More tortured than others?

So, this past Saturday, I participated in a tailgate for a UGA basketball game. There's truly nothing like sitting in a mostly empty parking lot on campus in 34-degree weather, sipping a beer. Still, what else was there to do?

Being a tailgate, much of the conversation focused on sports - with the exception of a brief discussion of the film Glory - and we turned our focus on the upcoming baseball season. Folks there used this time to lambast the Red Sox, a ribbing I took in good stride since their popularity has waned after actually reaching the pinnacle in 2004 and facing some severe overexposure in the year that followed. Still, my love for all things Red Sox knows no bounds ... even when they let Theo Epstein go, make no serious attempt to re-sign Johnny Damon and then, to twist the knife, bring back Epstein after it's all said and done.

During this discussion, my boy Tim Kelly was very critical of Red Sox fans, labeling them as a bunch of whiners who possess an eltist complex of inferiority. In simplier terms - they feel their defeats are more profound than any other teams, meaning the sorrows of, in Tim's case, the Orioles are inadequate to those of Boston's.

Now I don't think a Baltimore Orioles fan feels 'less worse' than a Boston Red Sox fan when his or her team loses. When your teams loses, particularly in a heartbreaking fashion in a pivotal game, it, quite frankly, sucks. And this feeling holds true for any fan of any team of any sport.

Plus, if you're an Orioles fan, you've got bigger problems to worry about ... namely your slavish worship of the most egotistical and self-centered baseball player in history in Cal Ripken Jr., but that's another story.

So I don't believe Red Sox fans feel deeper pangs of anguish when their team fails, but I will argue that Boston fans have endured something more painful with regard to close calls, bizarre defeats and mind-numbing collapses than any other Major League Baseball team. And I think I'm perfectly within the realms of logic in asserting that.

The difference is the Red Sox, traditionally, don't go through long stretches of being either just downright awful (as the Chicago Cubs have done) or a merely .500 ball club (like, again, the Cubs). No, Boston has a long history of being perfectly good enough to win a World Championship, but only to have the most sure victory snapped away by the ever-hungry jaws of crushing defeat (or the New York Yankees).

Need I run through the list of life-sapping disappointments ...

- In Game Seven of the 1946 World Series, Boston had the tying
run on third base with one out and watched as Roy Partee fouled out to first base and Tom McBride weakly grounded out to end the series.

- The one-game playoff in 1948 where the Red Sox, inexplicably, start Denny Galehouse over Mel Parnell, the team's ace, against the Cleveland Indians. Galehouse is shelled, leaves the game in the fourth inning trailing 4-1 en route to to Boston losing 8-3.

- In 1949, the Red Sox needed to win just one of the last two games of the season to win the pennant, but lost both games to the Yankees.

- Bob Gibson owning Boston in the 1967 World Series, dominating them in Game Seven to clinch the title.

- Carlton Fisk's home run in Game Six of the 1975 World Series is arguably one of the 10 greatest moments in World Series history, but people ... Boston lost Game Seven after blowing a 3-0 lead, tying the game and losing it, 4-3, in the ninth inning on a Joe Morgan single.

- Friggin' Bucky Dent in 1978! But, before we even get to Dent, Boston proceeds to blow a 14-game lead over the final two months of the season, stumble into a winner-take-all playoff game with the Yankees (at least the Good Lord put it in Fenway Park, so there was that), and watch as a woeful .240 hitter with a mere four home runs all year long launches a three-run shot over the Green Monster to erase a 2-0 Red Sox lead.

- Bill Buckner. Bill Buckner. Bill Buckner. Bill Buckner.

- Not even so much Buckner, but everyone forgets that Calvin Schiraldi blew two leads in Game Six of the 1986 World Series.

- And we can't forget that Bob Stanley still needed just one strike to somehow salvage this debacle, and responds by hurling a wild pitch, allowing Kevin Mitchell to score the tying run! Seriously, is there any other game that so closely parallels a Greek tragedy like Game Six of the 1986 World Series?

- On top of that ... everyone forgets Boston was up 3-0 in the sixth inning of Game Seven of the 1986 World Series.

- And then a defeat which sent me, literally, into the streets of my neighborhood wandering aimlessly at 1:30 a.m. ... Aaron Boone's lead-off home run in the 11th inning for the Yankees, capping yet another monstrous managerial effort by Grady Little and a comeback for New York from a 5-2 deficit in the eighth inning of Game Seven of the 2003 American League Championship Series.

This is merely a sampling. I didn't go into detail over Joe Pesky's role in the 1946 World Series loss or the other numerous regular season disappointments suffered prior to 2004 or the vast number of boneheaded decisions the organization made seemingly year after year (including the almost unforgivable calls to pass on Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays). Tell me ... what other team has such a maddening history of coming so close, yet failing so spectacularly ... so consistently?

So, again, I'm not saying other fans don't feel the same level of grief when their teams lose. It would be foolish to do so. But I do think it's a perfectly legitimate statement to say something to the effect of you can't begin to fathom what it's like to be a Red Sox fan if you're not one.

UPDATE: I don't think I'm selling this Denny Galehouse thing enough. It's the equivalent of a manager saying 'I know we've got Randy Johnson but let's go with Aaron Sele ... I've got a feeling.'

UPDATE 2: In doing some research on this, I discovered that Carlos Silva walked nine batters in 188.1 innings last year. That's insane.