Despite my being 60 or so pages behind in Robbins reading, there's always a little time to focus on baseball in August...especially when I'm stuck in this hellhole of Yankee-fandom 8 games up going into a 3-game series. Here are a couple stories that have warmed my heart while living here over the past year:

The Old Lady
Time stuck in Yankee Country: 36 Hours, give or take. Location: Bed Bath and Beyond for apartment supplies. I'm walking down the aisle, standing amongst the tea pots because I don't even have the means to boil water in my apartment as of yet, when all of a sudden I hear this angry voice with that accent that makes every hair on my neck bristle, "You know you better be careful around here."

"Why's that ma'am?"

"You're going to get yourself hurt wearing that kind of shirt around here."

Looking down I notice that I'm wearing my Bronson Arroyo shirt that I picked up for $5 after he got traded. I thought to myself -Great...and old lady just threatened to beat me up for wearing a Bronson Arroyo shirt in the middle of BB&B. At that time Arroyo was about 10-2 with an ERA under 3, and the Sox were in their skid, but still up 1.5 games at that point. To make things better, it was still about 3 weeks before the second comming of the Boston Massacre where the Sox dropped a 5 game homestand which essentially was the dagger in their playoff hopes.

Thinking quickly I retorted "Ma'am, I'm from the Boston area and just moved here yesterday. Bronson Arroyo, who isn't even on the Red Sox anymore, is one of my favorite pitchers who is currently leading the NL in wins and ERA. If anyone wants to beat the crap out of me over Arroyo, they need to seriously get a life. Enjoy the rest of your shopping" With that I
turned and walked away.

Random other Sox-hating events
Generally when I go to a bar, I'm still carded at the door despite the fact that I look like a 30 year old at the ripe old age of 24. Most NY bouncers see the Massachusetts license and give me grief about being from Boston/the Sox.

I also have Red Sox license plates. They were doing random safety checks on one of the roads near campus, and so the officer makes me stop and says with a dead-pan, straight face "Son, I may have to write you a ticket for those plates that you have there." I said: "See you in Traffic Court," with a smile, and he cracked a smirk.

In the ED
Patient: So where are you from?
Me: Boston
Patient: So why don't you have one of those stupid accents that they always have? (through her own thick Long Island/Queens accent)
Me: My parents taught me how to speak properly as a child...

Edit: at the time of this post the Sox are only up 7 games on the Yank-me's based upon Damon's 2 Run HR...Run support for Matsuzaka could have been better...especially if Manny hadn't strained his back.