The surest sign the Sawks are too annoying is when Orioles fans start rooting for the Yankees to win. In fact, we in Baltimore find Yankee fans almost tolerable when compared to the Boston idiots.

"Instead of complaining try beating them at their own game."

Wow, as a Phillies fan this statement really stings. I would love to beat them at their own game - I'm sure Mr. Ford would love to also. Unfortunately neither I or Ford own the Phillies and therefore have no ability to do so. All we can do is complain.

None of these sad facts take away from how profoundly annoying Red Sox Nation is. I have been rooting for the Yankees for several seasons now . . . something unimaginable to me five years ago.

Agreed "Red Sox Nation" is annoying, and this is coming from someone who lives about 4 miles from the ballpark.

But you know what? The Red Sox have the fans that care the most and the owners that care the most. And I have a hard time blaming them for that.

Chris, that's the prototypical Philly attitude there ("all we can do is complain"). Of the two things I mentioned above, one is in your control and one isn't. There's no guarantee that a more positive, larger fanbase would get the owners spending more. But I'd bet it's a more effective strategy than complaining.

But are there actually Sawx fans in the rest of the country who aren't either from NE or children of New Englander parents who initiated them into the pernicious cult?

Imo Sawx "nation" is the result of so many of its sons and daughters leaving the hellhole that is Boston and its environs for more liveable places -- which means pretty much anywhere else.

Which is a way of saying that I'm not sure marketing has much to do with it, but rather winning. In winning all those NE transplants and their kids have come home to the team, whereas when the team is losing they, being so far removed from NE, couldn't have cared less about the team.

I should note that almost everyone I know out here in Chicago is a Cub fan, and for a long time Cub fans had an affinity for the Sawx b/c of their shared record of losing -- even though the Cubs were much worse over the long haul -- and similar rundown ballparks. I've managed to turn almost all of them against the Sawx -- a final blow for the few remaining holdouts was when the Sawx in celebrating their various victories last year put on goggles in the clubhouse to protect their precious sissy eyes from the beer and champagne.

It's due to the success of the team. People are sick of Boston fans in general and I could care less. I'm enjoying the success of my teams.

I was a Red Sox fan growing up. Despite playing for the Giants and Royals I still had a soft spot for the team.

The sale of the team by the Yawkey Trust changed all that. The deal was "steered" by Bud Selig, John Harrington et al to the Henry Group, which was not the highest bidder. Other people outbid them by $ 70 million. For Bud to be part of shorting a charity by millions in order to put his people in place is a crime worse than the steroids issue.

Bud also stuffed George Mitchell into the winning group as a reward for being part of the Blue Ribbon panel that said MLB was a economic basket case - but George signed on and got 500K per year as a director. Then he got $ 20 million to investigate the steroids issue from deal old Bud.

Someday a book will be written about this - and the story will be that the Patriots and Sawx both got good when they were able to skirt the law.

Sorry - what's the whining about? Sox fans travel, show their colors and support their team. Support your own teams and there won't be all those empty seats for Sox fans to buy.

In a Sox-Yanks game I root for both teams to lose by ten runs.

This is pretty rich coming from a Philadelphia sportswriter. I agree that Sox fans, especially the post-2004 ones, can be obnoxious, but you can't blame people from Boston traveling to other cities to see the Sox play when Fenway is sold out every game. It's cheaper to buy tickets, even with air- or train-fare and a hotel, than buying scalped tickets on Yawkey Way.
I took my family to an inter-league game in Philly a couple of years ago and suffered more abuse from Phillies' fans than I ever encountered at Yankee Stadium. One drunk behind me--and this was a day game--started swearing at my 11-year-old son for wearing an Ortiz jersey. Nice, especially considering his own young daughter was sitting next to him.

Bob Tufts- that book's already been written. It's called Feeding the Monster, and it documents the fact that the group that out bid Henry and co didn't actually have the cash to back up their bid. Check it out.

Amos - I know all of the characters who bid for the team - Comcast was truly behind the bis in question.

Yankee Fan... there's like 50 colleges within 10 miles of Boston. So yeah, some people are going to leave after school. But I can tell you with certainty, a whole hell of a lot of them stay. My rent for a 1-bedroom on the outskirts of the Red Line of the T is fairly good evidence of this.

And Bob Tufts... I've got to say, I think the group that bought the Sox may very well be the best ownership in all of the major sports. It would be nice to have gotten more money to a charity, but let's face it - we're watching $100 million payrolls play a game, and we're paying $35 a seat for the privelege of being within 100 feet of it. Picking and choosing where money should go to charities is sort of a tough task. I can't imagine another owner or ownership group doing a better job running a team than the folks running the Red Sox. And I think that it's in the best interests of baseball that the group that got it, got it.

Mike - you are correct that the best group got the franchise, but before the recent success that was not evident. Werner in SD, Lucchino in Balt/SD, Henry as a minority owner of the Yanks and Marlins owner. Larry has the smarts and aggressiveness (Ballpark by Peter Richmond was a good description of his work). Larry was good on stadium work more than team planning, as he had been with relatively small market teams.

The deal was done to get the Expos out of Montreal, Henry out of the Marlins and perhaps lead to contraction of the Twins and Expos. The State AG was called in and the tezam was leaned on in order to make up some of the difference so it wouldn't look so bad.

Harrington got the concession contract extended to knock out Karp's group, his lawyers came up with reasons to knock out Prentice (Comcast wasn't vetted by MLB? Please!). I would have found a way to knock out any Dolan family member!!

I do give props to my two Princetonians, Mike Hazen in minor league development and Larry.

I grew up in Central Connecticut in the '70's and '80's and am a die hard Sox fan. My first game at Fenway was Game 3 of the Boston Massacre (7-0 Yanks). I've since moved to Atlanta and have paid for MLB EI every year so that I could watch the Sox, even during horrid years like 1996-97 (I think '97 was my first year of EI).

Sox fans suffered through bad teams for years because of a bumbling, racist owner (Yawkey) followed by bumbling idiots after he died (Sullivan, LaRoux, Yawkey Trust/Harrington). I will NOT apologize for the teams success and the blessing of competent ownership for the first time in nearly a century. Nor will I apologize for enjoying it. I make it a personal policy never to rub recent success in to anyone (I saw enough of that from Yanks fans as a kid, thanks) I just want to wear my Sox gear and root for my team. I'm sorry some of you get put out by that, but then, that's not my problem.

Yeah, there are a lot of bandwagon fans, but how is that unique to the Sox? Yankees, Cowboys, Duke, Notre Dame, Raiders (a long time ago), Steelers, the list goes on of teams with bandwagon jumpers. This is not a unique phenomenon.

Instead of criticizing us, why not criticize Tampa or Miami for not coming out to support their exciting young teams?

Speaking as someone who's Sox fandom was quenched in the fires of watching my dad slump in front of the TV during the 1986 World Series, I refuse to take any responsibility for A) massholes and B) people who converted after last October and still have Jeter jerseys in the back of their closets.

Also, what Paul said about supporting Miami and Tampa's great young teams.

Also, Manny haters suck.

I'm not criticizing die hard Red Sox fans. My roommate is one of them, and I respect your fandom.

All this article was discussing is how annoying it is for a die hard fan of another team (in my case the Phillies) to be subjected to Red Sox Nation. Its straight up annoying, and there is nothing a single fan or sports writer can do to get their ownership to not be a collection of horses asses. Which is what Mr. Pinto suggests we do in his post.