Red Sox Analogy
Since I am not a fan of the Boston Red Sox, I can genuinely offer an objective view on how each season turns out. To me, the analogy plays out like this.
Imagine an actor, musician, sports figure or other celebrity who, by some turn of events, becomes extremely popular. Something happened to this person’s career and he is at the height of his stardom. It’s kind of like a fluke though, not a long standing rise to stardom. But after a while, he doesn’t just fade from the picture, he dropped off the end of the earth. For those who closely followed this person, they could see it coming and to them, it wasn’t a dramatic shift, but a gradual slide. But to the other 99% of the people, this celebrity just disappeared. One day he was there, the other he was gone. Then, years later, you read about this person on page 19 of some second rate town newspaper. This celebrity, who at one time had such a promising career, was found homeless, broke, without any friends, lying in the gutter mumbling to himself. You sort of feel bad but don’t really care that much. To his fans, they wonder what the heck happened. Sad, but life goes on.
That is what the Red Sox do EVERY SINGLE SEASON. They start out in April and May as the best team in the history of the world. They are compared to the Yankees because in April and May they might be over the Yankees in the standings. The local fans shout out of their car windows that the THIS IS THE YEAR. They offer so much hope and promise to their fans that we see tears in the eyes of those who speak of them. But then sometime around September 1 you realize the Sox have taken such a turn for the worse that you’d expect them to be found in a cheap motel in the south with an underage male prostitute. Oh wait, that was the celebrity story, but you get the idea. All of a sudden, other teams in the league, say, for example, Oakland and Anaheim, are stealing the spotlight. The Sox, somehow, can’t even see first place or a wild card slot they are so far out of it. Good bye. You are not sure what happened, but all of a sudden they don’t make espn.com’s MLB section headlines. The Sox end the season with more frustration and disappointment than hope they served up on a plate in April and May. The Sox had new owners, new management, some new players, spruced up ball park, but in the end, they left the season as a small article on page 19.