Red Sox fans are by their very nature reactionary. Unlike fans of most every other team there is a genetic memory of crushing losses and agonizing summers. This long suffering lot experienced a very curious transformation when the Henry ownership group took over the team, Fenway Park and the team both got face lifts.
Soon enough we experienced unprecedented success (at least modernly) with World Championships in 2004 and 2007, with that success came all of the freshly minted band wagon fans and Pink Hats.
For long time fans this success was something we hoped for desperately every spring, but never really expected to actually realize. But as others have noted this success has only served to feed the "monster," that insatiable desire of Red Sox fans for their team's continued success. In Boston and the surrounding New England area what was created is a sports pressure cooker where fans and media are stuck in overdrive on a 24/7 basis. The flowering of the Internet only made the problem worse, with innumerable blogs, message boards, podcasts and now social media like Twitter.
As fans, we are fanatics, we die with every loss and celebrate every triumph. Our emotions overrule or memories, we put to much focus on the on field performance today without consideration for the past or the future.
This is the social soup that I was raised in, growing up in Vermont, listening first to games on the radio, then on TV, then on NESN as it spread, and at Fenway. Now I am on the west coast, watching via MLB.TV.
In many ways this is the best of both worlds, I still get to see my beloved Red Sox, but I can unplug from the incessant media/fan coverage that the team generates in Boston.
I am no baseball expert, I am simply an fan and even with the benefit of distance, I am just as reactionary as any other. One losing streak is enough to get me thinking that Fenway is Burning...
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