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Oh, Grow Up

Carl Crawford made the last out for the Dodgers in their playoff loss to the Cardinals last night, and some alleged Red Sox fans went on Twitter to taunt the former Boston player as well as Red Sox-then-Dodger Adrian Gonzalez. This is a perfect example of loser fan behavior. It is the epitome of that ancient and honorable baseball epithet, bush.

Three World Series titles in this century, one of  'em just last season, and some Boston baseball fans still can't let go of spite as a reflex emotion. This is why, fellow residents, baseball fans elsewhere loathe Sox fans almost as much as they do Yankees and Cardinals fans. Successful people who taunt others for their failures are seldom popular.

It's unseemly, no, make that ridiculous, to mock another team's elimination from the playoffs when one's own team was eliminated from the postseason by Labor Day. And assuming Crawford and Gonzalez where the reason LA lost belies the notion that Bostonians are the world's most knowledgeable fans.

The Dodgers lost because Clayton Kershaw, the best pitcher in the sport in the regular season, twice went into the seventh inning with leads and could hold neither one and because manager Don Mattingly may be a superb leader of men, but doesn't seem to have a knack for bullpen juggling. Gonzalez led the majors in RBI this year. Without him, the Dodgers wouldn't have qualified to lose to the Cards.

Twitter plays hosts to millions of born losers speaking before they think (those that are capable of thought) on every topic under the sun each day. In 40 years as an alien sports fan in this city, I have learned that the overwhelming majority of Sox fans are blessedly normal, happy in victory, sad in defeat, but above all, primarily concerned with their own damn team.

The normal majority suffers for the sins of its loudest, dopiest brethren. Bushers have a way of dragging down a franchise -- on or off the field.

posted by Michael Gee @ 8:32 AM