A Short History of How I Became a Red Sox Fan

Welcome!

I have decided to keep a blog about my process of becoming a fan of baseball, through the Boston Red Sox. I often have so many questions and want to record the things I learn, partly so I can refer back, but also because it might be interesting.

So, history of being a fan of the Red Sox. Well, I grew up in RI but I never really followed sports at all. Too bad, maybe I'd have had more friends. Anyways, even though I didn't follow the Red Sox, if someone were to ask me if had a baseball team, I would have said "Yes, the Red Sox. Oh, and the Yankees suck." ;)

Well, so in 2004, I paid a tiny bit more attention...not even sure I watched any games, but I knew the Sox won the WS. In fact, I must have been home in RI for some reason, because I saved a whole section of the ProJo that covered the Red Sox. It's like I knew I'd want it later, but wasn't going to read it then. Oh, and the Pats won the Superbowl in 2004 too!

In 2005 I was slightly more aware of the Red Sox, but honestly I can't remember if I did anything. I may have watched some games on network TV, but nothing serious. In 2006 I turned 21 and was able to start frequenting Red Sox friendly bars. There is one I used to go to often - Rhino in Georgetown. It's really a Boston sports oriented bar, lots of other Boston sports memorabilia. I kinda thought that I would be more appealing to guys if I was there to watch the game, or could at least speak to things about the game. I'm pretty sure through 2006 I could rattle off the Red Sox record and where we were in comparison to the Yankees. I think in fact, that we flirted with the the lead often and eventually we sunk in September :( .

So ok, when did I become serious? Well, similar to when I had a boyfriend who liked country music and after accommodating him a few times in my car I ended up being a country music fan, there was someone I wanted to have a reason to spend time with - and this person was a DIE-HARD Sox fan. So naturally I was like, well, I'll just get into the Sox and we'll have something to talk about. Long story short, it didn't work out as I planned but I spent so much time "being soo into the Sox" that I did get hooked. By this time it was probably August and I started following the Sox. Unfortunately, as I mentioned the Sox started sucking - if i remember correctly, we were at least 5+ game behind the Yankees and there was the last series against the Yankees that we HAD to sweep or at least take the series to stay in any contention. Once we lost those games (I think we were swept) there was almost no chance of recovery. This also meant that once football season started my favorite Red Sox hang outs wouldn't show the games anymore. So i wallowed into the off season and followed the Matzusaka deal. Once we got him I was even more excited about my new interest in the Red Sox.

I learned with concert tickets that you had to buy them early and plan far ahead. So I also learned that with Red Sox tickets, I had to watch the website daily for them to go on sale in December. I bought a ticket to the Red Sox/NYY Spring training game, plenty of Camden Yards tickets and tickets for my sister, my mother and I to go to Fenway Park. I was ready to follow the Red Sox right through the 2007 season.