Gratitude doesn't have to be directed at anybody. When something good happens to you, you can feel grateful for it. Or you can choose not to.
View: https://youtu.be/ZdJ5e70Q8mw
I don't lose any sleep over John Henry's feelings either. I do get tired of the whining by a noisy element of a fanbase that has had a lot of really good things happen to it not that long ago. It comes off like a rich guy who is always complaining to everyone else about how bad he's got it.
It's poor form and unattractive in my opinion. I'd personally prefer not to read it or listen to it, but that's just, like, my opinion, man.
Every sports fan gets mad when bad things happen-- I sure as hell do! It's part of being a fan. But I think it's good to keep some perspective in mind too.
Getting really angry when the Red Sox fucked up before 2004 seems a lot more understandable than it does now, because the context has changed so much for the better. It felt like they would never win it even once in my entire life. Thank god that feeling is gone forever.
When people used to say "If they just win it ONE time before I die I'll never complain about them again" I figured that was just an exaggeration, but I didn't realize just how much bullshit that truly was until Bellhorn and Foulke were getting booed at Fenway by June 2005. "Thank you so much for forever changing my life for the better six months ago, but you aren't playing well now so YOU SUCK! BOOOOO!"
This team has won 3 MORE world championships since then. Seems like that should buy a lot of goodwill that lasts a while. But for some, it buys nothing. They are going to carry on like none of that ever happened. (Again, their legal right.)
Goodwill doesn't mean anyone is above criticism at all. To me, it means not automatically assuming the worst about everything they do, and maybe giving them a little rope when they do something that I don't agree with, because they've got a track record of success. And because the context has changed so much for the better in a real and lasting way.
So many people who are relatively well off complain publicly these days about their grievances and how they are the real victims. It's really tiresome and one of the major downsides of reading anything online. The main board of SOSH has generally been a great oasis that hasn't had too much of that. Seems different this offseason. There has always been loads of criticism and complaining about losses and moves/non-moves here-- lots of it by me. But lately it seems like there's a lot more general bitterness and game-thread-style anger at the ownership/GM here than before. And if it's like that
here, then... yikes.