Gay Sox Nation

So, I've recently joined a yahoo group for gay Red Sox fans, which has quickly blossomed into a more intense institutional arrangement with a chat room, message board, and more to come, all of which you can find at gaysoxnation.com. While those of you living outside of New England might think that this would be a relatively narrow niche group, the growth of the group has been phenomenal (kudos to the group's moderator/fearless leader!).

What has been fascinating has been the interplay of "normal" Red Sox banter (merciless attacks upon failing players, speculation about the intellectual ability of umps and/or coaches, a deep-seated, existential pessimism that last year's championship has only begun to erode away), there's also been some, ahem, "not-so-normal" Red Sox fan interaction: an extensive photo gallery of the team, polls ranking the players in descending hotness, speculation on who may have, or would be likely to, have crossed over to the side of most of the guys following the list.

You can brush this off with the quick dismissal that gay guys are still guys, and therefore the odds would be good that some of them would still be heavily socialized to be baseball fans, but I think there's something potentially deeper: these gay guys are still gay New Englanders, which means that there's still an awfully deep devotion (contagion?) to the Olde Towne Team. We may join some of our pink-shirted sisters in paying attention to more on the field than the batting averages, but I'm hoping at some point that some of our straight buddies might recognize that in addition to our lusting after, say, catcher and hottie Jason Varitek, there's a deeply rooted kinship. Talking about Terry Francona's coaching and Bronson Arroyo's pitching might be a starting point in maintaining our relationship with the guys down at the bar, who might then only be mildly amused, rather than threatened, by our opinions on Jason's thighs.