The Red Sox Nation, as Boston Red Sox fans are known, take fandom to a whole other level, and put the fan in fanatic! But they can also teach us a thing or two about resilience. They’ve endured heartbreaking defeats, long winless streaks and nearly a century-long wait to see their BoSox win a World Series. And after all that, they’re still loyal fans. Yup, that’s what we call resilience.
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Until their 2004 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, the Red Sox hadn’t won a World Series since 1918, when they beat their archrivals, the New York Yankees. 1918. That’s a lot of decades with no World Series trophy. Yet Boston fans stayed true.
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The Boston Red Sox finished in last place in the American League in 2012. Last. And still, fans didn’t desert them. As a reward, the Sox came back to win the World Series in 2013, a “worst-to-first” turnaround for the ages.
Read Related: For Boston, Running in Honor of Those Who Can’t
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When Red Sox players started growing beards as a good luck charm this season, male fans followed suit, to the dismay of many a “Red Sox Widow.” Little kids joined in too donning fake ZZ Top-style beards to home games.
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For the Red Sox Nation, the team is about much more than baseball. In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, the team motto “Boston Strong” came to represent the very heart and soul of a city recovering from tragedy.
- Traffic came to a standstill on Boylston Street on October 30, as Red Sox fans, in the midst of celebrating the team’s World Series victory in Game 6, flocked to the finish line of the Boston Marathon, scene of the April 15 bombing. There, they kneeled down to touch and kiss the finish line, and put an uplifting end to a year of ups and downs for this resilient city. Boston Strong, indeed.
