Poor Sports

by Meredith

On the night of the first 2006 meeting between Major League Baseball arch-rivals, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, my eldest son spent the early part of the evening alone in my bedroom watching the game.

A pariah.

Why? Because he’s a Yankees fan. When the hometown team, the Red Sox, are not playing the Yankees, my son Jonah is a Sox fan. But when the Yankees are playing Boston, it’s the Gothamists who get his fandom, much to my, my husband’s, my father’s, my father-in-law’s, my brother’s and certainly my grandfather rolling-over-in-his-grave’s dismay.

If the family openly cheers for the Sox -- as we do during all the other games we watch on TV throughout the season -- my seven-year-old first grader makes a terrible face, as if we’d somehow injured him, and buries himself in the sofa. “Stop it!” he yells, trying to hold back tears. I just don’t understand, and neither does my less-than-understanding husband (less-than-understanding only when it comes to his offspring rooting for the evil George Steinbrenner enterprise).

Jonah's love affair with the Yankees made sense in 2003 when the Yankees, winner of 26 World Series championships, crushed the hearts of all of Red Sox Nation by beating the Sox in the American League Championship Series, in the seventh game, in extra innings, with a walk-off homerun. Sox fans were devastated and some pointed to that 1918 Babe Ruth curse thing as being responsible. (The backstory: In 1918 the Boston Red Sox sold off Ruth to the Yankees for a pittance. Ruth “cursed” the Sox and they never won another World Series . . . until 2004 in the most historic comeback in sports history, against the Yankees, but more on that in a second.)

In 2003, as the Yankees played on and Jonah watched sad Sox fans lament what could’ve been done differently, something began to marinate in his little head. During the spring of 2004, a then-neighbor of ours played for a Little League team named the Yankees. So, between the vision of happy Yankees fans and the neighbor kid he so idolized playing for the Yankees, Jonah declared himself a Yankees fan who would cheer for the Red Sox when not rooting for New York.

Did I mention we live in the Boston area?

But since 2004, when the Red Sox came back from losing three consecutive games in the American League Championship Series to the Yankees and won four games to get to the World Series (which they won by the way) and the Yankees fandom thing doesn't make sense anymore. And it's been a very, very rough time for Jonah. It continues to be rough every time Boston and New York face one another. It became even trickier when Jonah’s favorite Red Sox player, Johnny Damon, voluntarily left town to play for the Yankees and everyone in Boston declared Damon a traitor.

The first time that player Damon was up at bat and was on the receiving end of some vigorous booing (he did get some cheers), Jonah got upset as my husband and I hid our smirks. When Damon hit a fly ball into the outfield for the first out, everyone in our house cheered, except for Jonah, who covered himself with a blanket. Eventually, he withdrew to my bedroom so he could watch the game by himself. The lone Yankees fan.

I wish I could be a better sport about this. But come on. I’m a Sox fan. I still tell Jonah I’m sad for him when the Yankees lose, but I’m not sorry for the Yankees.

Meredith O'Brien is a journalist who lives with her family in the Boston area.

Comments

[Amy]

I absolutely ADORED this post. As an avid Red Sox fan AND a high school teacher, I absolutely loved to see things from the side of the young Yankees fan. Living in New England and loving the evil empire must be a hard thing for a youngster...but the good news is....I have a lot of students who like the Yankees who are strong enough to take the taunting :) Your son definitely has spunk!! Good for him!! :) Isabelle already has a full wardrobe of Red Sox Gear....I hope she doesn't turn too! :)