With football season underway and the playoffs rapidly approaching in the world of Major League Baseball, Conn students are blatantly displaying their sports allegiances across campus. With New London conveniently located between two of the Northeast’s largest cities, these loyalties most often lie with the sports franchises of New York City and Boston.
So, to whom does Connecticut belong? As both a member of the tri-state area and a segment of New England, it’s hard to say. Patriots and Giants fans alike agree that it is hard to draw a line, but both are staunch in staking their own territory no matter the opposition.
True to a historic, deep conflict and arguably the biggest rivalry in all of sports, Red Sox and Yankee fans at Conn come head to head – a commitment to diversity indeed! Native New Yorker yet Boston resident Blair West ’14 said that she finally felt safe enough in the Connecticut College environment to express her Yankee pride. However, the Boston fan base is noticeably heavier than the pinstriped portion.
But with most of Conn’s students coming from Massachusetts, Maura Hallisey ’13 pointed out that Conn’s campus isn’t an accurate representation of Connecticut. “Having lived in Connecticut, I can tell you it’s definitely really mixed. Where I’m from, central Connecticut is definitely Yankee territory.”
A few brave sports enthusiasts have attempted to draw the border of Red Sox Nation and Yankee Country. In 2006, New York Times sportswriter John Branch traveled across Connecticut to lay “baseball’s bitterest border.”
Putting to test the theory of supply and demand, Branch did a little investigating in the field of baseball hats at Connecticut malls. At the Connecticut Post Mall in Milford, almost forty different styles of Yankee caps were displayed on a wall, while the few Red Sox hats were nearly out of sight on the bottom sales racks. However, an hour away at the Crystal Mall – just five minutes from Conn in Waterford – the hat shop, Lids, sold predominantly Sox hats. Various attributes accounted for where loyalties laid in different towns Branch visited – in Middletown, it is the Italian-American generation that once rooted for Yogi Berra that sways this town into Yankee Country. In Rocky Hill, it is the number of team door magnets in the town’s post office that proved loyalty lay with the Sox. Branch concluded after touring New England that “there were no exact answers. Only debatable ones. As it should be.”
Although it looks as though the Red Sox Nation’s 2010 season may be coming to a close, their spirit will be carried through the offseason by their fans, no matter their proximity to Yankee Country. And although Yanks fans on campus are a definite minority, it is certain that they will stand their ground – foreign soil or not.
For all the Mets, Jets, Celtics, Knicks, Nets, Eagles and Phillies fans – your allegiances certainly play their own roles within the intricate story of Northeastern sports rivalries; however, there are only so many spotlights. We’ll see who shines in this year’s upcoming championships, all the while rooting passionately for the old home team.
Photo By: Kira Turnbull
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