Having grown up across the street from a Sox fanatic, who was baseball 24/7 year round, it's obvious that the insane hardcore fans that keep showing up at Fenway no matter what, are enough to keep the phones lit up on talk radio, much to the annoyance of everyone else.
My response is the off switch, I don't need no stinkin' Sox talk.
As I've posted before, I'm a baseball fan and split sox season tickets with a few people but if you tune in or go to Fenway, there are more empty seats than 10 years ago, viewership has declined over the last month or two, and tickets can be had on StubHub and other second hand sites for under $10. Personally, I couldn't sell tickets to a Sox-Yankees Saturday night game a few weeks ago until almost the last minute. All signs that fans are dissatisfied.
I am not surprised either. Once ownership overstepped their baseball people in the front office, this kind of season was bound to happen.
You could see this coming a mile away. Before spring training ever started, the team did not try to sell the "team", rather they sold the ballpark, the 100th anniversary, the logo, Wally, bricks, books, etc. No talking about the product on the field, it was all about the "brand."
I don't blame it all on Valentine, whom I was not a fan of before the hiring. Some blame goes to him but also to the players for not sucking it up and just playing the game. However, a lot of this may have been avoided if the baseball operations staff was allowed to do its job in naming the next manager or if Bobby were allowed to name his own staff. Neither happened and the season has been a divided one. The local media has also gotten scooped on some major story lines by national writers which should never happen. In all, no one associated with this team is blame free for how this team looks right now.
