Man, some people either have short memories or are much younger than me, but I developed a pretty strong hatred of the A's, from the period in the late 1980s to early 1990s. For those who do not remember/have forgot/haven't learned about it, the Sox had some fairly good teams back then (albeit nothing like the 2004 or 2018 squad), won the AL East in both 1988 and 1990 and went to the ALCS both years, only to get unceremoniously swept by the A's twice. Not just swept, but embarrassingly blown out in some of those games (in 1990, the Sox scored 1 run in all 4 games - not enough to counter the 20 runs the A's scored) and lost heartbreaking close games in the rest (often b/c of bullpen). We just seemed snake bit against them. Hated Dave Stewart with a white hot passion - he just totally owned us/Roger Clemens - I put one of his baseball cards on my dartboard, and probably burned the rest. Hated, hated, hated the A's.... as such, have a hard time to this day rooting for them (albeit, yes, I am still rooting for them to beat the MFY)....