When you go to college in New England, as I did, and you're a Yankees fan, as I was at the time, you learn pretty quickly that there is a big (and sometimes dangerous) difference between being a die hard fan, and being a f&$king moron. You see, your friends and family, though fans of rival teams, still love you deep down, so although they may stop talking to you for a few weeks when you behave irrationally or childishly, they most certainly will not drag you into an alley on Yawkey Way and beat you within an inch of your life. And since we will dedicate a lot of time on this blog to dealing with friends and family, I thought I might talk about dealing with rivals while visiting rival cities.
When I was in college, everything seemed opposite to what I had grown accustomed to. Bars, restaurants, public meeting spaces, etc. - places that I could always ask the person next to me "What's the score?" and they would know what I meant, became profanity in New England because it always required a qualifier "No, the Yankees score". I realized many years later that NESN has a regular "Evil Empire Update" during Sox games, so it isn't as though they didn't know the score, they just didn't see the point in passing it on. The difference between me and most die hard fans though is that I had the common sense to adapt.
Case in point - my first and only trip to Fenway Park, a game between the Sox and the A's resulted in a relatively boring game but an extraordinary sociological experiment in the right field bleachers. For some reason, a guy decided that not only was he going to attend a Red Sox game with a Yankee hat on, but that he was going to act like a jack ass and point it out to everyone on his way in. As a Yankee fan, part of me could appreciate his fanatical support, while my evolutionary instinct to survive, which his lineage had apparently not honed over time, led me to believe that I had literally encountered the most shallow part of the gene pool. When he was douched with beer in the third inning he threw his hands up as if to say "Come on guys, honestly?" When his heterosexuality was called into question for three straight innings he responded by pointing at his cap and giving the #1 signal, over and over again reminding Red Sox fans that wherever they went, Yankees fans were the best in the business. By the sixth inning, the game was essentially over, and Sox fans had resorted to doing whatever they could to incite the guy. By the time he turned around to say something, a shirtless South Bostonian (I presume) had climbed over the seat and slapped him in the earhole, making the removal of the cap only a secondary consequence of his actions. While both of them were being removed from the Park, other Sox fans, I suppose in support, emptied their garbage and beverages on the guy, doing everything they could to humiliate him. I can only imagine the unholy treatment that Yankee cap received in the bleachers that day, but I did learn an important lesson:
- Don't where red to a Michigan game;
- Don't cheer for the Celtics in L.A.;
- Don't cheer for the Canadiens in Toronto; and
- Don't wear a Yankees cap to Fenway
Doing these things does not make you a die hard fan....it makes you a f*$king moron. If you do any of these things, you deserve whatever treatment you receive, just like those people in BMW's from Westchester County who thought they could beat the traffic by taking a right hand turn out of the old Yankee stadium (thereby heading directly into the "scenic parts" of the Bronx). When you are in rival cities do what you're supposed to do in a bear attack....sit the f*$k still and shut the f*$k up. Don't cheer, don't drink, don't eat, don't make eye contact, and certainly don't talk about sports. Just sit there like your only job for the evening is to be a seat filler. If your team wins, then have one hell of a time celebrating....two zip codes away when your car/plane/train has long ago left town.
