The Red Sox (and a few other teams, like the Yankees) do have a lot of a) New Englanders travel to see games, or b) people
in that area who just are Red Sox fans. In places like
Anaheim, Balt., Chicago, etc. you will see them.
I went to
Baltimore to see Orioles play Yankees and you’d think it were Yankee Stadium.
A place that holds 46,000 might normally have 20,000 people
attending but when Sox or Yanks come to town, it could be
close to a sellout, if not a sellout.
In places like Florida there are New Englanders who have
gone to retire, and they cheer the Sox when they play in
Tampa Bay. In NYC, you will even get quite a few
Red Sox fans attending because it’s fairly close. Before
they moved to DC, the Expos would get a lot of NY fans;
I went to one game at Olympic Sta. vs. Mets and you could
tell a lot of New Yorkers were there. Maybe on vacation
in Montreal,and they picked the week when the Mets (or
Yanks in interleague) were there.
I remember in ‘94, the strike year, the Indians kept
selling out Jacobs Field and fans had to go to other
stadia to catch them. I went to a game at Fenway the
Friday before the strike started—after a 2.5 hr rain
delay, the game got called without a pitch being thrown.
But I was talking to Tribe fans who were excited about
their team (in first place IIRC) and were frustrated that the strike was about to happen.
The Indians sold out “the Jake” 455 straight times. If
you go there, under retired numbers it says “455—The Fans”.
The Red Sox are now up to about 370 straight sellouts at
Fenway and hope to break the record next year.
And yes it’s weird and sad that the White Sox, who won
it all a couple years back, are doing so poorly.
How about the Marlins who won 2 World Series and I believe
soon got rid of most of their talent (’fire sales’) and
soon went into the dumpster?
One year, I forget when, the White Sox were only three
games out of first place at the trading deadline and
they got rid of more than a bit of their talent.
Fans were frustrated about that.
That is known around town as the “White Flag” trade. Some of the people that the White Sox picked up became important in 2005.
After 2006, the White Sox figured that their starting pitching and their hitting were fine, but that they needed help in the bullpen. They went out and got it - preseason evaluations in the Chicago papers were encouraging. What happened? The offense has never produced, all year, from the beginning of the season to now, and no one in town forsaw that. That has really surprised people. The starting pitching has struggled, more than people figured. And none of the bullpen moves worked. Bobby Jenks will end up with around 40 or more saves (if the White Sox can take a lead into the 9th at least 4 or 5 more times this season) and tied a major league record for consecutive hitters making out (41). They have exactly 2 starters with ERA’s under 4.00 and only one of those has a winning record (Vasquez, 11 - 7) - the other, Mark Buhrle, is 9 - 9. The rest of the pitching staff has just not performed, and neither have the hitters. Ozzie has taken some heat, but people are starting to come around to the realization that this is a player failure.
Not that I wasn’t thrilled to see the Red Sox come in and sweep. They needed the wins, and it coupled great with the MFY’s troubles in Detroit.
The 4 games here were all sellouts, and had been since the beginning of the season. I wanted to go, but I didn’t want to spend $100 for a good seat from the scalpers, either legal or illegal. A whole lot of people didn’t show up for the games, which helped Red Sox Nation really stand out.
I think part of the reason why you see so many Red Sox fans around the country is that you have a lot of kids come from all over the nation to go to MIT, Harvard, BU, BC, Tufts, etc. and get into the Red Sox. Then they go home and follow the team.
The last Red Sox series in Baltimore set an attendance record for Fenway Park South..err..I mean Crammed In Yards. A Yank-off fan friend of mine got tickets for us to see the Skanks play the Oreos last series they had in Baltimore and the stadium was only two-thirds full. The atmosphere definitely was not like when the Red Sox are in town.