If you visit this blog with any regularity (I’m sorry…), you may have seen that a producer at WCVB (ABC Boston) posted an inquiry for a story that was done about ‘disgruntled’ Red Sox fans. When I first saw it, honestly I got a little excited. I had some visions of a slickly edited channel 5 interview, or maybe my twitter headshot with a muffled phone voice, or maybe even surveillance-style still shots of me pumping gas. But nothing came of it. I suppose that’s what usually happens with these things – a producer sprays the internet looking for quick quotes and writes up a piece that gets chopped down to this.
So I read the story when it came out and I realized something: I am the problem. This schtick, this psuedo-political rage I’ve been running with for over a year now, is exactly the problem I’ve been complaining about. Instead of simply making choices more consistent with my baseball conscious, I’m fueling the look-at-me internet machine with more Red Sox attention. The 3rd most popular search term hit on this site is ‘Red Sox season tickets’ (behind ‘soxdetox’ and ‘sox detox’). People aren’t finding this site looking for Pirates commentary, or even general baseball talk. They’re finding it by looking for the GD narcissistic Boston PR-drunk Red Sox. Ugh. I am feeding the monster. It’s ugly.
So what to do? Can I just walk away and fully focus on the Pittsburgh Pirates? If I do, I guarantee that this site will no longer be of interest to any of you. I don’t know much about the Pirates prior to the 2012 season. (That’s a bit of a hole in my institutional memory.) I don’t have any of the battle wounds of the past 20 years. I don’t have anything to say about the ‘We Are Family’ Pirates or 1960. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I don’t even know much about Roberto Clemente. I know, I know… I suck at being a Pirates fan. I’m much better at hating the Red Sox.
Can I just step off the soapbox? Can I just shut my mouth and follow the Pirates with quiet humility? Can I just give myself to the daily drama of a small-market baseball team desperately seeking win #82? Or will I continue to give into the compulsion to keep picking the old scabs…
I suppose I have some thinking to do.
SOXDETOX 