I have remained silent about the Red Sox this season, partly because I like to watch but don’t have cable. I’ll check the box scores in the paper, maybe read a little online.  How about radio, you ask?  As much as I enjoy listening to a ballgame on radio, it’s not at the front of my mind.  But mostly I haven’t felt compelled to pay attention.  I miss watching the games.  I can’t go to Fenway Park because the scalpers and brokers have priced me and the kids out of a chance to go to a ballgame, and that pisses me off to no end.

You might say that I am a casualty of the 21st century.  Raised on radio, seduced by TV, abandoned by cable. 

Another reason why I have held back judgement on Ye Olde Towne Team is because of hope.  Every Red Sox fan has hope.  Since 2004, hope has been redefined.  You might call it BWS and AWS..Before World Series and After World Series.  With BWS, through the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and early part of this century, Red Sox fans wore their disappointment like a badge of honor.  We lived and died with our team.  We loved them when they were winning, but hoping the failures weren’t too devistating.  Our heroes both deserved praise and incurred our wrath.  I could cite numerous examples, but we’d be here all day.

Ever since the Sox won the ‘04 and ‘07 World Series’, Red Sox Nation has taken on a different hue.  Firstly, Red Sox Nation is a marketing ploy.  You can be a card-carrying member of Red Sox Nation, but you have to pay for the privilege.  And, no, not with blood,sweat and tears, and year in and out of watching good and great teams get so close, but not close enough.  No, membership is hard cash.  But this incarnation of Red Sox Nation is sorely lacking.  The newbies didn’t earn their stripes.  The Impossible Dream is only to be read about online. They didn’t endure the Collapse of ‘78 and Bucky Freakin’ Dent.  They didn’t have their hopes raised high to heaven by Carlton Fisk in Game 6 in The Greastest World Series Game Ever, only to have those hopes dashed in Game 7.  Maybe they remember Bill Buckner and Calvin Scharaldi in ‘86.  Maybe they remember staying up to watch a few innings before shuffling off to bed.  Buckner has been pardoned.  We made sure of that after ‘04.  But Scharaldi hasn’t even stood trial for crimes against humanity in Game 6 of that series.  And Bob Stanley has gotten off light, even though HE gave up the hit to Mookie Wilson.

Sorry, I got sidetracked.  We were talking about hope.

We all had hope at the beginning of the season.  That’s one thing that’s great about baseball.  There IS always next year. The start of a new season brings new hope.  I felt that way about this season.  This year it seemed that all the pieces came together.  Good pitching, good hitting, solid bench and the bullpen was lights out.  But, like everything in baseball, nothing is guaranteed.

The injuries to, among others, Tim Wakefield and Mike Lowell, have been ill timed.  But, there really is no good time for an injury.  At the moment, we can’t seem to hit our way out of a paper sack.  New faces have been taking the place of old reliables and the chemistry has been disrupted, temorarily.

Two issues that are gnawing at me currently.  They are the combined ineptitude of John Smoltz and Brad Penny.  I’m not going to dig deep for stats.  I don’t watch the game for stats.  I do have an expectation that the standards of excellence be met, and those two need to be shown the door.  Neither seem to be able to pitch past the 5th inning.  Neither of them have commanding stuff, so hitters are just sitting back and waiting, and the results have been awful.  Every member of Red Sox Nation wants to ask Sox GM Theo Epstein, “Why?”  Why did you sign them?  Was our pitching in that bad shape to sign those weary arms?  Granted, Smoltz is coming off arm surgery, but now we know why the Braves didn’t think twice about not signing him.  He’s got over 20 seasons under his belt.  Did the Red Sox think that he’d go Roy Hobbs, complete with a gaping bullet wound, carry the team on his back into the playoffs?  He may know HOW to throw the pitch, but he can’t pitch the way he did in the 90’s.  Go quietly now and we’ll see you in Cooperstown in 2014.

Penny….okay, ‘06 Marlins won the World Series.  But he’s no Josh Beckett.  Sorry, you just don’t have it anymore.

SO…….where does that leave the Sox?  Justin Masterson has been banished to the Indians.  Daniel Bard pitches long relief, Michael Bowden and Clay Bucholtz deserve to be in Boston, but those two pantloads Penny and Smoltz are holding them back.  Bring the new guys in.  They have paid their dues.  They have the stuff. 

Baseball is a wonderful thing.  Some don’t get it.  The Woman Who Broke My Heart thought it was too slow.  But it’s a game that slowly evolves over the course of nine innings.  It demands your attention during those slow moments between pitches.  If you always watch the ball, you miss bits and pieces of the action.  I constantly have my head moving when the ball is in play.  I don’t want to miss anything.  I drink it all in like cool water.

But you have to wonder about the latest generation of Red Sox fans.  They are a different breed.  They are brought up on mechandising.  Gotta have the Red Sox replica shirts.  The girls have to wear the pink caps.  It’s posing.  For many of them, it’s like going to a frat party.  It’s the hottest ticket in town and they got in.  Do they really care about the game?  Or are they more concerned with the good seats and better beer?  Have Red Sox fans become like Yankee fams?

No, this generation of Sox fans, singing “Sweet Caroline”  in the late innings, and believing that we’re entitled to win every World Series, are almost as bad as Yankee fans.  Save the “Yankees Suck” hubris for after the game, after you’ve pounded down a river of Sam Adams.    Ask them about the Spaceman and they’ll ask if its a PS3 game.  They’re the ones who wear their replica Sox jerseys with 24 on the back,  swearing that the best player to wear that number was Manny.  Hello?  Remember Dwight Evans?  Not even Ricky Henderson would run on that arm.

That sense of entitlement can lead the most sane individual down a most precarious path.  Your enthusiasm can be interpreted as arrogant, obnoxious, and off-putting.  Start talking smack like that and you can only get into trouble.

As much as I think this season can be saved, I also believe we are walkinga thin line.  The line between glory and heartbreak.  Does the new breed of Sox fans have the stuff to weather this?  Will Big Papi lose face and respect?  Will Dice-K pull it all together, listen to the coaches, and be the brilliant star most fans want him to be? 

We’ll just have to wait and see.