Why Not Us?: The 86-Year Journey of the Boston Red Sox Fans from Unparalleled Suffering to the Promised Land of the 2004 World Series FROM THE PUBLISHER
For 86 years, Red Sox fans have been hungry. Generation after
generation has watched and hoped and prayed for victory. And generation
after generation has turned away utterly despondent-after the crushing
near-misses of 1946 (when the Sox lost the World Series in 7 games), '48
(lost a one game play-off to Cleveland), '49 (heartbreak to the Yankees),
'67 (again, lost the World Series in 7), '75 (and again, lost the World
Series in 7), Bucky in '78, Buckner in '86, Boone in 2003-then come back the
next spring, wounded, yet hopeful again. The losing, the angst, the
self-flagellation became so codified that it had even developed marketing
names. The suffering was called "The Curse of the Bambino." The sufferers
were called "Red Sox Nation"- the ultimate underdogs. Would it ever end?
And then it did.
Why Not Us? is not a book about how the Red
Sox achieved their amazing victory in the 2004 World Series - an avalanche
of books, and time, will take care of that nicely. It is a book about what
that victory meant to the fans. It's a book about how it felt to be a Red
Sox fan - not only at 20 minutes to midnight on October 27, 2004, but
decades before. Leigh Montville has interviewed dozens of fans: friends,
friends of friends, old sportswriters, ball-players, public figures, and
plain folk. The resulting book is their stories - bittersweet stories of
passion and pain, eternal hope and crushing despair, the seemingly endless
agony and the strange ecstasy of being a Red Sox fan.
FROM THE CRITICS
New York Daily News
"Any true fan should enjoy the read, even while getting ready for next season."
Buffalo News
"Captures the funny and often poignant tales of dozens of Hub fans..."
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