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![[img]](http://www.sportsrant.com/forums/vbmynews/viewthu.php?id=180504-396580) The tag line reads, “01 team. 85 yrs. 00 rings.” Still We Believe: The Boston Red Sox Movie. Sigh. Another Boston Red Sox fan chronicle of the suffering that comes with 85 years of futility. Yep, just another day as a member of the fellowship of the miserable. Chock up another to the Curse of the Bambino. “Hey Nomah, you ruined my summah!”
B.S.
As a member of Red Sox Nation with the authority to speak for the group (a perk that comes with writing an obscure online sports column), I am sick and tired of being portrayed by the national sports media as a miserable, hopeless, long suffering dolt with a bad accent. In fact the Red Sox Nation is just the opposite. We are eternal optimists offering undying support under the belief that every year our team has the stuff to win it all.
Though the movie offers a glimpse into this dedication, the real problem with Still We Believe: The Boston Red Sox Movie is that it is a celebration of the most heartbreaking defeat in recent Red Sox history. It is the equivalent of the broken hearted schlub sobbing over pictures of his super-model ex girlfriend in front of a heckling crowd. It serves only for outsiders to pity or mock us. More than that, the movie, just like every other national piece on curses and comic futility, features a gaggle of New England stereotypes whose coronary health seems dependent on every pitch.
Allow me to clear up a few things. One, we do not “pahk our cah in Hahvahd Yahd.” There is no “Havahd Yahd.” It is called Harvard Square. And with the “pahking” situation in Boston being so poor, most of us would preferably take the T (the Boston subway system). Two, we do not believe in curses. The Curse of the Bambino is an invention of lousy Boston Globe sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy and only serves to give our girlfriends with no understanding of the game something to bring up during baseball conversation. And three, while we may be the most passionate baseball fans in the country, when the Red Sox lose (even in Game 7 of the ALCS to the Yankees) most simply turn off the television or radio and get on with our lives. We are not that out of touch with reality to believe that our well-being is dependent on something as absurd as a baseball game.
What Still We Believe should have examined is how constant success can be a gift that in one of life‘s ironies can also become a curse. For 85 years the team has had the stuff to win it all, and sans a few bad decisions and dumb bad luck they could have done it. That may be tragic. But, by documenting a crushing and unnecessary loss to a hated rival and a handful of extreme and borderline insane fans initial reactions, Still We Believe perpetuates only the tragedy. This undermines our relationship with our team.
We love the Red Sox. We are thankful that the team is constantly competitive and that every year could be the year that they win it all. This is the stuff that makes other fans in other cities jealous.
Bottom line, Red Sox Nation needs no sympathy (save that for the hopeless Brewers fans). We have long buried those feelings of what-if and could-have-been with the help of a Patriots’ Super Bowl win, a revamped and improved pitching staff, and another great start to a sure to be successful season.
Still we believe? Well, at least the movie got that much right.
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