A pointed message to the Pink Hats

Pink Hats noun: A term attributed to a group of Red Sox fans who freely hop on and off the bandwagon showing little knowledge or intellengence in regards to the game of baseball or the Boston Red Sox. Can be, and often are, the loudest critics of the team when struggling. See Also: The first month and a half of the 2011 regular season.

Well, whatdya know? I guess the Red Sox aren't so sucky of a team after all. After a difficult start and near omnipresent struggles the Red Sox have found their way back to .500 after knocking the Yankees back in a three game sweep. The same Red Sox who started 2-10 have won 18 of their last 28 and now sit at 20-20, a managable three games back of the Tampa Bay Rays with a grand total of 122 games remaining in the regular season.

I think now is a good time to tell all the panicky, worrying, average fans out there to chill out. Stop calling the talk radio stations moaning and complaining about "your" team. Stop calling for this guy to be benched and that guy to be cut. Most important of all, stop pretending to be true fans; because true fans, through frustrated with the start, didn't whine, they didn't complain.

They accepted that this was an unusually difficult start but have since moved on. They accepted that it's not so easy to simply cut a guy who you owe $20 million to. They accepted that for better, or worse, this was our team and it was more important to support them as true fans do than to pull them down. They accepted that this team was simply too good to be kept down forever.

During the midst of the early weeks of the season I recall talking with the good fans and coming to the consensus that if this team has any hope of making noise in October they needed to get to .500 and only 5 games out by June 1st. And wouldn't you know it, they got to a better point with 16 days to spare.

So to all the fair weather fans out there and especially to all the Pink Hats, remember that this division is too tightly packed for anyone to get a huge lead in the standings. Remember that this team is talented and is still capable of special things. Above all, learn what it means to be a Sox fan and keep the faith.