The Resident Hometown-Team Complex

1 Comment 14 November 2009

It’s that all too familiar time of year. The Red Sox are the “October team” pushing their way to victory in the MLB playoffs. Last year at this time I was only a few months into college in Boston, and the Sox were tied 3-3 in the ALCS series versus the Indians. One year later, here I am, a resident of Boston and 13 months into my Massachusetts experience, however one thing has changed.

A year ago I was rooting against the Red Sox, now I’m rooting for them.

The hometown team has a special power to lift the spirits of it’s fans. The Phillies are lifitng the spirit West of the Delaware in times of economic turmoil, and I have to admit that the Red Sox have been doing the same for me.

As a newbie to living in Beantown and to being a tenant, life hasn’t been so smooth. Working two jobs, writing political thought paper’s on Aristotle and Plato, waking up at 4:30am to open a Coffee Shop which will pile in Financial District young professionals (the worst type of people) demanding strange combinations of syrup and caffiene, and coming home at 11 after an exhausting day all releases when the Red Sox triumph lifts away my stress at night. If they can do it, so can I. The more invincible they are, the more resilient I am to the outside world.

If they lose tonight, my spirits will fade.

Of course, I’m a huge realist so my spirits are little to begin with. If they lose I’ll be fine, in fact I will probably just focus on more important things in life.

But the point is, it’s impossible not to rot for the Red Sox after living in Boston for a year+ because when the sun goes down and the sounds of success at Fenway echo throughout the city, the sense of pride and victory can be felt pushing the citizens through the trials tribulations of life.

~Written by the man who grew up hating the Yankees.

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Tom Smith

Tom Smith - who has written 31 posts on Tom Smith Hearts.

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1 comment

j says:

November 17, 2009 at 4:38 pm

buck foston

go yankees

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Mom: You better hide your stuff.
Me: What stuff?
Mom: Your little doo-dads.
Me: What doo-dads?
Mom: You know…
Me: What? My weed paraphernalia?
Mom: Yeah.
Me: Why?
Mom: People can see it in your apartment
Me: Who’s going to see it in my apartment? My friends?
Mom: It could be anyone, you never know who’s going to be in your apartment
Me: I’ll never know who’s in my apartment?
Phone Conversation
09/07/10
Patting myself on the back
After finishing Matt taibbi’s great derangement, I feel so validated about my attitude toward politics.

There are certain beliefs I have about politics that people easily dismiss because they come off nihilistic, overly negative, and well, easy to dismiss. I have, since 2008, believed:
1. The American political system is solely a business of businessmen, with money the number 1 priority, always.
2. American foreign involvement in war or occupation in third world nations will never stop, it is embedded into the economy and always will be.
3. The candidates are the same, other than small social issue debates. Both Democrats and Republicans support the war regardless of what they say, and the President has little power to make drastic changes to a system that already produces massive wealth for the upper class.
In The Great Derangement Taibbi explores American politics and the right wing religious culture, only to discover that everything in this country can be whittled down to one key concept: $

So when people argue with me about NOT voting for the candidate who will bring “CHANGE,” or try and make me feel like an asshole for not partaking in the hype/buildup/debate or the 08 election, I can now simply say- you are not on my level on knowledge and understanding.

You don’t have a choice, you don’t win, and you can’t change it. You live in a terrible country (unless you like both buying new products and working 9-5).
07/29/10
Here I have a confession to make. It’s not something that’s easy to explain, but here goes. After two days of nearly constant religious instruction, songs, worship, and praise— two days that for me meant an unending regimen of forced and fake responses— a funny thing started to happen to my head. There is a transformational quality in these external demonstrations of faith and belief. The more you shout out praising the Lord, singing along to those awful acoustic tunes, telling people how blessed you feel, and so on, the more a sort of mechanical Christian skin starts to grow all over your real self. Even if you’re a degenerate Rolling Stone reporter inwardly chuckling and busting on the whole scene-even if you’re intellectually enraged by the ignorance and arrogant prejudice flowing from the mouth of a terminal ambition case like Phil Fortenberry— outwardly you’re swaying to the gospel and singing and praising and acting the part, and those outward ministrations assume a kind of sincerity in themselves. And at the same time, that “inner you” begins to get tired of the whole spectacle and sometimes forgets to protest—in my case checking out into baseball reveries and other daydreams while the outer me did the “work” of singing and praising. At any given moment, which one is the real you?
Matt Taibbi, The Great Derangement
07/27/10

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