Ha! I know who’s #1 – you already told us! But no, Eri’s appearance was in the Kansai Independent League, a pretty far cry from Japan’s big league.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/baseball/more/03/27/japan.girl.ap/index.html

The Red Sax?

Rays fans? There were eight people at Tropicana Field on opening day, and three of them were Wade Boggs.

Precisely. Now that’s a burden. That’s suffering. Slate ran an article a while back saying that being a Cubs fan was like enduring a constant, on-again off-again toothache, whereas being a Rays fan was like being stabbed in the face with a butter knife, repeatedly, every day for ten years. I quite agree.

As for merch, I agree that teams should seel what they can sell. The Yanks always lead the merch stakes b/c purchasing Yankees goods ahs nothing whatsoever to do with the New York Yankees as a baseball team. I see more Red Sox stuff than I ever saw Mariners stuff, though. Way more.

Rays fans.

Rays fans? There were eight people at Tropicana Field on opening day, and three of them were Wade Boggs. That said, it was great to see a city get behind their team and they had a hell of a run. Hopefully they retain that fan base over the lean years to come.

If the Red Sox (or Yankees, or Mariners) want to make money merchandising their goods overseas, no problem. More power to them – Serie A and the Premiership figured that out before MLB and showed the sheer power of signing a few big name Japanese players – though I think the big impact Japanese players to MLB have done much more in terms of numbers than the soccer imports, even including Nakata.

Whereas some European football signings of Japanese players smacked of attempts to sell gear and kits in Japan, I don’t get that sense from the MLB signings.

But I haven’t seen nearly the amount of Sox gear floating around Tokyo as I saw of Seattle and New York.

Well, as a Red Sox fan there are more pressing issues on the agenda:

1) The Yankees have signed CC Sabathia, though they still need another bat (or five)

2) The Sox need to sign Teixeira, especially now with the Yanks going after him.

3) Management needs to catch hell over bringing back the “retro” road uniforms for next year. The 1980s are retro? Why? I like the blue road alternate uniform better, though not the hat with the Hanging Sox old school logo on it.

Have you seen the city you call home lately? A few years ago, there were Yankees caps everywhere and everyone loved the Yanks. Before that, it was the Mariners. Now it’s the Red Sox.

Now, it’s possible that the number of people who are into MLB increase by 50% to 100% every few years, or it’s possible that a lot of front-running bandwagon jumpers are now Red Sox fans – the Sox are the team of choice for the bandwagon. Which do you think is more likely?

Now sure, you could get into a “they’re not really fans because the Red Sox are like Orthodox Judaism”, but that’s just an easy way to make all the “real” fans people you like. I’d like to say the wanna-be chinpira at Jingu aren’t really Swallows fans, but that’s not my decision to make. Likewise, I wish it were a generally accepted fact that the obnoxious frat boys at Wrigley weren’t really Cubs fans, but. . .

And don’t, don’t describe being a Red Sox fan as a burden. That’s a load of malarkey and you know it. You guys got credit for being long-suffering when you never even had the second-longest dry spell. The Red Sox got sympathy that should have gone to Chicago and credit for “tradition” that should have been spread to a lot of other teams. The Red Sox, even in their lean years, were kind of a fashion commodity, even if the grizzled old never-missed-a-home-game-since-1962 guys and their sons don’t like it. Likewise, Wrigley is a tourist attraction.

Moreover, no Red Sox, or Cubs, or White Sox fan has to justify his allegiance, much less his team’s existence. When Boston finally got their title, people were happy for them and their fans. Know who suffers? Expos fans. Rays fans. All those not-really-the-Bigs newcomers that just get no love or respect and whose fans are not really baseball fans. How many people operated on the assumption that every Rays fan was a bandwagon-jumper this past season? That’s crap the Red Sox and Cubs wouldn’t have to put up with.
Burden, my ass.

Wow, that’s the most anti-Red Sox thing I think I’ve ever said.

Haha. That’s rich. Never met any such people, let alone been ‘joined’ by any of them. There are those that grew up with season tickets, and those who didn’t. You’re either born into it and die a fan – those with the burden – or you become a fan for some reason. But the two crowds have nothing in common.

You and Marti might be for real, Ken, but you’re now joined by a legion of folks who were Yankee fans four or five years ago. I’m also a team-not-player guy, so I have a bad reaction to,”My favorite team is the Red Sox because they have Matsuzaka.”