Shameful scenes at Fenway Park: Red Sox fans disgrace themselves
Posted on Sunday, April 22, 2012 at 02:14 PM
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| Fenway Park - 100 year anniversary |
That was absolutely abhorrent. What happened last night in Boston was almost indescribable. Someone, or one group, needs to look at itself in the mirror this morning and seriously question his, her, its actions. We're not talking about Bobby Valentine. Let's get that out of the way straight off the bat. He has been hired to do a job and is doing his best with what fate (and a brutal injury list) has given him. He is 14 games into a 162 game season and we won't really have a measure of his ability in leading the Red Sox until the All Star break.
Bobby Valentine isn't the one who acted shamefully Saturday night.
We're not referring to FOX sports, which gave us its usual blend of overly simplified, bland and crass coverage, seemingly aimed at the under twelves or the over nineties. Whilst Joe Buck's superhuman ability to state the obvious is no doubt impressive, the FOX act is as old and tired as its apparent target audience. I am not advocating turning baseball coverage into an MTV like experience, but, the starchy, out of touch packaging it is currently wrapped in by FOX is pathetic.
For those who were watching, FOX made the decision to switch to the White Sox perfect game, which wouldn't have been a problem had they utilize their split screen coverage that they started with. However, they then focused solely on the White Sox game, meaning both Yankee and Sox fans were stunned when the game at Fenway came back on. Terrible presentation by FOX.
However, it is still not they who should feel ashamed of themselves today.
You would prefer if Red Sox pitchers stopped centering the ball up and living on the middle, the heart, of the plate so often, however even with that in mind, it is not they who behaved in shameful fashion on Saturday night at Fenway Park.
None of those peoples deliberately set out to act in shameful fashion. That dubious distinction belongs solely to the fans of the Boston Red Sox. In their own park. On the back of the 100 years anniversary celebrations. Red Sox fans didn't just boo their team. They rained a hateful deluge of disdain and stupidity down on their own team, their own players, their own manager, with such vitriol that any decent minded individual watching proceedings were shocked to their core.
It was downright nasty.
The booing of players was bad enough, the booing of a brand new manager was simply ignorant. Bobby Valentine is by all accounts a decent man, an experienced baseball skipper, who was excited to be given the chance to lead the Red Sox forward from the collapse of 2011 and Chicken-gate. He deserves a chance,and anyone who knows anything about baseball knows that casting judgement on a team after less than twenty games is not giving it or its manager a chance.
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If you disagree with this, if you think that Red Sox fans have a right to display this snarling, ugly face to the baseball watching world, then what of Cubs, Padres and Kansas fans? Should they follow suit, and rain negativity down on their franchise? The Cubs and Padres are off to a similarly poor start with just 4 wins, and Kansas are right now the worst team in the majors with only 3 wins. Yet, their fans are able to behave in a dignified manner at ball games. Their fans seem to understand that the season is very long and reacting over the top at this stage would be something to be ashamed of.
Why do Red Sox fans think it is OK to act stupid when there are plenty of other fan bases that are being patient and waiting to get a better picture of the season before deciding if they are happy with the product their team delivers or not?
Are 4 Red Sox losses worse than 4 Cubs losses? Of course they aren't, but the ridiculous, stupid expectations of some Red Sox fans are a clue to the reason behind why most normal MLB fans are starting to look at Sox fans as the dumbest, the most arrogant and the most self entitled and introverted group of fans in professional sports.
There is nobody to blame but ourselves. Nobody. Don't bother blaming the players. Don't bother blaming the manager or the front office. It us us Red Sox fans ourselves who are bringing ourselves into disrepute.
The actions of what would appear to have been the vast majority of Red Sox 'fans' on Saturday night were completely lacking in class, dignity and or humanity. They created an ugly cess pit of negativity and hate. This abhorrent behavior is lacking in intelligence and thought.
On Sunday I woke up ashamed to be a Boston Red Sox fan. We are, as of today, the worst group of fans of any professional sports team, and we deserve all the ridicule and schadenfreude that is aimed at us over the next week. The shameful behavior at Fenway Park on Saturday night set us Sox fans aside from the often ridiculed Heat fans, the stereotypically angry Yankee fan and even those crazy Raiders fans.
There is simply absolutely no excuse for the torrent of negative abuse that came from the stands.
None.
There is already enough negativity and hatred cursing the planet Earth at the moment. Adding to it just shows a worrying, disappointing lack of thought, intelligence and humanity.
We are Red Sox fans, and right now, we are covered in shame.
Linkage
- Contact Cormac
- From the Bleachers on Irish Central
- Irish Central
26 Comments
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KathleenBerrio | Apr 25, 2012, 06:47 PM EDT
If anyone at Yankee Stadium threw beer at a child he'd be thrown out. End of story. The security there does not put up with any crap from anyone. Red Sox Nation is full of the most boorish people I know. If you watch a game on TV being played in Boston you can hear Yankees suck.
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Bythebay | Apr 25, 2012, 11:28 AM EDT
KathleenBerrio, not acceptable but far worse has happened at Yankee Stadium and in the Bronx against Red Sox Nation.
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SingleDonald | Apr 24, 2012, 04:59 PM EDT
Thanks, KathleenBerrio! Yankee or Yankees, it really dosen't make any difference. I say I am a Yankee fan!
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KathleenBerrio | Apr 24, 2012, 04:29 PM EDT
Unfortunately, Boston Red Sox fans behaving disgracefully is nothing new. My nephew went to a Yankees-Red Sox game when he was eleven years old, with his uncle, who lives in Boston and is a Red Sox fan. My nephew, a Yankees fan and wearing a Yankees shirt, cheered a play, and had beer thrown at him. Not spilled on him, but thrown. A beer thrown at a child.
And it's Yankees, not Yankee. Yankees fans are not angry. We do not chant hatred loud enough to be heard on TV like what is heard in Boston. We know our team and love it.
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Bythebay | Apr 24, 2012, 11:49 AM EDT
bluesman, right back at ya! Boston fans and Red Sox Nation will boo all it chooses. If Bobby Valentine doesn't shape up he'll be shipped back to New York. A loosing team does NOT fill up a ballpark especially one with the highest prices in baseball, Fenway Park.
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Bythebay | Apr 24, 2012, 11:46 AM EDT
Eschetic, yes there is a more Irish based city in the US. You haven't heard of it?? That's bizarre. It's called Scituate, Massachusetts. You need to check out some of the statistics from your 2010 US census.
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ciaradexy | Apr 23, 2012, 04:00 PM EDT
I bet this was started by migrants in Ireland! everything is their fault!
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Mo Rage | Apr 23, 2012, 02:46 PM EDT
Hello?
It's no Kansas.
It's Kansas City. The Kansas City Royals.
We know you out there on the coast and most of the rest of the country don't get or know that but it's Kansas City.
And it's Missouri.
Thank you.
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BrianO | Apr 23, 2012, 01:30 PM EDT
fans vile for booing, what an empty article, a rivalry game after they got -Yes yankee fan- their a** handed to them with the Boston manager doing New york radio on a weekly basis. Cormac the orioles are looking for fans.
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Nicomax | Apr 23, 2012, 01:20 PM EDT
The sense of entitlement is starting to consume Red Sox Nation, as it has for many years infected Yankee fans. Many of the recent Fenway Faithful have little remembrance of those woeful years when hope and prayer was all they had. Yankee fans are still impacted by this disease demonstrated when they recently they booed Albert the Great possibly because he chose, as the top free agent on the market last year, to got to the Angels. How dare he violate the rule that all the best must go to The Gotham.
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Eschetic | Apr 23, 2012, 12:50 PM EDT
On one hand, I can't agree with the Site member who questions the ongoing Bostonian coverage (is there a more Irish based city in the U.S.?). It certainly makes more sense than coverage of that right wing buffoon, O'Reilly, merely because his name starts with an "O'". On the other, I share Mr. Eklof's frustration both with the poor editorial decisions made by FOX Sports (this game was especially egregious!) and the behavior of our gallant rival's "fans." As a lifelong Yankees fan, I'm not cheering about this remarkable game either - it showed the Red Sox bull pen as weak as OUR starting line-up! Neither is a happy situation - but as TRUE Yankees and Red Sox fans know, you always want your greatest rival to be a great team so that when you do beat them it means more. My two favorite ball teams have to be the Yankees and the Mets - but my THIRD favorite will always be Boston! Here's hoping Bobby V. can make them *almost* everything they can be; it's never a fully satisfying World Series win for real Yankees' fans unless we can beat the Red Sox in the *Playoffs* on the way there - and if a New York team can't make it all the way, a Boston team should.
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davekemp | Apr 23, 2012, 12:39 PM EDT
Cormac, Please note that the Royals are the Kansas City Royals. Their stadium is located in Kansas City, Missouri. This may be a sign of another Boston fan's fretful lack of knowledge of the teams and players from any place besides New York and Boston.
I am a life long Minnesota Twins fan that has had to deal with the fact that our excellent competitive and division winning teams of the past decade have been ignored by the national media. Isn't it the East Coast Sports Network? Ken Burns' 10th Inning documentary totally ignored the Twins and the other Central Division teams outstanding performances for the decade of the 2000s. Let us hope that ESPN and Fox do not burden us with another season of 18, four hour long Red Sox/Yankees games. The Twins and the Yankees split four games last week. The Sox are in Mpls. starting on Monday. It will be interesting to see what happens. 2011 was a season for Twins fans in which everybody got hurt and every trade was a mistake. Hopefully we weathered the experience with some semblance of class. Perhaps the Red Sox fans might learn a few things as they suffer through a similar 2012 season. We can still share our common dislike of the Yankees and the best lineup money can buy. A good knowledge and appreciation of all of the major league teams and players help you get through those seasons when your team is not playing well at all. So where did Punto and Repko come from?
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bob40wil | Apr 23, 2012, 12:30 PM EDT
I see all the Yankee fans are jumping on the band wagon here, I've been to Yankee Stadium for games, don't toot your own horns too loud.
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bluesman | Apr 23, 2012, 12:16 PM EDT
By the bay once again you are an ass!
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