Pink Hat Nation

You know that Facebook is a great application.

You use it to keep in touch with friends and family, when you meet new people, you have more time to learn more about them - what you may or may not have in common with someone.

Another thing about Facebook is that you can use it to get back in touch with friends from long ago, whom you have lost touch with.

It's great to find out what happened to them and what they are up to now; and this is where I had disturbingly discovered that a lot of my friends from high school are pink hat fans.

What are pink hat fans? They are what people used to call band wagon fans, or fair weather fans. They are easy to spot when someone likes a successful major out of town team - like Duke or the Lakers; but they are much harder to spot when the pink hats are fans of a local team, they can easily blend in with the homers.

Well, then how do you spot the pink hats in the Boston area where the local teams has had much success in the last decade? Well, the dead give away now is to look at people's cars. At least once a day in my commute, I will spot a car with a Patriots sticker, a Red Sox sticker, and a Celtics sticker on the back trunk or tailgate of their vehicle. The Pats sticker and the Red Sox sticker are generally much larger than the Celtics sticker, and they are generally symmetrically placed. The Celtics sticker will almost always be placed at a location where it was obviously an afterthought.

Alright, back to Facebook. I have discovered people from my high school who when we were growing up, didn't care about football and baseball, now pimping the fact that they're big fans of the Patriots and the Sox. Posting updates during the game - pictures of them at the games.

This fella pictured here to the left,whom I shall refer to as Joe Pink Hat from this point on, is the worst offender. Growing up in the 80's, he had no clue about the Patriots and the Red Sox, or even the sports in general.

In fact, his parents had 4 season tickets to the Patriots in the old stadium, and each home game, they would ask - no, beg us to go with them because they cannot get rid of them. Every time they asked, we would not go because I was not a fan of the Patriots and he deemed (correctly) that it was more fun to have the run of the house for several hours while his parents were at the game.

One of the main characteristics about being a pink hat fan is that he or she knows next to nothing about a sport or team, but became a "fan" so they can be liked and fit in with others. They are annoying because they really don't care about the sport, but usually pick up on the obvious portion of the fanhood - like hating a bitter rival. Joe Pink Hat is the living embodiment of that type of a "fan".

One of my most vivid memory of going to a Red Sox game, was a game I went to at Fenway with the White Sox visiting. The White Sox catcher that day was none other than the former Red Sox player and legend (now Hall of Famer) Carlton Fisk. Even me - not a Red Sox fan, knew this.


We were sitting behind the visitors dugout with his mother, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon - with tickets bought from the walk up window - yes, it was possible to get seats behind the dugout on the day of the game back then.

Well, Joe Pink Hat here wanted to heckle an opposing player - because you know, that's what you're suppose to do; and knowing next to nothing about baseball or the Red Sox, he decided to pick on Fisk - not knowing what he had done for the Sox (the warm reception Fisk got from the hundreds in attendance should have given him a clue). Anyways, when Fisk was returning to the dugout after the home team had batted, Joe Pink Hat started to heckle Fisk.

Fisk would ignore him for the first few times, as we were just kids - and his material was limited to the run of the mill "Fisk! You Suck!" variety. It was maybe the fifth or sixth inning, when Joe Pink Hat pulled out the big guns (okay, I may have egged him on a bit). "Hey Calrton! YOU FAG! YOU HAVE AIDS!!!". Remember, this was the 80's, and AIDS had just came into national attention as an epidemic (before Magic Johnson), and still was considered a "gay plague".

Fisk stopped dead in his tracks while walking back to the dugout and glared right at him. I think if we were a couple of years older than what we were back then he would have came into the stands and killed both of us. There were not that many people sitting around us, so he knew exactly who said it (also we were the only kids in that section and his crackling adolescent voice was a dead giveaway). Even the few people sitting near us grew quiet and stared at him.


Anyways, Fisk waited a few seconds until Joe Pink Hat shrunk a few inches in his seat before he walked into the dugout. His mother, who is a very sweet woman, didn't really follow current events. She had no idea how inflammatory her son's comments were. I think she even asked something like "hey, was that player looking at us for some reason?" We sat in our seats for another inning or two and decided to ask his mom to get us out of there because we want to go to the 7 PM movies.

I found and friended Joe Pink Hat about 2 months ago on Facebook. And I have watched him post something about the Sox everyday, and now the Patriots.

Why am I very annoyed at these people? Well, one - now they had jumped on the bandwagons of the teams I do support in the Boston area, the B's and the Celtics, they have driven up ticket prices and lessened the availability of the tickets. Also, infinitely worse, when I wear any Celtics gear, I am lumped in with these idiots.

You know how annoyed you were with the fair weather Rays' fans with their stupid cowbells and mohawks last year during the ALCS? That's how I view the Boston Pink Hats.