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As a New Yorker who grew up a Mets fan, I say Yankees fans are loyal, but that is no hardship. It is SO easy to be a Yankees fan.

The Yankees, since the birth of the American League in 1901, average a World Series appearance every 3 years, and a World Championship every 4 years. Those numbers even shrink slightly if you don't count the years the New York team in the American League was known as The Knickerbockers.

The Yankees are expected to win, and they have won with boring predictability and regularity. Since Steinbrenner became the managing general partner in the early '70s, he stands for nothing less than success. He made his fortune in shipbuilding, and he spends boatloads of money to buy whatever player(s) he feels the Yankees need to go all the way.

The Red Sox, on the other hand, have no such record of success. After winning the 1918 World Series, they faltered in 1919 and then sold their star pitcher, Babe Ruth, to the hated Yankees for cash. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. The BoSox lost their next 4 World Series, 1945, 1967, 1975 and 1986, in heartbreaking fashion by taking each series to the limit, 7 games.

The 1986 Series is the stuff of legend. After taking a 2-run lead on the Mets in the top of the 10th in game 6, and getting 2 quick outs in the bottom of the 10th, the champagne was opened in the BoSox clubhouse at Shea Stadium. Their traveling secretary had checked them out of their hotel. With 2 strikes on Gary Carter, the Sox were shoo-ins but, as we all know, it never happened. Carter singled, Kevin Mitchell singled, Ray Knight singled to score Carter and with Mookie Wilson at the plate, Bob Stanley wild-pitched Mitchell home and Knight to second. Wilson fouled off a few before hitting the ball that Billy Bucks let slip thru his legs, and Knight chugged home with the victory.

The Sox had a 3-0 lead in game 7, but the whole world knew they were doomed after game 6. The Mets surged late in the game and the Sox were done.

That should have been a death blow to a lot of Red Sox faithful. There were Sox fans that lived their whole lives praying for a World Championship, and died never having seen one.

But keeping the faith paid off in 2004; BoSox revenge was oh, so sweet as they hung baseball's all-time greatest choke, never to be equaled, on the titans of the sport, the New York Yankees. In 1986 fashion, with one out to go for a Yankee sweep of the Sox in the '04 ALCS, the Sox hung on for the win off Mariano Rivera and you hadda know, right then, that they were going all the way.

So yeah, there is NO question about it. Having endured nearly a century of suffering on behalf of their team, BoSox fans are truly the more loyal of the 2 fan groups, hands down.

Learn more about this author, Chris Messner.
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