Allegiance

This Hot Stove season is like any other for me: I pay some attention to what the Red Sox are doing, cursing certain moves (letting go of closer Jonathan Papelbon), happy with others (keeping Big Papi on board, signing Ellsbury for another year), clueless about some (is Cody Ross any good?) and confused by a few (why so many potential closers...when you could have held on to Cinco Ocho?!?!).

I learned years ago not to get too wrapped up in what happens during the off-season. On Opening Day, I'll root for whoever's on the Carmine Hose (look it up; I had to).

I understand baseball better than I do other sports, which isn't to say I obsess over stats, scour minor league rosters to spot up-and-coming talent or give a hoot about any teams outside the American League East. But I love the game. I played Little League and Babe Ruth baseball. When I turned 40 I even switched from softball to hardball for five years. I watch as many Sox games as I can, no matter how boring or out-of-hand a game might get.

Baseball has always been king for me. My older brother, Steve, lived and breathed baseball and the Red Sox as a kid, and still does. I can't remember a time when I wasn't rooting for them.

So I think you get my point: I'm a baseball lifer, and pay my allegiance to the Sox, come hell or high water.

Like many kids in Connecticut, I grew up rooting not only for the Sox, but also the New York Knicks, New York Giants and Hartford Whalers. I played my share of pick-up basketball, football and hockey games as a kid.

But I no longer cheer for any of those one-time favorite teams. The Whalers, of course, no longer exist. But don't tell that to hardcore fans who root for the Carolina Hurricanes.

I paid little mind to the Bruins until last season's playoffs. While I fully admit to being a fair weather fan last season, I'll defend myself (and my wife, Beth) by saying that although we didn't watch the team during the regular season, we watched the first game of the playoffs, got hooked by the excitement, and then watched the team's entire Stanley Cup run.

We now watch their regular season games on a fairly consistent basis. If I were to ever move away from New England, I can safely say that I would remain a Bruins fan.

As for the Knicks, that was another team that my brother liked. Basketball has always been at the bottom of my list of sports. I was never any good at it, although my brother was. As a boy and a teenager, I got sick of my barber asking me during every haircut, "You're pretty tall. Playing basketball?" I told him politely that I didn't, although what I wanted to say was, "I'm not even six feet, I wear glasses and while I can jump pretty high, I can't shoot worth a damn and always forget to follow my shot and more often than not I lose the guy I'm supposed to cover. Now just put the bowl on my head and do your job!"

I loved the Knicks' Walt "Clyde" Frazier as a kid. Look at this picture and you'll understand:

I had a pair of checkered, double-knit dress pants as a kid, and I referred to them as my "Clyde pants." Seriously.

But once my brother went away to college, I stopped caring about the Knicks. In the 20 years that I've been living in and around Boston, I've taken to following the Celtics, but not with any true passion.

My brother was also a Giants fan. When we played football in the neighborhood, I'd imagine I was Ron Johnson when I ran the ball, or John Mendenhall when I was rushing, or Spider Lockhart when I was covering a receiver. Somewhere in a box of old stuff, I have a glossy flyer from a basketball game that a few members of the Giants played in my hometown, against, hmmm, I don't know, members of the police or something.

But the Giants didn't win Super Bowls the way the Steelers did. So, in an effort to separate myself from my brother, and root for a winner, I totally jumped on the Pittsburgh bandwagon. I hung a poster in our room of Franco Harris, and felt pretty good about that.

Once I went away to college, I stopped caring about the Giants.

At some point once I moved to the Boston area, I became a Patriots fan. It wasn't a sudden thing. I watched some games here and there. During the 2001 season, I watched more than usual, because Beth was pregnant, and we didn't go out as much as we used to.

Of course we watched the playoffs, and the team's subsequent first Super Bowl victory. Unfortunately, Beth wasn't feeling good that day, so we had to skip her sister and brother-in-law's annual party.

Since that big victory, I've become a full-fledged Patriots fan. There is some irony here. Growing up, my brother and I were friends with a clan of six boys, the Keegans. Five of the six were Giants fans, while the lone holdout was a Patriots fan.

We couldn't understand why he rooted for them, so, being boys, we ragged on him all the time about it. He also liked the California Angels (now the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles, Planet Earth), so we doubled down on our insults.

He's been rewarded for his loyalty, and may receive payback on February 5th when the Patriots face the Giants in the Super Bowl. The Giants beat the Pats in the big game four years ago.

As a Sox fan, I know how he feels. For Boston fans, 2004 was our chance to stick it to Yankees fans after the ignominious way the 2003 season ended. Still, I have no idea how 2012 will go for the Sox, but I know that no matter what, I'll be rooting for 'em.