Where have all the fans gone?

5/14/07: Final score: Red Sox 7, Tigers 1. Japanese sensation Daisuke Matsuzaka just pitched a phenomenal complete game - his only blemish a solo home run by the Tigers center fielder. This game will probably go down as one of the better pitched games by any Red Sox pitcher against a legitimate AL contender this year.

Yet, I was seated among the rowdy crowd at Fenway by the right field bleachers. Maybe I just haven't been to enough games as all these other supposed fans - but when exactly did fandamonium turn into a drunken display of poor sportsmanship and rowdiness? The view of the amazing game happening directly in front of me was obscured, first of all, by a drunken fat chick wouldn't stop talking about anything that was everything. She obviously had about eight too many to drink even before stepping into the ballpark - stumbling up and down the stair for an occasional Budweiser in between innings. Not knowing what inning, the score, or whoever was pitching, for that matter, she continued to harass my co-worker and me with her slurred speech and general unpleasant appearance. I felt bad for her sister who sat next to her, and had to apologize basically for all of her actions.

The fandamonium didn't quite end there. Directly behind me was a group of boisterous young twenty-something’s who ended up being tossed for smoking in the bleachers. Before that, however, they were just generally unpleasant. Drunken frat boys hung in the bleacher seats in front of me - pointlessly heckling the scant Tigers fans nestled in the sea of Fenway faithfuls. Needless to say, I was surrounded by a bunch of Fenway idiots - precisely some of the same people that I try to avoid on a Friday night in Fanueil Hall after a Celtics or Bruins game.

I guess I was just a bit taken back by the type of environment that Fenway Park has turned into. Nay, rather, what it has been since Red Sox Fever took hold of the fans some odd years ago. Perhaps I haven't been to enough baseball games in the past to really be able to track the progress of the behavior of the fans. However, I consider myself a worthy fan - one who has followed the team through its ups and downs - even if I haven't been able to find the time or the money to pay the ridiculous amount of money for a couple of decent seats at the ballpark.

On the contrary, it seems that many of those who have the luxury, time, and money to pay astronomical prices for tickets are, in fact, bandwagon fans - the same ones who abandoned the Red Sox when their season was spiraling out of control in 2006 as a result of an injury-plagued lineup. These are the same fans that seem to think wearing a pink or green Sox hat and perhaps a Daisuke shirt or Varitek jersey, would automatically make them true fans.

Granted - I was supposedly situated in the midst of the real fans - the ones who would stay until the last pitch irregardless of the score on any given game (and to their credit, many of them did stay). However, it seemed as if the novelty of getting drunk at Fenway became more consuming than being engaged in the game itself. In that sense, I was the most bothered (Actually, I was even more bothered by the number of people wearing Kamikaze-esk headbands sporting random Japanese characters and sponsored by Legal Sea Foods...It's something about idiots and Asian-themed attire at a game started by a Japanese pitcher, that really gets under my skin...but I won't go there just yet) . Am I missing the point? Or is it really the point of baseball these days to get trashed, jump on the bandwagon and go to the ballpark to act like a completely idiot, and heckle and scream at the people around you - thus being able to proclaim yourself a true fan? If that was the case, I would be the worst fan ever.