If you see some Boston fans wearing a tee-shirt with a big “B” in the familiar Red Sox old English-style font colored with the pattern and colors of the Maryland flag this weekend, don’t get angry. Congratulate them on their graciousness and willingness to publicly accept defeat.
Seriously.
I think the original idea was for the shirts to become a badge to identify to each other as a show of solidarity that there are Red Sox fans in Maryland. The garments would be a nonverbal rallying cry for the visiting team at Camden Yards this weekend with the June 3 giveaway for Boston fans that were lured in by the team on its website.
As if there wasn’t already enough leftover drama from the beanballs and headhunting — not to mention the overall verbal ugliness of their peanut-chucking fans — in Fenway Park last month! Their t-shirts with their treasured “B” in red, black, white and gold is cute, really. Maryland fans should want them, even to commemorate something historic, even more grand.
To any locals who sees these shirt, a sense of pride and victory should overwhelm them, thanks to the Maryland lacrosse teams who made Foxboro, Mass., their home last weekend in sweeping the Division I NCAA men’s and women’s lacrosse championships. Foxboro is sort of the offseason home of Fenway folks, right?
The letter symbol of “The Nation,” combined with the Maryland flag. It all makes sense now. … Isn’t it marvelous how things work out?
The Maryland women even beat Boston College — pretty much in a road game, even though Foxboro was a designated neutral site — to complete their undefeated regular season and their third title in four seasons and 14th national crown overall.
For the men, they ended more than four decades of torment with their first national crown since 1975, fitting in the same short span that saw the Chicago Cubs end more than a century of consistent heartbreak. Heck, even Cleveland got their first championship in any major sport since the 1950s with the Cavaliers, and a historically long slump of Triple Crown winning Thoroughbreds finally came to an end in 2016.
Why not the Terps? (Sure the Washington Capitals could have joined the “This is finally our year” parade, but that’s another rant.)
But for those Maryland lacrosse teams, New England will always hold a special place in those titles. Those wearing the “B” adorned with the Maryland flag pattern will always serve as a reminder.
Thanks, Boston-area fans, and welcome to Camden Yards, where the Orioles boast one of the best home records in the majors…Now, see if you can keep John Ferrell in check and not just focused on trying to get exponential revenge for a hard slide two months ago.
