How did you discover SoSH?

[Sad Sam Jones]

Short Answer: I think I was lurking here more and more in 2016 and finally made this account and started posting in 2017.

Long Answer: My college campus connected to the world wide web in 1995 just as the Indians were headed to the playoffs for the first time in my life, so I needed a place to talk baseball. I ended up on Fastball.com due to their ads in Baseball Weekly. Right after the '95 season, I stumbled across a post on the Astros forum there that anyone reading the message could join the Dickie Thon Fan Club. It started out as a running joke between an Astros fan, Twins fan, Braves fan and myself... sort of like flashing our gang sign when we crossed paths on the boards. When I returned to school in '96, only the Braves fan was posting regularly and that was under a different handle. The two of us decided to make the DTFC more of a "thing" and began recruiting some of our favorites from across the boards. We became the vigilantes of Fastball.com, to the point the paid admin sometimes contacted me to direct our attention to someone causing trouble. We won a lot of battles, but within a couple of years we realized the war against trolls couldn't be won, so we established our own website and private forum.

The DTFC left Fastball.com with a few dozen friends and I can recall Lanternjaw, Cumby and FoxInSox from our mass exodus. At some point, we built our own public forums for each team, most of which never took off, but I recall having an energetic group of Red Sox fans. I probably posted there a few times but stuck with our private forum. Then I graduated and didn't have home internet until 2000, so I wasn't around much and the details are hazy, but I think a forum crash led to Lanternjaw establishing an independent forum for the Sox fans. The DTFC had a good run - our website got a couple of blurbs in ESPN The Magazine and some other publications - but our forum was always small in numbers and familiarity bred contempt. Individuals pushing each others' buttons made its downfall inevitable and I think I gave up the ghost in 2008. From there I took up temporary residence on two or three Indians forums, but I always enjoyed myself more talking ball with a wider spectrum of views. I'd kept tabs on SoSH throughout the years, casually lurking off and on. I remember the major events... 9/11, Schilling, the '03 & '04 postseasons, but wouldn't be able to remember one member from another. After a few years of having nowhere to talk baseball in the format I've always preferred, I think Cleveland's World Series run in 2016 convinced me I needed this again, so I gravitated to the one place I already knew.

fka Hair Face

 

[cournoyer]

Sam Horn himself. I was doing a baseball camp and batting drills for a week about 10 years or so ago, and he had images of the homepage displayed right across from the front desk, right next to the TV. So you basically couldn’t help but notice it as soon as you came in, between that and the rustic baseball card vending machine for $1.25?- pop, with the affixed sticker: ‘EVERY FIFTH CARD IS A RED SOX’. Don’t think that building exists for those purposes anymore.

The initial room from a rugged outside looked like you would get golf balls or roller skates from a long gone era, but the cages and everything else was in excellent shape. Sam himself was always with a big smile and a happy teacher and wanted everyone to succeed. You can tell he did what he loved. A massive painted mural of Sam himself greeted you as you entered the turf, to let you know of your benevolent king’s domain. Was it possibly done by our very own Ripley? Similar art style in retrospect.

I think that Sam thinks this site is about himself.

Took a hundred replies to finally get to the man himself love that story

 

[wiffleballhero]

I was on USENET, which was completely horrible at the time. I went on a search for a better place and came up with SoSH. At the time there were only a handful of people here, but was looped in by philly sox fan's regular threads.

Wait, what? Who started this whole thing? The creation story has always been a little fuzzy to me.

 

[Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat]

Wait, what? Who started this whole thing? The creation story has always been a little fuzzy to me.

A long time ago, there lived a man named Lanternjaw...

 

[Bergs]

My real name is Kevin Vahey.

Just kidding!

I was on Royal Rooters of Red Sox Nation before someone fucked up and gave me a membership here. Same username.

Also, fuck Kevin Vahey.

 

[CR67dream]

A long time ago, there lived a man named Lanterjaw...

I'm guessing it's a typo, but it's Lanternjaw, and he is indeed the true father of us all. And sometimes, he still walks quietly among us.

I've been around since early '01, first with the handle Soxoholic (not Soxaholic, who I believe still exists at least as a screen name here. Never quite got the a-holic thing, it's not alcahol... but I digress). Switched to my current name sometime in October of '01, and was intending to be cr67dreamer, but somehow left off the er when I requested the change in a PM to LJ himself.... Didn't want to bother the big guy again, so cr67dream I stayed.

Anyway, found the place by way of Simmons when he was still blogging as the BSG, along with a trove of long-timers, some still here, some long gone. I literally cannot imagine the last couple of decades without it. Perish the fucking thought.

 

[Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat]

I'm guessing it's a typo, but it's Lanternjaw, and he is indeed the true father of us all. And sometimes, he still walks quietly among us.

I've been around since early '01, first with the handle Soxoholic (not Soxaholic, who I believe still exists at least as a screen name here. Never quite got the a-holic thing, it's not alcahol... but I digress). Switched to my current name sometime in October of '01, and was intending to be cr67dreamer, but somehow left off the er when I requested the change in a PM to LJ himself.... Didn't want to bother the big guy again, so cr67dream I stayed.

Anyway, found the place by way of Simmons when he was still blogging as the BSG, along with a trove of long-timers, some still here, some long gone. I literally cannot imagine the last couple of decades without it. Perish the fucking thought.

Damn, yes a typo.

 

[foulkehampshire]

I forget the specifics but it involves an internet rabbit hole from the WEEI or Boston.com sites circa 2005. Maybe Bostondirtdogs?

 

[Myt1]

I sprang, fully formed, from the brow of @John Marzano Olympic Hero.

 

[Doug Beerabelli]

Many of us met Sam at a party featuring the '04 trophy, I was displaced by his mass at one point and found myself suddenly not standing where I was just a moment before. Oil Can was there too, good times.

I first stumbled across this place looking for info when I heard Rickey Henderson might be joining the Sox. Lurked around for a while, eventually signed up/lurked and got membership after having some photos from Game 3 in St Louis.

I was at that party, too. Meeting Oil Can and talking a bit with him was truly an experience.

Sam signed a ball for me there, and then years later at one of the Red Sox Winterfests, I had him sign the same ball again. I don't think he thought it was funny and idea as I did, but he was amiable enough to sign it again.

 

[steeplechase3k]

Fanhome

I was there too, and it's predecessor BaseballBoards for a long time. Really tried to make the community work, but it was bought by some other site and it went to hell. I'd lurked here long before that, but was able to get membership around when I quit there.

 

[E5 Yaz]

I was there too, and it's predecessor BaseballBoards for a long time. Really tried to make the community work, but it was bought by some other site and it went to hell. I'd lurked here long before that, but was able to get membership around when I quit there.

Yeah, BB became Fanhome I believe

 

[Van Everyman]

I just found this Simmons article from December 2003, after the Schilling saga. I am guessing this is the article that brought me, and countless others, to SoSH.

http://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/031205

Also enjoyed these lines

This is the passage that makes me LOL today:

Sure, it's nearly impossible to determine an athlete's character from what we read and hear. Gammons does this all the time -- according to his columns, he's apparently met more special people over the past two years than I've met in my whole life. But Schilling seems like the exception -- passionate, knowledgable, the kind of guy who just gets it. Sports fans aren't asking for much these days -- just give your best, take nothing for granted, show us some appreciation and we're happy. Schilling did all of these things, even donating $500,000 to the Jimmy Fund on the day of the trade. In many ways, he was the complete opposite of Roger Clemens, who played in Boston for 13 years, tossed on a Blue Jays cap and never looked back. I can't imagine Curt Schilling doing something like that.
I'm not sure why these things make me happy, but they do. And to think that a potential Hall of Famer could be finishing his career in Boston -- one of the better big-game pitchers of his generation, playing on the biggest possible stage, and a good guy to boot -- seems too good to be true.

Oh we are so much wiser now.

I think it was Simmons, but was definitely before the Schilling Thanksgiving episode.

Lurked the summer of '03. Remember the first HOLY SHIT moment (for me) was John Henry's "some things transcend baseball" post re: The Arod saga.

I posted about this last week on the Arod thread but, this was the same for me. Was that actually what he said? I was trying to remember.

Beyond that tho, what Simmons said about players posting and interacting with fans was one thing but owners?!? Breaking news about historic trades (well, kind of Vaguebooking about them anyway)?!? I couldn’t believe it.

Did JWH ever post here again?

A friend of mine with whom I shared season tickets was a lurker and mentioned it to me. I lurked for a bit, then the day after the Boone home run, I needed a community.

Was it JW per chance? Tho I don’t remember you guys sharing season tix…

 

[jose melendez]

This is the passage that makes me LOL today:


Oh we are so much wiser now.


I posted about this last week on the Arod thread but, this was the same for me. Was that actually what he said? I was trying to remember.

Beyond that tho, what Simmons said about players posting and interacting with fans was one thing but owners?!? Breaking news about historic trades (well, kind of Vaguebooking about them anyway)?!? I couldn’t believe it.

Did JWH ever post here again?


Was it JW per chance? Tho I don’t remember you guys sharing season tix…

Nope. Different guy. Friend from high school.

 

[Dahabenzapple2]

I credit @jon abbey - I think it was 2001 or 2002 but as some of you know those days were very foggy to me. The 2003 & 2004 baseball seasons were lived by me here via the game threads and I’m eternally grateful to Jon for his introduction to this site.

 

[jon abbey]

I credit @jon abbey - I think it was 2001 or 2002 but as some of you know those days were very foggy to me. The 2003 & 2004 baseball seasons were lived by me here via the game threads and I’m eternally grateful to Jon for his introduction to this site.

I actually can't remember how I got here, but it was probably just googling for Yankee/AL East discussion. I do remember I lurked here for a while before I posted, it might have not been until I got kicked off nyyfans for the first time (I was later permabanned, I think mostly because they knew I posted so much here).

 

[CaptainLaddie]

I think it was during the A-Rod trade saga, I was living in Canada at the time and was trying to find news about what was happening. Applied for membership with a nice letter, got in later when I realized during the night of the Pokey dives into the stands game that I could actually post.

 

[RedOctober3829]

I think it was during the A-Rod trade saga, I was living in Canada at the time and was trying to find news about what was happening. Applied for membership with a nice letter, got in later when I realized during the night of the Pokey dives into the stands game that I could actually post.

Pitbull approves

 

[CaptainLaddie]

Pitbull approves

I wasn't in a hotel room, I was in Uni, YOU CLOD.

 

[Shaky Walton]

Definitely a Curt Schilling Recruitment/Bill Simmons combo platter. Exactly how it happened, I have no idea.

 

[LoweTek]

I think it was the (January 2004) fantasy camp, I was welcoming Sam Horn the first night because he was a "rookie" as it was his first time as a pro at the camp and I had been attending almost 10 years. He starts telling me about "his" website. In those days lots of people promoted websites. I mostly rolled my eyes, figuratively.

Then ToeKneeArmAss told me it was legit so I started lurking as lurking was in those EZ-Board days. If you weren't a member, you had to write your post and PM it to a member who might or might not post it for you.

Early on I mostly wrote essays about Bob Stanley being greatly underappreciated. He was still getting excoriated by the board for 1986 in those days. My posts were mostly positively received and I think it was Big Mike who waved the wand and promoted me to member status. It was early 2005, pre Spring training, IIRC because I broke the news of Dick Radatz' passing in chat and was ridiculed by those present at the time. It was true, they would soon learn.

I've taken a few breaks since then; I was taking it all a bit too seriously sometimes. No regrets looking back though. Met some great people, learned a lot, attended multiple bashes and played key roles in ALS fundraisers which remain some of my best memories.

I will always be glad I found this place.

 

[CanvasAlley]

The pursuit of Schilling - back in the days of Eric Van and recovery from the Grady Little experience. Like a dumbass, it took me until 2016 to stop being a lurker.

 

[HfxBob]

I was aware of SoSH in the early days. I've posted on other Red Sox forums but stayed away from SoSH until recently. Back in the early days this place had a somewhat intimidating reputation - the members were supposed to all have Mensa-level Baseball IQ's and to not suffer fools lightly. That was the image, anyway. So recently I checked it out again, and it's not like that at all. It's a first-class Red Sox forum. The functionality is also outstanding.

 

[AlNipper49]

I wasn't on the initial AOL group but I was in early. Back then it was the internet was the great unknown. I'm pretty sure that I found it by a reference to a post on usenet. Back in those days usenet was a hoot. Eric Van was the kind of that fiefdom.

 

[jmcc5400]

I joined in the fledgling days of the site in May 2000 while i was on paternity leave after my daughter was born (my "handle" is her initials and birthdate, which was all my brain was processing at that time). I thought I was a pretty smart, worldly baseball fan and then I started reading Philly and some of the others here and was quickly humbled. It was surreal watching the site grow - an early q and a with Theo right as he was taking over was incredible and of course the Schilling and JWH stories are well known. It remains the best place on the internet as far as I'm concerned.

 

[BroodsSexton]

I was aware of SoSH in the early days. I've posted on other Red Sox forums but stayed away from SoSH until recently. Back in the early days this place had a somewhat intimidating reputation - the members were supposed to all have Mensa-level Baseball IQ's and to not suffer fools lightly. That was the image, anyway. So recently I checked it out again, and it's not like that at all. It's a first-class Red Sox forum. The functionality is also outstanding.

This isn’t true at all. Hope you enjoy your time here!

 

[Hank Scorpio]

Back in high school, in the late 90s, I discovered a site called Red Sox Nation, or RSN. They had a forum there that was constantly being spammed by trolls. From there, I was invited to DTFC. Eventually, from that site, came SoSH.

I also posted at BaseballBoards and Fanhome for quite some time. It had quite the cast of characters. Like @steeplechase3k said, it went to hell after they were sold to Scout.com - don’t really remember the details, but it was like it became too ambitious and lost track of what drew people to FanHome. Kind of like how MySpace changed for the worse, and everyone just kind of left.

 

[Curt S Loew]

Discovered it when a few of us got tired of the Globe forums and "Fastball" and LJ created it.

I can't believe that was close to 30 years ago.

the members were supposed to all have Mensa-level Baseball IQ's and to not suffer fools lightly.

Definitely not true but it worked. Well, the latter is true.

 

[Bergs]

Back in high school, in the late 90s, I discovered a site called Red Sox Nation, or RSN. They had a forum there that was constantly being spammed by trolls. From there, I was invited to DTFC. Eventually, from that site, came SoSH.

DieHard3 cut his teeth here, and was back here for awhile again before he got axed again. I forget the other guy's handle, but he sucked.

 

[Hank Scorpio]

DieHard3 cut his teeth here, and was back here for awhile again before he got axed again. I forget the other guy's handle, but he sucked.

The guy that was trolling the RSN boards, and eventually DTFC before getting axed went by “sca”, “MEGALOMANIAC”, and “LeeforPapi?”

At least I was made to believe they were all the same person.

 

[vtred]

I was on Fanhome message board and E5 Yaz mentioned this place...i think this was 47 years ago.

 

[Mugsy's Jock]

Simmons for me too -- I think in 2000 or 2001 though on his Boston Sports Guy site.

 

[trs]

2003 for me. Somehow heard about the place from my dad, who must have read about it in some article, as he had no clue what a message board was. I joined under a different handle and became a member. I posted infrequently and in a very mediocre manner for a few years. Then when the board switched software or whatever happened, I couldn't login under that username anymore so I created this one and went back to lurking. I became a member again during lockdown 2020. Thank you to whomever allowed that to happen, because, damn did I need some sort of outlet at that time.

Oh and I still post infrequently (perhaps a bit more than before) and in a mediocre (remaining consistent there) manner.

 

[InsideTheParker]

I guess there was some kind of article in either Mass Live or the Glob that talked about the forum being involved with Theo's wooing of Schilling. That was in the off-season between '03 and '04, I guess, and prompted me to come here and Lurk for a while until I tricked someone into proposing me as a Member.

 

[nocode51]

In Sept 2004 I had a close friend die suddenly of a heart condition. A friend of mine told me about the "win it for" thread so I checked it out and got hooked.

 

[LeoCarrillo]

Think I was googling Son of Sam to see what kind of dog it was. Shit. I never found out what kind of dog it was.

 

[Seels]

it was the arod thing. Think I started posting when Schilling was traded.

 

[Myt1]

Sociology professor porn search gone wrong.

 

[slamminsammya]

I think my cousins told me about it in DC the day after the Joe Namath "I wanna kiss you" game which was also a hot topic of conversation.

 

[BroodsSexton]

I was googling "Lemon Party" and ended up here.

 

[DeJesus Built My Hotrod]

@E5 Yaz mentioned this place on one of his TikToks

 

[jose melendez]

DieHard3 cut his teeth here, and was back here for awhile again before he got axed again. I forget the other guy's handle, but he sucked.

Actually, a terrific guy. Not always a great poster, but a good guy to have lunch with.

 

[Montana Fan]

Actually, a terrific guy. Not always a great poster, but a good guy to have lunch with.

This is a good observation. I went to a SoSH gathering in Seattle once and half the people who were going I thought I had pegged as people who I wouldn’t care for in person. How wrong I was. The electronic medium of communicating is crap compared to in person engagement.

PS - Nomar, the poster, mentioned DTFC on either Masslive or Art’s Off the Wall page in 1997 and I joined. Big Mike vetted me, determined that I hadn’t played Stratomatic daily as a kid and they let me in anyway.

 

[DennyDoyle'sBoil]

I don’t remember at all.

I was getting ready to post, not realizing this was an old thread and noticed I had posted in this thread already. I was worried that maybe my memory is going, but it looks as though I didn’t remember in 2021 either. So, memory may be going, but not in the last three years. Weird that the place has become a fixture for me, but I can’t remember the details.

 

[E5 Yaz]

@E5 Yaz mentioned this place on one of his TikToks

That was a TED Talk, you ninny

 

[DeJesus Built My Hotrod]

That was a TED Talk, you ninny

Correct. You TikTok'd your TED Talk.

 

[millionthcustomer]

I'm pretty sure a Gammons Globe article led me to Simmons, which brought me here about a month before the Schilling trade.

 

[wibi]

Win it for thread after searching for a Red Sox message board in 2004.

This is a good observation. I went to a SoSH gathering in Seattle once and half the people who were going I thought I had pegged as people who I wouldn’t care for in person. How wrong I was. The electronic medium of communicating is crap compared to in person engagement.

PS - Nomar, the poster, mentioned DTFC on either Masslive or Art’s Off the Wall page in 1997 and I joined. Big Mike vetted me, determined that I hadn’t played Stratomatic daily as a kid and they let me in anyway.

Can confirm you arent a complete asshole LOL

 

[BrazilianSoxFan]

Simmons for me too -- I think in 2000 or 2001 though on his Boston Sports Guy site.

Also Simmons, but for me it was around 2002-2003. When Nenê Hilário was drafted by the Nuggets I started closely following his career in the NBA and discovered ESPN's Page2 and Simmons. Through Simmons I started following all Boston teams but the Celtics.

 

[PortlandSoxFan]

Officially January 2003, but I know I lurked for a while before that...

Started Sox chatting on the Globe's site in the late 90's, that got overrun by trolls due to no login needed so I started portlandsoxfan.com just for the chat (and a very mediocre blog). Somehow that turned into hosting/running redsoxnation.net, where I discovered Vahey's thievery and took over the site. Was a mod here for a while when helping with the transfer from ezboard to whatever the software was when SoSH first switched because I believe it was the same software I used on RSN.net and the BSMW forum that I also hosted.