In honor of Opening Day of the 2010 MLB Season, my friend Bryan Allain and I exchanged guest posts regarding our respective love for the Yankees and Red Sox.
Bryan writes daily about the humorous side of life, sports, faith, pop culture, and living among the Amish at his blog, BryanAllain.com. He also mini-blogs on this secret contraption he calls “Twitter” at twitter.com/bryanallain.
Billy Coffey is a Yankees fan and I am a Red Sox fan. We might agree on a lot of the important things in life, but when it comes to baseball, make no mistake about it, he is my enemy.
If you’re reading this post and you too are a fan of the Red Sox or Yankees, I know you can’t be swayed. I’ve got a better shot at changing your gender than changing your mind about which team to root for. But for those of you who don’t have an allegiance either way, let me offer up a few points to help you make an informed decision.
7 Reasons to root for the Red Sox over the Yankees
1. Every good story involves conflict, and few stories in sports were as tragic as the 86-year drought the Red Sox were in before winning the World Series in 2004 (and again in 2007). Ooooh, the Yankees have won 27 World Series titles? Yawn.
2. Jorge Posada pees on his bare hands during spring training to toughen them up. (I’ve also heard unconfirmed reports that Joba Chamberlain wipes without toilet paper in the spring for the same reason.) If you respect good hygiene, the Yankees are not your team.
3. Everyone loves to lump in the Red Sox with the Yankees in terms of team salary, but it’s not even close. The Yankees paid over $201 million for their 2009 World Series win. The next team? The Mets at $135 million. Then the Red Sox? Nope. Then the Cubs at $135 million and THEN the Red Sox at $122 million. Are you incensed that baseball players make way too much money? Me too, let’s move on.
4. The Red Sox let Johnny Damon grow out his hair and beard when he played for them. The Yankees made Damon cut both to conform to their archaic monarchy. Do you really want to support a franchise that tries to suppress individual expression? It’s like rooting for the communists.
5. The Red Sox kept their old stadium and continue to improve it year after year, showing respect for history and tradition. The Yankees just blew up their old stadium, and now play in a place where seats behind home plate run for a measly $2500.
6. In 2004 the Red Sox completed the best comeback in all of sports history, erasing a 3 games to none deficit by winning 4 straight games in 5 days, including the final two in Yankee Stadium, to advance to the World Series (and eventually win it). No matter what happens from here on out, even if it comes out that every Red Sox player was guzzling HGH and snorting steroids, that week can never be taken away from me. And if you build a time machine and go back to 2004 as a Red Sox fan, you can relive it too.
7. The more the Yankees lose, the more tortured every Yankees fan get. So if you like your writers nice and angst-ridden, keep rooting for the Yankees to lose.
You think Billy is a good writer now? Wait until the Yankees have missed the playoffs for 5 straight years. He’ll be churning out stuff that makes Steinbeck look like high school English student.
So there you have it. If you love Billy’s writing and want more of it, you MUST root for the Red Sox.
Deep down, that’s probably what Billy wants to.
To read Billy’s side of the story, check out his guest post over on my blog today, bryanallain.com
