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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

The Anti-Bostonian: The case for a taste of humble pie

jeremy

It’s an odd sensation, sitting quietly in a room full of animated and passionate friends and wanting them to walk away with their hearts broken. It’s even odder when it’s the 12th inning. Odder still is during the 15th. Unquantifiable is the 18th. 

Ignoring the shenanigans from last week’s ignominious charade on the back cover of last week’s Halloween issue, I do feel at least some sense of glee in seeing my classmates’ and teammates’ recent upturn in mood. In case you missed it, the Boston Red Sox are World Series champions, and along the way they somehow simultaneously managed to blow out and scrape by the New York Yankees. And after that, I wanted nothing more than for them to be humiliated, absolutely put into their duckin-boatin' places. This would prove to be a dish best served cold. In college dorm terms, that’s yet-to-be-microwaved frozen mac and cheese. Icy indeed.

Before my heart would turn to frozen mac and cheese, I certainly embraced the villain role to the best of my abilities. From the depths of my wardrobe, I unearthed a Yasiel Puig T-shirt back from the eccentric outfielder’s 2013 breakout rookie year; it most certainly is a youth extra-large for the purpose of saving a couple dollars. Aside from Puig, I defended the shenanigans and free-swinging antics of 'infielder' Manny Machado, my own former AL East foe (and hopefully not future Yankee). Heck, I even rooted against Brock Holt, pretty much the Texasequivalent of Matt Damon. And Matt Damon, you know, transcends borders.

So what did I get wrong? A laundry list, including one prominent Red Sox. David Price, whose postseason reputation has typically plummeted from 'sale' to 'firesale,' suddenly raised the 'price' of his name, becoming the best lefty in the World Series and the greatest southpaw since Sandy Koufax. In an unpredictable development, Nathan Eovaldi pitched out of the bullpen and holy, holy, how pitchers change when they only need to throw two pitches consistently instead of three -- a trend for bullpenners vs. starters. He’s pitched himself to a contract that may 'price' him out of Beantown, ironically because David Price will likely opt into the remaining four years, $997 million left on his contract (it’s actually $127 million).

Totally tangential sidenote: Boston is called Beantown because of beans. I always assumed this was some urban legend and just assumed there’s no way it’s actually a bean thing, but the handy-dandy search engine known as Bing -- just kidding, I use Google -- claims that 17th-century sailors were referring to Boston’s baked beans, so good they gave the whole town a nickname.

At the end of the day, any nickname beats "Titletown." Instead of humble pie, I’ll take my baked beans. Supposedly they’re pretty good. But hey, at least I still withhold my unpopular opinion of Manhattan clam chowder over the New England iteration. Give us the World Series of Chowder instead!