End of Season Thought: Is This Red Sox Nation?

I’ve heard, on multiple occasions, that the East End is Boston Red Sox territory. And I was reminded of this point, whether valid or not, when in CVS in Southampton last weekend. While checking out, I noticed that the store has these generic keys with different icons on them. Yankees, check. Red Sox, check. San Francisco Giants (whatever), check. New York Mets, nada.

So I did a little research, and apparently, as the crow flies, Montauk Point is closer to Fenway Park up in Boston than it is to Yankee Stadium: 96.56 miles to 109.27 miles, calculated via runningmap.com. My guesstimations can’t be too far off, because a recent conversation revealed that in the earlier part of the 20th century, the primary sports radio that reached Montauk was by way of Fenway.

With the Amazins’ still only a twinkle in Mr. Met’s eye at that time—they’re just celebrating their 50th anniversary this year—did this fuel a comfortable contingent of Red Sox Nation on The End that subsequently spread West?

More interestingly, this also assumes that most places within a 13-mile radius of Montauk Point are closer to Fenway Park than to Yankee Stadium, which means that cardholding Evil Empire member Alec Baldwin’s Amagansett home is dangerously close—if not actually in—what is justifiably and geographically Red Sox territory.

Hear that, John Krasinski? I think I’ve just given you great material to prank Baldwin in a much-needed new installment of the wildly popular New Era commercials. (The series plays on Baldwin’s Yankee fandom and Krasinski’s Boston blood. One of Baldwin’s more memorable quotes was “Call 9-1-2, it’s 9-1-1 for rich people!” after one of Krasinski’s antics goes awry.)

As baseball allegiances tend to spread through generations, I guess, for the East End, there may be three teams in town? Lest we forget the introduction of the Mets in 1962.

Sadly (sorry, Mr. Krasinski), that number will be whittled down to one when the Yankees advance to the postseason.

And as we near the end of the regular season, I leave you with the latest Mets story to go viral on the “Interwebs”—an April 2011 column by Andy Martino of the New York Daily News. It’s just as funny as the New Era commericals, but more funeral clown funny than slapstick funny.:

 
“Blah blah blah blah rain blah blah blah Niese blah blah Astros blah blah Mets got spanked. Blah blah, 6-1. We really don’t know what else to tell you about this one. But we will try:

It was cold and wet at Citi Field, and the Mets flatlined for one minute shy of three hours against one of the worst teams in baseball. Actually, now the Mets (5-12) are worse than Houston—and the rest of the National League—as they slipped below the Astros (6-11). Could there be a less stimulating April ballgame than the one between these sorry opponents? The only appropriate word is ‘blah.’”

Craig Calcaterra at NBC Sports’ HardballTalk wrote an editorial lauding the piece, saying that it should constitute the future of sports reporting. In an age where anyone can find out the score and every imaginable stat from a game before the beat writer even opens his computer, sports reporting needs to be catchy and take on the feel of a feature story to draw readers.

Other blogs simply said that it succinctly captured what every Mets fan was feeling at the time. At the very least, with the Mets’ last World Series title coming in 1986, it might give us insight as to why the Red Sox have been able to nudge their way into Long Island baseball lore.
But, for both teams, there’s always next year.