A Message for the Pink Hats

A few days ago, I was listening to the latest installment of “Ask a Pink Hat” on the Toucher and Rich Show on 98.5 The Sports Hub. During this bit, someone from the show asks a female, pink-hat-wearing Red Sox fan questions about the team that would be pretty easy to answer, even for the novice baseball fan.

For example, one of the questions was:

“What’s the shape of the infield?”

This pink hat answered “octagon“. For the record, a baseball infield is shaped like a diamond. Not only did this pink hat have no clue about baseball, but her geometry skills are suspect too. It’s sad that people like this consider themselves fans of the Red Sox.

The days of the pencil pushers who kept score during the game and the gentlemen who listened to the game on a Walkman© while watching from their seats are long gone. Instead, Red Sox Nation is being infiltrated by morons. Branded like a scarlet letter, the pink hats symbolize a fickle following who are only concerned with eating Fenway Franks™ and waiting for the eighth inning to belt out “Sweet Caroline” out of tune. Who’s pitching tonight? Which team are they playing against? Well, the pink hats don’t care as long as Jacoby (!!!) is in the starting lineup. There are a good number of female Red Sox fans who actually follow the team, but they are being drowned out by the idiotic, designer-sunglass-wearing frauds that could not care less about who’s playing third or who the Red Sox top prospect is. To the pink hats, a Red Sox game is like clubbing or bar hopping. It’s another trendy thing to do when you are in Boston.

If  the pink hats were more like the great Lib Dooley, aka The Queen of Fenway Park, then maybe they would receive some respect. Dooley was one of the best fans the Red Sox ever had. She attended more than 4,000 consecutive home games for over 55 seasons, from 1944 to 2000. She knew Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio and witnessed Carl Yastrzemski’s first and last games as a Red Sox. She was a passionate fan of the team and actually enjoyed the game and not just the surroundings.

My message to the pink hats is simple: Take an interest in the game or stay home and leave your ticket for someone actually interested in seeing the game. You have an opportunity to see the Red Sox, and for some baseball fans that’s a tough ticket. Pink hats don’t need to be baseball experts, they just need some of the same passion that Lib Dooley had every time she saw the Red Sox.

For more mildly biased commentary about the Red Sox, check out John’s blog The Lansdowne Lowdowne. Follow him on Twitter @lansdownelow and Facebook.