Talk:Red Sox Nation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contents |
[edit] Wendell Kim
I'm not sure the nickname "wave 'em home wendell" is correct. I've always heard it as "Wave 'em in Kim", which would make more sense since it rhymes a bit better. Can anyone confirm this either way?
Let's not forget "Send 'em Sveum"! Rethcir 00:47, September 12, 2005 (UTC)
I've heard "wave 'em in Kim" more, but I don't have a link from a Boston paper to confirm this. Acefantastik
Does "Wendell Kim" really count as a cult figure? Honestly, if he's in there, Sveum should be there alongside his equally incompetent counterpart...(still mad about that Tampa game from 2004) InTheFlesh? 01:33, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I had some doubts about putting Kim in, but I decided to do it because he's unique and instantly recognizable: plenty of teams have bad third base coaches, but what other team has a hyperactive Korean third base coach whose name, years after he leaves, can still make a fan curse a blue streak? Sure, he doesn't inspire reverence like Tony C, but I think that if that's your sole criteria for "cult figure", you're using too narrow a definition. Stilgar135 03:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Serious Rivalry
In regards to the soccer fan who removed this.. Yes, I do believe it is one of the most serious rivalries in the world, and any of the millions of fans who attend these two stadiums each year would agree. I don't believe that the number of fatalities that occur at a sporting event should be the metric for how intense a rivalry between two teams is. So please don't pull the "you ignorant americans" routine on us please, 128.230.121.224 (Get an account, btw). Rethcir 00:47, September 12, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Re: Serious Rivalry
No, I am not anti-American - I am actually a baseball-watching Yank (ok maybe a bad choice of diction no pun intended). While I won't be immature and keep removing the "arguably one of the most serious in [rivalries] the world" bit, I would like to educate those apparently ignorant of the depths of seriousness found in some soccer rivalries. I will concede that Yanks-Sox is the fiercest rivalry in American sports, living at times in New England and in northern New Jersey and having seen the spectacle I should know. (I have also been to several Army-Navy games for perspective.) However, I venture that anyone who has seen some of the top soccer contests worldwide would agree that there is no comparison. Many have put it more eloquently than I ever could, but many of the rivalries include political undertones that pack much more edge then what is basically a competition between eastern port cities ever could. Teams can be iconic of entire movements, e.g. Barcelona for the Catalan separatists, or Boca for the Argentine underclass. Some even bring religion into the mix, for example take Celtic and Rangers of Scotland. Both based in Glasgow, allegiance is based almost wholly on religion (Catholics to Celtic and Protestants to Rangers). In Rome, leftist elements support AS Roma while the conservatives carry banners with fascist emblems in support of Lazio. In Russia, teams often retain their Soviet monikers (CSKA Moscow is quite literally the old Red Army team with new management). People are often devoted to their club for life, even if the team is forced to drop down a few leagues for whatever reason. Can you imagine the Sox getting support if they dropped to triple A? For example, Newcastle United of England is consistently near the bottom of the table and yet many of their supporters sport tattoos of the club crest proudly. You can just imagine what happens when elements supporting clubs with opposing viewpoints can mean. Violence. Sure, you love the 'Sox, but are you ready to get your lip split to maintain their honor? Will you hear racial, ethnic, or religious slurs echoing around Fenway directed at the Yankees? Never.
"Let’s go Red-Sox" *clap clap-clap clap clap* "F*** the Yankees" *clap clap-clap clap clap*
And that's about it. You will hear hate directed towards the "evil empire" but never against what they stand for (as in the case of Real Madrid (Francoism) or River Plate (class structure)), because ultimately they Yankees stand for the same thing as the Red Sox - America. They are both faces of a diverse society that will probably never get drawn into putting political significance into sports. The great soccer rivalries are great because of the meaning behind the game. You see many people wearing "B" or "NY" caps, and its not a big deal even if in the rival city. Wearing the wrong colors in South America or Europe could get you killed, not simply leered at. Soccer is a way of life for much of the globe, baseball is often a fashion statement.
BTW, people like you are the reason I don't want an account. It just every so often I see something so boneheaded that I feel compelled to correct it.
[edit] Re: Serious Rivalry
I do agree with the soccer fan. I happen to be a huge Red Sox fan, always have, and always will. I strongly believe that the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is, without question, the biggest and most important sports rivalry in the United States. It is bigger than Michigan-Ohio State, Army-Navy, Giants-Cowboys, Packers-Vikings, Duke-North Carolina, and even Yale-Harvard (I have been to plenty of Yale-Harvard games, and they do get ugly.) I havent named all of the huge rivalries because I dont have the time or patience...you get my point. There are many, many quality rvalries in American sports. But on the World Stage.....people dont care about baseball like other sports.
Other sports like Rugby and soccer have much more leverage on the World Stage. Lets start with Rugby. I would say that the absolute biggest rivalry in Rugby is New Zealand-England. Another that is getting increasingly big is England-Wales. These games get international attention. People get very into this. IO dont know too much about Rugby, though I have seen how crazy the crowds get. The next thing I will get into is soccer.
The previous poster made good points about different club teams that are rivals because of religion and politics. You may not understand it, because it is not talked about much here in the States, but in Europe, and most of the world....Soccer is politics. People live and die by what happens to their team.
Lets go through some big rivalries in europe....because that is my area of expertise club team-wise:
England: Manchester United vs. Liverpool- Two of the juggernaughts of English soccer, both have won considerable amounts of titles, and they both, along with Arsenal are the top of the league most years. This rivalry is fueled because of both club's successes. The fans detest each other, the players play this game like it was the World Cup final.
Arsenal vs. Tottenham- North London rivals. They like each other about as much as the NYPD liked the mafia in the 1930s. It is the protestants vs. the jews. They arent the most friendly of rivals. Games are always spectacular, though.
Spain:Real Madrid vs Barcelona-Same reason as Manchester-Liverpool pretty much
Real Madrid vs. Atletico Madrid- Real Madrid represent Spanish Ultra-Conservativism, or facism, if you will. Atletico represents the Basqueland, they represent a free, independent state and people that hope to split from Spain. The Yanks and Sox dont have this politically driven influence.
Netherlands:PSV Eindhoven vs. Rotterdam-"if holland is the brazil of european soccer then rotterdam is sao paulo" they have a huge and rather violent rivalry.
Ajax vs. Feyenoord: the game was often seen to be an excuse for organized violence.
Belgium: Anderlecht vs. Brugge- The upper class vs. the farmers. The French speakers vs. the Flemish speakers. Politically, ethnically, and socially charged, this is one of the most intense and in-your-face rivalries in the world. It dosent get alot of press, but these people hate each other.
Scotland: Celtic vs. Rangers-You thought the Yankees had slot of titles? If im not mistaken, Rangers has won 51 league titles, and Celtic has won 39. The Yankees wouldnt even be close, so when you hear that commercial on YES that says "The winningest team in sports, they are lying, many teams are ahead of them.
Italy: Inter Milan vs AC Milan: Classes, politics, everything comes into play when these two play. Another huge rivalry, the teams arent very compassionate towards each other.
Yugoslavia: Red Star Belgrade vs. Hajduk Split-Serbs and Croatians. Must I explain?
Okay, that was enough of club rivalries, now its time for country rivalries.
Italy vs. France- If you have watched any of their games in the past 10 years, most of them have come in critical tournament matches, and the result is always close. These two neighbors have learned to not love.
Germany vs. England-Okay, a couple years ago they played in Wembly Stadium. The English chanted "Stand up, Stand up, Stand up if you won the war"......the Germans went silent. This was the cleanest chant I could put on here.
Greece vs. Turkey- They have hated each other since the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Their soccer matches are entertaining to say the least, and certainly not for the faint of heart.
Israel vs. Saudi Arabia- You would have to be brain dead to not understand this rivalry. It actually has been stopped. Saudi Arabia refuses to play the Israelis, and if they were to play each other in a major tournament, the Saudis would possibly forfeit.
Brazil vs. Argentina- The two South American big boys, they have very entertaining games, and their crowds are like a volcano about to erupt.
Argentina vs. England- Falkand Islands war anyone?
Any of the United Kingdom and Ireland teams playing each other- It is always loud, angry, and huge.
China vs. Japan-The countries detest each other. Its ugly.
New Zealand vs. Australia- The Oceania grudgematch. Its much like the games between UK teams.
There are so many. But this should do it. I think I have proved my point. Dont make me talk about Cricket.
The USA cares about the Sox and Yanks. I care about the Sox and Yanks. The rest of the world dosent. They think of it as a big rivalry OVER HERE. They dont think of it at all on the world stage. You dont have to like soccer, rugby, cricket, or anything like that to understand that someone sitting in Moscow watching CSKA Moskva vs. FC Moskva probably cares as much about the Red Sox-Yankees 2004 ALCS as they do if I get an A on the paper I handed in to my English Professor on Frday.
[edit] Fine tuning some of the trivia here
I'm not completely sure of the policy regarding citation here (or etiquette), so I didn't go ahead and just change this page, but I'd like to suggest some minute details. I'm sorry that I haven't properly linked the articles.
Regarding the curse: Dan Shaugnessy isn't the proper cite for the inventor of the concept. The talk of the curse during the 1986 Buckner series came due to the George Vecsey headline, "Babe Ruth Curse strikes again", written after fateful game six in a New York Newspaper. The wikipedia page regarding the curse says as much.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs2004/news/story?page=Curse041005
.
http://www.ajhs.org/publications/chapters/chapter.cfm?documentID=275
http://www.siu.edu/~siupress/titles/s03_titles/lieb_sox.htm
other information was used from the book "The Red Sox Fan Handbook", by Leigh Grossman. This book may be good as an external link:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1579401104/103-8526521-9490216?v=glance
Perhaps Remy should be duplicated in the
Acefantastik
[edit] Specious Comments Between Soccer and Baseball
To our British IP friend, I'd like to set the record straight on something. Needless to say Baseball and Soccer are apples and oranges, but there is a parallel to compare across the Atlantic: Cricket.
Baseball is seen in the United States much as Cricket is seen in the United Kingdom. A traditional bat and ball game founded in their respective countries that isn't as popular as it once was, but is still in the mainstream and has been spread to other countries where it is arguably more popular than in its homeland (Basball: Mexico, Dominican Republic, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico, etc. -- Cricket: India, Pakistan, Jamaica, Bangladesh, Australia, New Zealand, etc.)
Tell me something, when was the last time you heard of hatred at the Yankee/Red Sox level in Cricket? A more appropriate comparison with Soccer would be Football (or as the Brits call it, American Football), which still isn't perfect due to cultural differences(to fans, most games are more about gluttony and commercialistic entertainment value these days compared to Soccer, where there are often political and sociological overtones overlayed onto the games, such as Rangers/Celtic in Scotland) and the difference in league structure, which ironically almost reverses their countries' overall views (the NFL is nearly socialist in its parity, while English Association Football is brutally darwinian). Karmafist 01:29, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
- Oh dear. I am the one you refer to. I am not British, but (as I said before) American. You'll find that having a basic knowledge of a non-American sport is not an indicator to one's nationality. The issue was not what baseball rivalries were comparable to in the same class of sport (ball-and-stick games), but rather where the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry stood in comparison to other sports rivalries worldwide. The original author made a broad categorical statement that I felt needed to be addressed.
- I'm not sure what you are trying to get at by pointing out the fundamentally socialist structure of American sports franchises, as it is common knowledge. By bringing attention to the iconic status of the two baseball clubs in American culture I meant to suggest just that - that organization of a league is an interesting topic, but bears little significance on anything else. These two legendary teams scream "Americana." My aim by bringing up the promotion/relegation structure in soccer was to display the "love of club" many soccer supporters have - in contrast to what I see as a "love of winning" among American fans. There have been instances of soccer clubs plummeting down a division or two and still retaining nearly all of their season ticket holders. How many NCAA Division 2 teams make it onto ESPN's Sports Center?
- You are sorely misguided in your comparisons between sports. Baseball was/arguably is the national pastime of the US, whereas most would agree that association football holds that place in Britain. Cricket clubs, on the whole, draw miniscule crowds in comparison to major baseball clubs. However, Cricket DOES reach the importance of Yankees-Red Sox in international play where the Ashes tournament pits the England team against the Aussies. There are undertones of animosity due to the colonial past between the two, and both nations truly get rabid about it.
- Neither baseball nor cricket have attained the level of international acceptance that association football has, and American football has remained very much a North American phenomenon (as evidenced by the failure of NFL Europe to expand beyond Germany). I don't claim that soccer is in some way fundamentally more conducive to rabid support or intense rivalries... just that more people play soccer on a global scale. With more individual games played by more people, the chances are increased that a certain match up will become special. There is nothing stopping the Yanks-Sox from becoming the most passionate rivalry in the world, but I could easily name at last 10 soccer rivalries that carry more weight.
- Its just the difference between passion and a product. The NFL may be fun to watch, but essentially it is a money making venture. There is only one true cross-town "derby" (NY), and i challenge anyone to name an annual matchup that carries the importance of a Barcelona-Real Madrid. Fan loyalty is mostly to the league; I remember very well classmates in middle school owning the jerseys of several teams. Support for the sport is rabid in America, but as for rivalries between two teams, US sports are badly outclassed.
[edit] Johnny Damon
It'd be nice if someone could clean up the bit about Johnny Damon in "Topics of particular significance to Red Sox Nation" because I'm not feeling very eloquent right now... DrIdiot 21:56, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Speaking of Johnny Damon, I wish someone could get it correct that Damon left the Red Sox for job security, as he wanted a fourth year on his contract. The Red Sox would not offer him a fourth year.
