Red Sox Nation: Davis

There are lots of Red Sox fans in the Bay Area. This shouldn’t be too surprising: whenever New Englanders decide to escape their winter slush and summer mugginess, a destination of choice is San Francisco or nearby, because of plentiful work (often tech-related) and compatible politics. Whenever the Red Sox are in town to play the A’s, an avalanche of blue caps with red “B’s” on them converges on the Coliseum. We unite with A’s fans and Giants fans (and just about everyone else) in our hatred of the New York Yankees, in much the same way the rest of the world… oh, never mind.

More surprising, perhaps, is the high incidence of Boston fans here in Davis. Yet hardly a day goes by when I don’t see the familiar cap, blue long faded to gray, which gives me an immediate (and never unwelcome) opportunity to say “Go Red Sox” and launch into an immediate enthusiastic exchange of pleasantries with a perfect stranger about how the Yankees are now 12-1/2 games back.

(That’s twelve-and-a-half games back, people. It’s already Memorial Day. If they keep this up they’ll miss the playoffs. For the first time in a very great while. It’s delicious. We Red Sox Nation folks have been known to dance jigs in parking lots over this, gingerly in some cases.)

Yolo County residents have a new reason to cheer the Sox, now: 23-year-old Dustin Pedroia, the star of nearby Woodland High, hit another home run today for Beantown in the ninth inning and is distinguishing himself handily at second base. The guy who delivers the mail at work, a longtime Yankees fan but born and raised in Woodland, is having to reconsider his loyalties…

I’ll be heading to Santa Fe tomorrow for a week-long workshop. I have no idea how easy it will be for me to blog, so I’ll leave you in Numenius’ capable hands (which I have overburdened already with gardening duties) till I get back, unless you hear otherwise.