C'mon, dude. Now you're just being willfully ignorant. What do you think enables sportscasters to have jobs? Ad revenue.

If you don't think that TV execs have a say over what TV commentators (or newspaper or internet) say, then you need to watch the documentary "Outfoxed". Big surprise - your boss will often effect how you do your job!

Also, a note to people who look at sports projections as a "love vs. hate" thing. Just because someone looks at the available evidence an concludes one team MIGHT play better than the other DOES NOT connote love or hatred of either team. That's just your (biased, BTW) opinion.

...did you see the end of the 2nd game vs. the Angels? 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th is pretty clutch, IMO. Sure they were only tied, but still, that's a timely hit.

Also, Manny regularly takes 0-2 counts regularly to 3-2. If that's not a "tough" out, I don't know what is.

Relax dude. I was just playing devils advocate. When you change the requirements for your "best" hitter with every successive post (go back and read them), how do think we're supposed to follow you?

As someone who owns a Williams Cooperstown™ jersey, I would have a tendency to agree with you, BTW. You also have to take into account that Williams lost 4 prime years to the war. I sometimes wish I had a time machine so I could go back and watch him play. Of course I also wish I could've seen Bill Russel play or watched Yaz with an adult's eyes, but that's life. You get the players history gives you.

Ahh yes, the nondescript, generalities of the BoSox haters. What exactly did the (obviously outnumbered) mean ol' Red Sox fan do to you? Let's get specific, because I want to know exactly what they were doing that was any different than any other fan of any other team. Was it rooting and cheering for their team?

What do you propose we out-of-town Sox fans do? Last Red Sox v. White Sox (I live in Chicago) game I went to I had to listen to a drunk (on arrival) White Sox fan berate Manny non-stop about his auto show/preseason debacle. This was in August. He used profanity with kids all around him (weekend day game). Manny was nice enough to acknowledge the guy and give him a thumbs up a few times, obviously hoping he'd just shut the hell up. Dude gave up and went home after the WS fell behind 10-0. Don't even ask me about what I was called when attending games in 2005.

On the other hand, some people were very cordial and I end up having a 15 minute conversation with this awesome 80-year-old White Sox fan. We shook hands at the end and wished each others team "good luck". Despite losing that game, the WS won the Series 3 months later.

So I want to know what got your panties in such a bunch. 'Cause I've never seen it, and I've been to a lot of out-of-town RS games. If its just cheering for the team, especially when they're winning, I respectfully submit that is it YOU who is the asshole.

Thanks for the reply. I had always wondered if the perceived a-hole-ness came down to things that anyone could experience at a game (or at a theater - half the movie-goers in the country are a-holes by those standards).

As far as the "starting a cheer" thing, well I can't help you there. I don't condone people yelling at other fans ("In your face, O's fan!") but if the Sox fans outnumber the O's fans, is that the Sox fans' fault or the O's fans - who by definition are apparently engaging in their own version of "fair weathered" fandom. The Sox have only been "front runners" recently (if your definition of front runners means front of the division - you might have heard we only won that this year by taking a 14-year-old streak away from the Yanks). They were underdogs when they won in 2004, were swept by the White Sox in 2005 and didn't even make the playoffs in 2006, so if fans are being "front runners" its certainly a new phenomenon.

As far as being from Boston, you are aware that Red Sox country extends through all of New England, right? Who else are baseball fans from New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island and Connecticut (there are some Yanks fans there) supposed to root for? I've done my time in NH and my father was born and bred in NW Massachusetts if you need my credentials. True, most of my life was spent in SoCal, where I had to endure the jabs from all of my friends who were Lakers fans during the Bird/Magic era and got to give them mountains of crap when the Sox came back against the Angels (my first lesson in hubris, thanks Mets). I almost broke my father's heart when I rooted for the Broncos in '98, but all I really wanted was Brett Favre to hurt as much as he made the Pats hurt the year before.

Bill Simmons mentions in his book that there should be a test for being a Red Sox fan (accompanied by questions that only a Boston Sportswriter could answer) but that's kind of elitist. Yea, I've been with them all my life and I remember my dad walking out of the room, completely disgusted in 1986, but please don't expect me to answer who backed up Fred Lynn in '78. That's just retarded.

Yea, the Boston/NE sports world has been having a renaissance as of late (can't wait to watch the Celts with some shred of dignity this year), and, as someone mentioned a few days back, its going to end eventually, so sue me if I'm enjoying it now. My dad didn't get that leisure; he died at the ripe old age of 51, three months before the Pats won their first Superbowl.