Surviving the Season

By KIM LIAO

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I have a confession to make: Red Sox fans drove me from my home.

While perhaps I wasn't chased from my apartment in Brookline with flaming torches and pitchforks, taking the C line home on game days last year pushed me past my limit of all things loud, drunken and belligerent. While my more sporting-oriented friends blamed the MBTA for the rush hour pregame congestion at Park Street, something in those horrific evenings finally got under my skin. After holding on for dear life, cowering in the corner and having beverages of all kinds spilled on me, I was ready to renounce the Green Line for life. I moved to Somerville.

It wasn't just the crowds (I actually used to find the crush of bodies careening together on the T endearing). It's the fact that I am not, nor have I ever been, a sports fan (which, in Boston, is on par with having six toes on each foot). Worse still, I'm from New York—which, despite my lack of any kind of sports paraphernalia, still feels comparable to having a scarlet "A" emblazoned across my chest like Hester Prynne. As I've learned from the last few intense match ups in recent playoffs, it can be quite unsafe to express apathetic or dissenting views. My roommate, who's from Ohio, had to withstand a barrage of verbal abuse whenever she wore her Indians jersey out of the house last fall.

Boston is a liberal city, open and accepting of so many lifestyles; I find it odd that being a non-sports fan has become equivalent to being a heretic. Maybe out-of-towners need to find a church basement in which to gather weekly and share their "deviant views." Or perhaps we simply need to convert to the Church of Fenway or move. Father, I need to confess: I didn't watch the game tonight.

This has been such a great year for Boston sports—I'm incredibly proud of the athletes and so pleased that our teams have found the long-awaited success they deserve. But it's a funny paradox: Now that Boston fans have had their satisfying payoff many times over, the righteous anger that is their trademark doesn't quite make sense anymore. While born-and-bred Bostonians remember the days of the heartbreaking defeats and the indignant solidarity of rooting for the underdog, college kids posing as belligerent fans just look like they're trying to prove something (here's a tip: Size doesn't matter, it's how you use it).

I hate to break it to Boston sports fans, but sore winners are far less attractive than sore losers. Now that our teams are on top, with some of the most talented and highest-paid athletes playing the game, perhaps the "angry fan" profile needs a makeover. After all, why do we watch sports anyway? To feel connected to our teams, right? So I appeal to Red Sox fans this summer: Can't we coexist peacefully? Courtesy is totally sexy. And really, all I want is to be able to ride the Green Line without getting trampled, shouted at, or elbowed in the boob.