Opening Day Drama…Almost: The Perfect Metaphor to a Hurting Fanbase

Hopes weren’t too incredibly high. Pitching was shaky at best. Bats came alive for a little bit. New faces were fun to watch. But as has been the case in recent memory, there’s death, taxes, and the Red Sox coming up just short.

Sound familiar? It should.

Not only should it sound like the Opening Day game where the Sox fell short to the Orioles losing 10-9, but it should sound like being a Sox fan every single day since the beginning of the 2021 season.

The regular longtime Fenway Faithful can tell you how much we revel in the team’s success since the turn of the century. But it’s never enough. We want more. We want to watch winners every single day, every single season, and anything less than that is nothing short of disappointment.

That’s why nobody is unfamiliar with watching the Sox stumble through the first few innings of the most exciting day of the year, have a little fun watching the lineup produce double-digit hits, and ultimately be disappointed in the outcome. 

We’re Red Sox fans. We’re used to it. 

Good news though, there are still 161 games left in the season in which we can either be surprised or disappointed. Regardless, we don’t stop watching, do we?

Keep the faith. Watch our aging and ailing rotation walk the bases loaded. Watch Alex Verdugo match his season total for triples in 2022 on his first swing of the season. Have a little hope. Watch the Sox go down by six. Lose that hope. Wake up the next day forgetting it happened and set unrealistic expectations. Repeat.

Sounds like fun right? Wrong. It sucks. It hurts to be a Red Sox fan. But we absolutely love it. The next ring makes it all worth it. When push comes to shove, there isn’t anybody else in the world we would rather have break our hearts day after day.