Believers: Boston Red Sox

Throughout history, Red Sox fans have bonded through heartbreak. From the Bambino to Bucky Dent, to Buckner and Boone, Bostonians suffered decades of agonizing defeats. The 2004 Red Sox finally had a team poised to challenge the dynastic Yankees and deliver a World Series to Boston. After quickly falling to a 3-0 series deficit in the ALCS to the Bronx Bombers, it appeared to be yet another year of letdown in New England, until one moment changed the course of history.

Boston is a paradox. A city of revolutionaries, transcendentalists and progressives, as well as a city scarred by a history of social and economic discrimination. Against this backdrop was a baseball team that served as a great unifier, while suffering from the same sins, explained away by a mythic 86-year-old curse. The 2004 Red Sox represented everything Boston hoped to be. With their season hanging in the balance, the team of self-proclaimed ‘idiots’ began to chip away at the Yankees veil of immortality and provided the fan base with a new hope.

While Red Sox fans anxiously awaited the next form in which misery would once again seal their fate, new myths were born, but this time carried the Red Sox to a comeback that transcended baseball – exorcising an 86-year-old curse that defined and haunted generations of Sox fans. Faith and belief had finally been rewarded. Now, the fan base faces a new reality where suffering is no longer the badge they bear, but the pressure of winning is. How do fans make sense of this? No one knows, but it sure beats losing.