Sons of Sam Horn
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| URL | http://www.sonsofsamhorn.net |
|---|---|
| Commercial? | No |
| Type of site | Forum/Wiki |
| Registration | Optional |
| Owner | S.o.S.H., L.L.C. |
| Created by | Eric Christensen |
Sons of Sam Horn (SoSH) is a Boston Red Sox-oriented online baseball forum. It began in 1998 as an offshoot of the Red Sox forum at the Dickie Thon Fan Club, which itself was an offshoot of the message boards at the now-defunct fastball.com. The site's name was inspired by former major leaguer Sam Horn, who played for the Red Sox as a would-be phenom in the late 80s (and whose career was ultimately a disappointment), and is a wordplay on the notorious Son of Sam serial killer.
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[edit] Rise to prominence
SoSH garnered national attention during the 2003-2004 Major League Baseball offseason, when it consistently "scooped" several mainstream sports media outlets such as ESPN and WEEI radio in reporting the Alex Rodriguez and Nomar Garciaparra trades, the Red Sox in general, and even the rival New York Yankees.
The site is frequented by one Red Sox player who is a member, Curt Schilling, who often shares his thoughts and views with SoSH membership in an effort to directly communicate with the team's ardent fan base while bypassing what some perceive to be the jaded, embittered, agenda-driven members of the Boston press corps. Red Sox executives and even members of the Boston sports media have recently started using -- or at least reading -- the forum as well; readers welcome the brief but momentous comments of JohnWHenry (John W. Henry, Red Sox principal owner) and other sports figures.
SoSH also has frequent interviews and online chat sessions with prominent figures from the baseball world. Participants have included Red Sox GM Theo Epstein, sabermetric pioneer and Red Sox consultant Bill James, Baseball America editor Jim Callis, WBZ-TV sports director Bob Lobel, ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons, Boston Globe writer Gordon Edes, baseball historian Rob Neyer, and Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus.
[edit] Win It For
One celebrated thread from the site has even been published in book form. Member jacklamabe65 (real name, Shaun Kelly, a veteran Greenwich, Connecticut school teacher) began a thread titled Win It For during the 2004 American League Championship Series against the Yankees. The thread was started as a plea to the Red Sox to win the championship for family members, friends, and other long-suffering Red Sox fans. Eventually, the thread grew to over 1,000 replies and a book. After trailing in the ALCS, three games to none, the Red Sox launched the biggest comeback in Major League history to dispatch their archrivals and went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. The night after Boston won its first world's championship in eighty-six years, Peter Jennings ended his national broadcast of "ABC World News Tonight" with a two-minute report on the thread. Subsequently, the Win It For book was published by Sports Publishing with the proceeds going to charity. On October 19, 2006, a complete copy of the original thread was formally accepted into the rare books section of the Baseball Hall of Fame by its Board of Trustees. HOF President Dale Petroskey sent Shaun Kelly a certificate indicating that the thread would forever have a permanent home in Cooperstown. Acclaimed baseball author Leigh Montville, who featured the "Win if For" thread in his own book on the 2004 Red Sox, Why Not Us?, states, "At the very least, 100 years from now, 'Win if For' will be THE historical record of what happened here. The other works - mine included - will have faded away, but the 'Win it For' thread on The Sons of Sam Horn will remain as the voice of voices concerning the 2004 Boston Red Sox."
[edit] Membership, threads, and nicknames
SoSH membership is restricted; the administrators and members feel this is necessary to keep a high quality of discussion on the boards. Frequently found on the main boards are statistical analyses of player performance similar to Bill James' sabermetrics. SoSH believes that they specialize in tracking Sox minor league prospects through the farm system; an entire forum is devoted to the "Adopt-a-Prospect" system. The site has also helped to popularize a number of nicknames for Sox players, such as "Florida" for David Ortiz (purported to be the nephew of former TV actress Esther Rolle), "The Professional" for Bill Mueller, and "Hershi" for Jeremi Gonzalez, whose quest to pitch three consecutive perfect innings during the 2005 season was followed intensely by the SoSH community.
[edit] Effect offline
Despite the edgy nature of discussion that exists on the board, posters maintain close relationships with each other. Members reunite each summer at the annual SoSH Bash, a bacchanal that includes a Red Sox game, appetizers served in a sporadic and maddeningly slow fashion, and SoSH member LawTown Fool sending scores of unsolicited magazines to fellow poster Madison, who won SoSH's Annual "Favorite Player" thread contest. In 2005, the Bash was held at the Pine Street Inn in Boston, and in honor of the 2004 Boston Red Sox World Championsip, the menu included mangos, "bo-lowe-ney" omelettes, and "Bill Mueller Hungryman Fried Chicken", in addition to the traditional Red Sox staples of hot dogs and beer.
Longtime member Eric Van became well known on the message board thanks to his in-depth statistical analysis and insightful posts. He secured a position with the Boston Red Sox front office in 2005, possibly as a result of his SoSH tenure.
