I Hate The Red Sox.... But Only Because I Love Them

It's tough being a Red Sox fan. We've gone from being fans of the lovable losers to being universally reviled by most of the country. Our owners feign to care, but in reality they're so anxious to make a buck they're licking their chops for Johnny Pesky to die so they can auction off his body parts. Boston Dirt Dogs is considered the voice of our fanbase. And, the bandwagon is so full it makes it nearly impossible to get tickets without knowing someone with tickets or taking out a second mortgage. So, Red Sox Nation has to endure things like this:

It starts with an email:

Dear Jeffrey,

Congratulations! You've been selected for the opportunity to purchase tickets for one of the following games to be played at Fenway Park in 2007: Opening Day (4/10 versus the Seattle Mariners), Patriots Day (4/16 versus the L.A. Angels), or one of the nine contests versus the New York Yankees (4/20, 4/21, 4/22, 6/1, 6/2, 6/3, 9/14, 9/15, 9/16).

That's right! I entered a contest to win the opportunity to have a chance to buy Red Sox tickets. I suppose this is akin to winning a raffle to be able to enter a convenience store so you can buy scratch tickets to possibly win money. But whatever, I won.

Following that, you get the wonderful chance to experience the virtual waiting room. Since you're no longer allowed to pay homeless guys to wait in line for you outside the box office, the Sox have resorted to this. The Virtual Waiting Room is a website that automatically refreshes every 30 seconds, hopefully to a site that allows you to look for tickets, but realistically into another virtual waiting room. Mostly you open as many tabs/windows to maximize the chances that one of the VWR turn into a ticket buying opportinity (note: it is not yet illegal to hire homeless people to stare at your computer screen with you). Here's what I was looking at this morning:



There's not a better way to spend a Saturday morning afternoon than hanging out in 8 virtual waiting rooms and being shut out for Opening Day tickets. Good times. But my persistence paid off and reminded me why I actually love the Red Sox. After 35 minutes of clicking the same sequence of 3 buttons with alternate security codes, I finally got tickets. Two seats for Patriots Day. One of the greatest traditions in sports.

For the uninitiated, Patriots Day is a made up holiday that means nothing but happens to hold a special place in every Bostonians heart. That's because we get the running of the Boston Marathon and the Sox playing at 10 AM. After the Sox game, fans flock out to Kenmore Square just in time to see the marathon frontrunners race by. Pretty cool, and it's going to be my first Patriots Day game, so I'm extremely psyched.

Now if there was only some way for Sox ownership to charge runners passing through Kenmore admission....