Does it piss you off when one Red Sox fan decides to speak for all Red Sox fans? You've probably heard by now that the Red Sox will be offering people a chance to buy a card for five dollars that shows that they're a member of Red Sox Nation. You can use the card to get discounts on Red Sox gear. You've also probably heard that bostondirtdogs.com is PISSED about this. His top fake story shows a picture of a monkey and a five dollar bill in an envelope, implying that any Sox fan that pays the five bucks is a chimp.

I say, first of all, lighten the frig up! Yes, it's a cheesy thing. "Woohoo, look at my Red Sox fan card!" Of course none of us needs a card to remind us what team we root for. But it's no dumber than Wally, or Kid Nation, or that Super Hero trash collector at Fenway. This isn't even a bad idea, in fact. They just had to slap a catchier name on it than "Red Sox Discount Card." Anybody who pays the five is probably someone who buys a lot of Red Sox gear, and surely you'd make up that five and then some buying more gear. And it's FIVE friggin' dollars. Which goes to the Red Sox, who need dough like anybody, as Frank Rizzo once said. You know how much money I've given to this team this season alone, between the 10-Game Plan, T-shirts, food, and playoff tickets? A whole lot more than $5, and, needless to say, I'm VERY happy with the results!!! Think of it this way, this is the least amount of money the Red Sox could charge you for anything, except a Coke, and those might be $5 next year, at the rate they're going. The "convenience fee" on my playoff ticket alone was more than 2 1/2 times the price of this card. Dirt dog is acting like they're charging 50 dollars a pop for it.

Then he quotes someone from the SOSH message board:

"I'll never pay $5 to prove I'm a Red Sox fan."

Ooooooooh, stay away from this guy. I'm shakin' over here. This guy's serious...if I buy this card he might try to kill me, he's outta control! (And I think you "prove" it every time you pay 7 bucks for a beer at Fenway--or 30 to park your car. I love it, people who can afford computers and baseball tickets fussing over FIVE DOLLARS.)

What dirtdog doesn't show us is the very next post on that thread (or any other Sox fan's opinion that differs from his):

"I will, since I spend more than enough money on Red Sox gear to want it for the discounts."

The point is, some people are dead set against this idea, and some people are willing to try it, and some people don't give a shit. And I respect all these people's opinions. Dirtdog, as a flag-wavin' American, should, too. Look, all marketing is stupid. Dirt dog should know this, as that Star-Spangled Banner has been sold so many times over on one cheesy bumper sticker after another since 9-11, the only thing it "stands" for is the way we capitalize on tragedies.

And there are plenty of other people on that board who disagree with dirtdog. One even mentioned the Kiss Army badge. When you compare it to that, it makes this whole thing even more comical. Imagine some Kiss fan in the 70s saying to his diary (you know, because Al Gore hadn't invented the internet yet), "I'm so pissed, they're offering Kiss Army badges now. I'm a REAL KISS FAN, I don't need no pansy-ass badge! Fuck 'em!" Everybody might want to think about relaxing here.

One of the original news stories about this card offer contains a quote from a fan who is VERY pissed about the idea. Who is this fan? Dirt Dog! The paper got the quote from him because they own his site (they say this in the article). How fucking stupid is this?

So basically, the average (internet) Sox fan goes to the number one Sox fan site, sees himself pictured as a monkey, is told that he's stupid if he thinks a certain way, clicks on the link to the newspaper story, which contains a quote from a "true Red Sox fan," who agrees with the first site because, surprise, he RUNS that site.

The American Way, I guess. I just hope the Red Sox don't change the way they think because one guy is trying to speak for all of us. But all the guys still have weird hair, so that's a good sign that they don't care about dirtdog's opinions. (Except for Schilling, I guess.)

Another thing that a lot of people on the internet probably don't think of is that not all baseball fans are on the internet. Dirt dog asks why the Sox can't use their free e-mail service to see how many Sox fans there are (which is another reason they're selling these cards). Well, I'm a life-long fan, and it took me years of having the internet to even think about getting Red Sox info there, beyond redsox.com. In the mid-90's, I was strictly searching for Nirvana bootlegs on the web. A lot of people who are really big fans still either don't have a computer, don't have the internet, or just don't use it for baseball-related things.

Of course, this whole thing could be fake. After all, I did hear about it on dirtdogs.