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Also in today’s Herald, by WTKK’s Michael Graham

Red Sox win with red state MO
By Michael Graham
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 -

Pity the liberal Red Sox fan. All his life, he’s loved the Red Sox - and why?

Because they were Boston’s team, of course.

But Boston isn’t just the home of Red Sox Nation. It’s also the capital city of Blue State America, the heart of Kennedy Country.

For years, the worlds of baseball and left-wing politics experienced a peaceful coexistence, aided by the fact that the Red Sox were eternal underdogs.

Liberals have always been more comfortable around losers.

Many of the same fans whose hearts were broken by Bill Buckner in 1986 also voted Mike Dukakis for president two years later.

And in a September 2007 poll, about 20 percent of self-identified Democrats said “the world would be better off if the United States loses the war in Iraq.”

Another 20 percent of Democrats said they weren’t sure.

If you’re not sure you want American soldiers to defeat hate-spewing terrorist whack jobs, how do you get up for a baseball game against some guys in Colorado?

But then, I’ve never understood how any true progressive could get excited about sports to begin with.

Do liberal educators who’ve banned tag and won’t let kids keep score during soccer games really go home and scream at the TV, “The catcher’s blocking the plate. Youk, knock his head off!”?

Everything about Major League Baseball is anti-liberal.

There are no racial quotas, no affirmative action infielders.

Rookies like Dustin Pedroia don’t get any more strikes per at bat than seasoned veterans like Manny Ramirez, and none of the umps call the games in Japanese for the benefit of Messrs. Okajima and Matsuzaka.

One set of rules for everyone, applied without regard to race, creed or national origin. It’s a Massachusetts liberal’s nightmare.

It gets worse.
The Sox aren’t just winning, they’re winning by spending lots and lots of money. It’s the kind of income inequality that drives John Edwards to carefully comb his hair in frustration.

The Yankees still lead the league in money dumped on insufferable jerks who choke in the postseason, but the Red Sox payroll is the second highest in baseball ($143 million). Colorado, on the other hand, spent a mere $54 million - about half what the Sox spent to get Dice-K for six years.

How can lefty Sox fans feel good about this? In their lexicon, when people who work harder, have more talent and earn more money than the rest of us go out and buy stuff we can’t afford, liberals call that “stealing.” It’s the oppressive power of wealth.

So what is it when the Sox go out and spend $70 million on J.D. Drew? Besides a gross error in judgment, I mean? Where’s the social justice here?

Liberal Sox fans could rise up and demand that their principles be applied to the team they love.

For example, we could stop letting rich teams take the best talent like the Sox did with Dice-K. Instead, the owners could be forced to camp overnight outside the commissioner’s office the way die-hard fans do at Fenway trying to buy playoff tickets.

Or we pay every player the same, reasonable amount, line them up and let the managers pick teams at the beginning of every season. Isn’t that the liberal way?

Or we could abandon liberal principles completely and utterly and continue to let the Red Sox thrash every team between Long Island and L.A. Works for me.

But it’s a slippery slope, my left-leaning friends. Beware, for soon you may hear the voice of conservatism calling you to the Dark Side.

Then again, it might just be Curt Schilling.