Israel Matzav

Giuliani to root for Red Sox

In today's important news, Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani, in Boston to pick up an endorsement, told a press conference fans that he will be rooting for the Boston Red Sox in the upcoming World Series. (Hat Tip: NY Nana)

"I'm rooting for the Red Sox," Giuliani said while wearing a red tie during a press conference in Boston's financial district. "I am an American League fan."

The former New York mayor said he wasn't pandering to the local crowd either.

"I am not just saying that because I am in Massachusetts. If I am in Colorado in the next week or two you will see that I have the courage to tell the people of Colorado the same thing," he said.

Giuliani is the former Mayor of New York City, and the New York fans, now suffering from the continuing Curse of the Yankees, were not pleased.

"I'm an American League fan, and I go with the American League team, maybe with the exception of the Mets," he said. "Maybe that would be the one time I wouldn't because I'm loyal to New York."

Which raises the question -- if you're loyal to New York, why would you root for the enemy?

Many New Yorkers aren't quite sure, and are quite stumped by his comments.

"Sellout, traitor," one New Yorker told CBS 2. "He's a traitor. You always go with your home team."

...

But the whole rooting for the American League squad just doesn't good enough for most Yankee fans.

"How can he go against the Yankees like that? It's unbelievable," another fan told CBS 2.

According to a WCBS unscientific poll, 65% of the voters do not buy Giuliani's story and deem him 'disloyal.' Deal with it suckers!!!! BWAWAWAWAWAWAWA!

Meanwhile, Neo-neocon, who grew up in New York, lives in New England and roots for the Red Sox, says we should forget the election and enjoy baseball.

It seems like overkill to me. Despite being a political blogger, I wouldn’t ever charactize myself as a political junkie. They seem to be some sort of special breed. I’ll get interested when the time comes, but that time seems to me to be a long and winding road away.

Till then, there are more pressing things, such as my beloved Red Sox—speaking of long and winding roads—who’ve come from behind to win the American League championship, which means they’ll be going to the World Series for the second time in four years.

The last time—as anyone who follows baseball even the slightest bit is well aware—they won the whole thing, in a fabulous and momentous Breaking of the Curse, the significance of which only fellow long-suffering Red Sox fans (with the addition, perhaps, of those who follow the Cubs, whose agonies are hardly comparable in terms of curse duration) can truly appreciate.

Now the Boston sportswriters are actually getting a bit cocky:

This must have been what it felt like in the early days of Fenway when the Royal Rooters ruled and the Red Sox were regular hosts of baseball’s autumnal showcase. From 1915 through 1918, the Sox won three World Series. They did not win again until 2004, the beginning of a magical October run that has resumed over the last four days.

I’ve written previously, here, about my baseball fandom, the what and the why and the wherefore. Once I got interested in baseball—savoring its grace and beauty, its suspense and slowness—it was clear I was a born Red Sox fan. Despite having grown up in New York in the heyday of the fabled Yankees. they had never really grabbed my heart; they were too slick, too predictable as winners.

No, the underdog Red Sox were the ones for me, and even their 2004 win, celebrated here by Globe sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy, hasn’t changed that. Back in 2004, I was one of the Boston fans who couldn’t believe that the long-awaited impossible had finally become not only possible, but real:

”This is like an alternate reality,” said Sox owner John W. Henry, soaked in champagne (Mount Pleasant, 2003 Brut Imperial). ”All of our fans waited their entire lives for this.”

Read the whole thing. And prepare yourselves to have to put up with an occasional Red Sox post between now and November 1.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:17 AM