The Boston Red Sox
More Than a Team
written by Nick on November 2, 2025

I want to start by saying in no way, shape, or form do I consider myself amongst the most dedicated Red Sox fans around. I've only been a fan for 18 years, which is a minute proportion of time compared to that of my elder Bostonians and Red Sox fans alike. They've lived the same tortures as me plus a million more, and I now place comeuppance upon them. Kudos, forefathers, this is your day.

Secondly, there are many people in the sports community that complain that too much focus has been paid to the Red Sox and the droughts/rivalries that have ensued. The fact of the matter is that the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry is what is keeping the main networks' interest in baseball. For a time in sports when nipples are shown during halftime shows and money is the new god the heated conflict between two teams that has spanned several generations is a breath of fresh air. It's moving history and if you can't appreciate that then I suggest that you get tickets to the next slamball game. As for the focus on how depleted the Red Sox trophy shelf has been up to this point, that fact is none more painful to anyway than Red Sox fans. So as sick as you may have been hearing about numbers like 86 and one-thousand nine-hundred and eighteen we were three times as displeased. And if you think ESPN dedicating an entire week to the Sox is a bad idea than you really don't realize the history behind the team. Just because we didn't get to hear about Nascar plane crashes and weak-fisted preseason NBA fights doesn't make you a martyr.

THAT BEING SAID:

I was born in Boston Medical on June 9 th , 1986. 4 months and 16 days later I was introduced to the seemingly comedic failure of the Red Sox. Sure, I couldn't pronounce the words “Bill” or “Buckner” at the time, but you can guarantee that I never stopped hearing them my entire life. My life from that point on revolved around a lot of words, like “curse”, “1918”, “yankees”, and “Bambino”. Words associated with the enemy, as well.

I grew up on baseball, my father lying about my age to public officials two towns over so I could start playing early. We'd go to the baseball field a few streets down to play catch and I'd hit off of a tee. My dad would deny it but I swear to god that baseball field was the reason we moved into that house.

When I was old enough to hit live pitching he'd throw to me for hours at a time. We'd walk to the field with a construction bucket filled with baseballs, a bat, and two old gloves that had been worked to the bone. This continued for years, up until I was twelve years old, when my dad couldn't throw a fastball past me anymore and his amateur attempt at a curveball was no longer a challenge. My dad had a very bad back, and throwing fast was something that he really couldn't handle. The day he told me that the batting practice sessions would end was probably one of the saddest days of my life.

My father taught me to love baseball. Up until I moved to college we'd watch most every game together, given the rare circumstance when I'd be caught up at a friend's house or he'd have to work past gametime. I still have all the same favorite players as him, including Bill “Spaceman” Lee, Luis Tiant, Teddy Ballgame, and Trot Nixon. Just good, honest ballplayers.

So we suffered through the 90's. It'd be 1998 before the sox would take 90 games in a season, only winning the division twice in 1990 and 1995. In 1999 I witnessed first hand just how big the Red Sox/yankees rivalry could get, as late in the season Pedro Martinez was set to square off against former Red Sock roger clemens. This is a story that I tell all my baseball buddies. Pedro and clemens are engaged in a pitcher's dual. Tie game, middle innings, Trot Nixon on first rounding second on a shot to right field. After being thrown out at third base clemens berates Trot, pointing and yelling and basically personifying the yankee way. Top of the ninth inning, Trot Nixon hits what would become the game winning homerun. He doesn't say anything, he merely rounds the bases in a quiet fashion, avoiding eye contact with the rocket. I tell my dad “Man, if I ever did that I would flip clemens the bird all the way until I got to home plate.”

My dad replied “Trot Nixon is a baseball player. He is better than that.”

I realized then what separated Red Sox players from yankees. Where we played ball, they flapped their jaws.

ALDS against the Indians; Pedro came out of the pen and pitched 6 innings of no hit, shutout baseball. He walked 2 batters. We advanced to the ALCS to face the yankees and lose 3 games to 1. At this point in my life I really hate the yankees and the mere mentioning of their organization produces at the very least a very somber head shake, equal to the verbal “sons a' bitches”.

So the Red Sox live to see the 2003 season, 102 years after the Boston Americans, and take the wild card to make it to the ALDS against the Oakland Athletics.

Game 1 is in Oakland , and since it's on the west coast gametime starts at 10 o'clock. At the time my dad was working construction in a small town about an hour away, so he's already wiped and is anticipating an early morning the next day. He falls asleep on the couch in the 4 th inning. So I sit there, elbows on knees, watching the game. The Sox take the lead in the top of the 7 th , 4-3. In the bottom of the ninth the athletics tied the game. I'm a little pissed off, seeing as it's already 1 in the morning and I have to wake up at 6 for high school in the morning. It goes to the 12 th inning, pushing 3 o'clock. With the bases loaded in the bottom of the 12 th the Athletics bunt, and a stunned Bill Mueller is left charging from the outfield grass with no play. We lost to a bunt. A fucking bunt.

Went into school the next morning. Dead. I was dead. Every single kid there was dead. I've never seen anything like it. People walking into lockers, forgetting combinations, walking into the wrong classrooms. It was like the entire school was being sprayed for bugs and they forget to tell us. For the first time since kindergarten lunch was followed by nap time. We were grumpy.

The next day the ALCS was scheduled for 3 o'clock in the afternoon, which I promptly fell asleep through. We lost 5-1.

We had an off day and then game 3 at Fenway Park . Went into 11 innings, with the Sox ending on top. Game 4 was just as dramatic, with the Sox trailing by 1 in the bottom of the 8 th they score twice and finish the 9 th . The series is now tied at 2 a piece.

In game 6 Derek Lowe pitched the two of the three greatest fastballs I've ever seen to retire the last two batters in the bottom of the 9 th , Sox go to the ALCS to face the Yankees.

We won game 1. We actually won game 1 against the yankees IN YANKEE STADIUM. This was unbelievable. The best part was that mussina crapped the bed. It was the greatest win all season. The yankees took game 2, sending the series back to Boston at 1 a piece. Pedro loses game 3. He just didn't pitch well. We were still in Boston , though, and we were confident that we were finally better than the yankees and that we would prevail.

Game 4, Sox tie the series at 2-2. Lowe sucks in game 5, yankees up 3-2. Sox take game 6 coming back in middle innings. Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS.

The whole city is on edge, nobody is functioning. Me and my dad set up in front of our TV two hours before the game to make sure we don't miss a pitch. Entering the bottom of the 8 th inning the Sox enjoy a 5-2 lead, courtesy of the homeruns by Nixon, Millar, and Ortiz. We were the better team and we knew it the whole time. But something was wrong. After the 7 th inning Pedro stepped over the chalk, bumped his chest, and pointed to the big man, yet he was taking warm-up pitches. After letting up a double to hideki matsui Grady Little hit the mound, the traditional sign that a pitcher is being relieved. Yet Little walks back to the dugout to watch Posada show us what a bloop hit is all about. Bloop. Little just watches. The game is tied 5 all and the ALCS heads for extra innings. At this point I tell my dad that I don't have a good feeling about this, and rightfully so. Ever since clemens was relieved by mussina after only 3 innings we had only scored one run. That was the second aspect of this game that appealed to me, being able to bitch slap clemens right into his grave (as he was supposed to have retired). Instead aaron boone hit a homerun in the bottom of the 11 th and walked into the World Series a legend.

Me and my dad got up and walked to our respective bedrooms, neither of us saying a word to each other or bothering to turn off the TV. We woke up the next morning, walked into the television room which was still on from the night before. Clips were being shown from the night before and my dad turned it off.

“You've been initiated.”

I'd like to recap for a moment over what the fuck just happened in the past two weeks:

October 16, 2004. I'm sitting in my dorm room with my Sox hat on in crooked fashion, smooshing my face with both hands as I lean in front of my laptop, reading write-ups of the game I just watched. It was game 3 of the ALCS (American League Championship Series) between the Red Sox and the new york yankees, with the BoSox entering the game down 2-0 in the series. They had just lost 19-8. Being down 3-0 in a best of seven series against the Yankees is not exactly what I asked Jesus for the week before. We had just swept the Anaheim Angels in a best of five series, giving us all the time in the world to prepare, and the results were disappointing. One game away from elimination against the biggest rivals since the McCoys.

“ Sunday, the Yankees will have an opportunity close out the Red Sox, giving them six days to prepare for either Houston or St. Louis in the World Series.”

Sure, I wasn't happy with what was going on, but at this point I was looking Game 4 in the eye and I really wasn't afraid. No result this year could be worse than last year's ALCS, which I won't go into detail on, and with this in mind I approached this game with a “got nothing to lose” attitude. My immediate concern was losing the ALCS to the yankees in Fenway Park . That doesn't fly with me. Yes, winning the series is obviously what we want, but you have to approach the series one game at a time when you need to win 4 straight. Winning 2 straight was the very least I would have accepted from this team, and I knew they were thinking the same exact thing I was: “These assholes? On our field? No fucking chance.”

The next thing I knew it was the bottom of the ninth, the sox trailing by a run, with the best closer in the history of the playoffs looking to end their year.

I cherish each Red Sox game that I watch, because I know that the 162 regular season games go by a lot quicker than expected, especially the postseason games that can follow. With this in mind, and my team's season 3 outs from demise, I honestly was not worried. There was just a unique karma flowing through the players and the crowd. This team was incapable of just rolling over and accepting the deep sleep. I didn't say it, I didn't think it, but I just sat back and watched my team play without the crippling sense of panic that should have been ripping through my veins.

Kevin Millar walked. Dave Roberts in to pinch run.

What happened next was perhaps the most important single play in the history of Red Sox baseball: Dave Roberts stole second base, beating Posada's throw by a fraction of a second. The importance of this move is magnified when Mueller knocks a base hit right past Rivera to centerfield. Roberts scores. The season lives on. If not for more than one inning, the Red Sox' season lives on.

Well as it turns out the season would live on for longer than an inning. The Boston Red Sox, amidst the greatest rivalry in sports, completed the greatest comeback in sports history, coming back down three games to none to win the series four games to three, advancing to the World Series. Allow me to now explain what happened in further detail. Ahem.

The Red Sox took each and every yankee and yankee supporter ever to exist and defecated upon, sodomized, and further sullied the spirit of baseball each individual had possessed up until that moment. I would rather be known as the team that accomplished the impossible than the team that won 26 championships. You like to throw around the term dynasty? The yankees aren't a dynasty, buddy, The Celtics were a dynasty. 12 championships in 13 years is a dynasty. Let me know when that happens, because I'd love to see the worst GM in the world pull that off. Nice pitching staff.

Every single time a team is down three games to none, the 2004 Boston Red Sox are going to be brought up and admired for raising the bar for everybody else.

That is what I love.

With all this absorbed, could there be a more anti-climatic World Series? Despite the seemingly apparent this was still the highest rated World Series since 1996, last year's world series being the lowest rated World Series in my lifetime. It got lower ratings than the 1994 World Series which featured the Georgetown Lazor Beams facing off against the Virginia Floor Tiles. Lower TV ratings than the 1898 series featuring the Washington Candlesticks and the Atlanta Barbershops.

The truth is that for whatever reason, whether it be that everyone was sick of hearing about the curse or felt sympathetic towards them, the country wanted The Red Sox to win it all. Just clear up whatever loose ends would be left if they beat the Yankees and lost the series by taking the whole shebang.

I wasn't complaining.

The Red Sox now had the opportunity to win their first series in 86 years. The term “1918” is now replaced with “2000”, the last time the yankees won the world series. I love it.

I love it.

Now that we're clear on what happened, let's go over the repercussions that are being felt. For those of you who think that when you walk into Boston all you see are Red Sox hats and Lombardi trophies you're wrong. Yeah, 98% of the people there will yell “YEAH” if you say “RED SOX” towards them, but there are those who support the yankees. Why, you ask? To be assholes. (god it pisses me off that MSWord auto-capitalizes the word “yankees”) Yeah, so there are yankees fans most everywhere. Well when they walk around Boston talking about curses and fat ol' #3 all day, it begins to get a little old. Allow me to present a rough estimate of how many yankees hats are floating around good ol' Beantown right now. Zero. That makes me happy, knowing that us Boston faithful have our home turf back.

PTI had a great argument, that choosing a sports team is a luxury that should be illegal. A real fan doesn't choose his team. Any fucking moron can see which team is doing the best at current time and call them his or her team. These people are called fair-weather fans. 90% of yankees fans fall into this category, simply on the basis that they started rooting for the yankees for no reason other than that they were a good team at the time. I pray at night for two things: a million dollars and for the yankees to go 87 years without a championship.

The things that make this World Series championship better than any other that I have ever seen:

1.) It's the first time that MY team has done it.

I wasn't around for the Celtics or Bruins and football was never really my thing, so this is my first taste of a championship.

2.) I'm surrounded by Yankees fans.

I moved to Virginia for collegial purposes. Across the hall? Yankees fan. Next door to my right? Yankees fan. Around the corner? Yankees fan.

So how awesome was it to live here when the sox were down 3-0 in the ALCS? Not very. I can honestly say that for the first time in my Sox fan career I felt bad about it. I felt like there was absolutely no point that I could make to them besides “It's not over yet”, which made me look like the most naïve baseball fan in the history of the world. Well the truth of Boston fans everywhere was heard across the country, as the term “Yankees Suck” gained new meaning within the hearts of the faithful. They truly do suck, and I assure you, my neighbors have been well-informed.

3.) End of the curse

Beating the yankees in 7 was not the end of the curse, as far as I'm concerned. It could only be killed with a world series win. So yes, the curse is dead, but while people concentrate on the end of this curse they fail to recognize a curse working it's 5 th year deep. Here's to 82 more years without a yankees championship.

For those of you who are sick of hearing about the curse, there you go. All gone. It's win-win, given the yankees fans who actually thought that they had a shot even after being up 3-0 on the best team in baseball.

And now, to wrap up the sweetest article that I've ever had the chance to write, I'll leave you with this:

To many people, including myself, this is more than a sports team. This is a relationship that is paralleled by no other. Not necessarily the most important, but definitely irreplaceable. The best example I can think of is seeing your only child beat the living hell out of someone else's crappy kid that isn't half as cool as your kid. Yeah marriage and birth really don't match up to that, do they?

So Kieth Foulke tossed the ball to Doug Mientkiewicz (whose last name night I did NOT have to look up) and the Red Sox won the World Series. I ran into my hall cheering and screaming, but no one else was out there. So I went back into my room where I was greeted by approximately 30 Instant Messages and a ringing cell phone. I knew who was calling my cell phone and I let it ring. After the ring stopped I picked up the phone and dialed my dad.

“Who's this?”

“It's your son you Alzheimer's-crippled old man.”

“Nick-o, can you believe it?”

“No, I can't. This is unreal.”

“I'm so happy you're alive for this.”

“Me too.” At this point I'm holding back tears.

“How happy are you right now? This is terrific!”

“I couldn't be happier,” I lied. What I really wanted was to be home, sitting on the couch I had sat on all year, watching the most important sports moment of my lifetime with the one man who watched season after season with me. The same couch that I called Jose Canseco an asshole on. The same couch where we both agreed that Mo Vaughn wasn't an athelete. The same couch where we both died a little in '03. I wanted to gain that life back.

I ended up talking to my dad for an hour and a half that night, just about how monumental an event we had just witnessed.

Tentative 2005 schedule has Fenway's home opener against the yankees, which would allow us to raise the World Series banner right in front of our arch-rivals. Maybe Bud Selig isn't such a bad guy after all.