Is it just me, or did The Boston Globe and Boston.com take way too much pleasure in the Red Sox collapse?
It seemed to me that they were determined to bring back the misery of Red Sox fans and transport them back to the days when all you heard about was "The Curse of the Bambino."
What's worse, it really looks like they're treating the loss as an occasion to celebrate. To revel in the moment, while looking back at other, similar times.
Am I exaggerating? I don't think so.
The day of the final game of the season, Globe columnist Brian McGrory, (not a sportswriter) penned the column - These Red Sox not a good fit for Boston. Why weren't they a good fit? Because, McGrory claimed, too many of them were "store bought" and "never paid homage to what the city and the Red Sox have traditionally been."
What precisely have the Red Sox traditionally been? Exactly what they were this season, a team with the second-highest payroll in baseball, made up of a number of highly-paid "stars" mixed with some younger, homegrown players. The whole column was nonsense, and seemed to be a setup for bigger things to come from the Globe.
Once the Red Sox were finally eliminated, and in historic, unbelievable fashion, the Globe and Boston.com really kicked into action.
You would expect nothing less from the paper than having Dan Shaughnessy on the front page, above the fold. Why Shaughnessy is the face of the Globe sports section and not Bob Ryan is one of life's great mysteries, but that's neither here nor there right now. The Globe delivered Shaughnessy, and as usual, he insulted his audience and blamed them for the collapse. How else to explain his line that "the baseball gods are punishing Red Sox Nation for hubris and arrogance?"
They stepped up their efforts on Twitter, too, making sure to promote their pieces that would appeal to those looking to blame someone or retweeting posts that promoted some sort of supernatural cause for this. Some examples:
Columnist Brian McGrory on the Sox: "This store-bought team never reflected Boston. " Your thoughts? http://t.co/DW65tRKp #pulseredsox
The Boston Globe
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"It is as if the baseball gods are punishing Red Sox Nation for hubris." http://t.co/Khy7VLWh via @Dan_ShaughnessyThe Boston Globe
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RT @charleslaramie: @BostonGlobe As a Cub fan I truly understand what Red Sox fans are feeling..it looks like the jinx is back!The Boston Globe
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From the archives: Ray Fitzgerald (http://t.co/L4nPxojK) and Peter Gammons (http://t.co/tH7mZoAb) from the '70s on Sox collapses.The Boston Globe
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The front pages of BostonGlobe.com and Boston.com were loaded with links to articles like Heartbreaking losses in Boston sports and Baseball gods were merciful and Go ahead, rip into the 2011 Sox. Polls and interactive features asked Replace Epstein? and Dump Tito? and Worst Sox loss ever?
They even encouraged readers to dip into the site archives for gems like Archives: Heartbreak again as Yankees walk off (2003) and Archives: They were just one pitch away (1986).
A rare voice of reason and relative calm was media writer Chad Finn, who is one of the cities under-appreciated baseball writers. Finn writes from the viewpoint of the fan, much like Bill Simmons did in his glory days as the Boston Sports Guy on Digital Cities, but with more focus. His piece was the one that you should've read on the site.
I guess though, that in the end, Boston.com and the Globe are really just giving the people what they want. After all, in the afternoon, a look at BostonGlobe.com showed that the five most popular stories for that day all had to do with the Red Sox. That's not just sports fans, that's all online readers of the Globe. Included in that list of popular articles were the McGrory and Shaughnessy columns mentioned above. Really, people?
Hey, at least the Bruins start up next week. Circle of life sports.