bubbling up that the team had become arrogant, drawing Johnny-come-lately fans who wear pink Sox caps and don’t care that much whether the team loses.

“The wine-and-cheese crowd,” said Vito DiGregoria, a 52-year-old Boston schoolteacher and lifelong Sox fan.

Oh, you’re mad because your team is popular and people would like to come and watch them? That’s reasonable. How has the ticket office not instituted a “Sawx Test” before selling to potential patrons? “If you-ah can’t name the ten biggest disaahstahs to befall the Sawx, YOU ARE-AH DENIED.” To be honest, this “wine-and-cheese crowd” sounds a lot more enjoyable than the “whine-and-piss crowd” that usually sits in Fenway.

At the Cask’n Flagon, a pub by Fenway Park, locals said a sort of sickness had afflicted the Sox. “Something happened psychologically to this team,” said Mark John Bowler, a golf caddie, as he tapped a finger to each temple.

Bar-stool psychiatry: Boston’s most abundant profession. It combines the two things every Red Sox fan loves to do: get blackout drunk, and tell people how smart their views on things are.

Down a few bar stools, Jason DeSantis, 27, said this season will and must go down in Boston’s history. “Not for nothing, but this is one of the biggest collapses in Red Sox history and no one should forget,” he said.

“YOU-AH WILL AWWWL REMEMBAH OW-AH PAIN!”

Then this morning, as if in answer to the cries of lament in the streets of Boston, less than 48 hours after their final game, Terry Francona has been named “scapegoat”  as the team has decided not to pick up his option for next season. Because the guy who brought the team its first World Series titles since 1918 was definitely the issue with this team. If this is what just missing out on the playoffs does to people, I’m glad I’m a Mariners fan. There’s a lot less stress dealing with being eliminated from the playoffs before the trading deadline.