POLITICAL BASEBALL: Democratic presidential front-runners Howard Dean and John Kerry are in a good old-fashioned row about, that's right, baseball. The Boston Herald has the story about how the Democratic presidential contest could conceivably turn on the candidates' baseball cheering proclivities.
Kerry is a lifelong Massachusetts resident and therefore a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan, but Dean is a bit more controversial: a New York native who grew up rooting for the Yankees, Dean moved to Vermont in 1978 and now considers it an "insult" to be called a Yankee fan. The state Dean governed is squarely part of Red Sox Nation, as is the first primary state, New Hampshire, so which team the candidate cheers for clearly matters.
But Dean also recently commented that he turned against the Yankees "when (Roger) Clemens beaned (New York Met) Mike Piazza, that was it." But that happened in 2000, more than two decades after Dean left New York. The discrepancy has the Kerry campaign screaming "flip flop!" and Dean taking offense; I personally don't know if I believe Dean. Being the year of the Bucky Dent game, 1978 was sort of a weird time for someone to switch from the Yankees to the Red Sox, and if Dean were a true Bosox booster, the Piazza beaning alone wouldn't have served to turn him against Clemens; Roger's departure from Boston in '96- and his decision to join the Yankees the year before the beaning- had already made him persona non grata (if not the anti-Christ) in Red Sox Nation.
Now such an issue doesn't seem so important on the New York side- after all, Hillary Clinton was elected to the Senate from New York despite her dubious claims of lifelong Yankee fandom, and Michael Bloomberg won election to the mayoralty of New York City even though the Massachusetts native was up front about his lifelong love for the Red Sox. But New England is New England; until the Red Sox win a World Series, a Yankee fan running for office in the area might as well be running as a Communist.
This brings up the larger question, one I've raised before, of how any political liberal can justify rooting for the Yankees, the richest and greediest team in a league whose economic structure is sports' answer to Reaganomics. It would appear to make more sense for political progressives to root for the underdog Red Sox, though this year the Sox have a payroll of well over $100 million, good for the third-highest in baseball. My guess is that Dean really doesn't follow baseball at all, and was merely trying to do some easy pandering that backfired.
On the other hand, everyone in Boston thought for years that John Kerry was Irish, and he turned out not to be. Are we sure he really likes the Red Sox?
WHICH IS MORE LIKELY: A Red Sox championship in '03, or a Democratic victory in '04?
Posted by Stephen Silver at September 20, 2003 12:20 AM