But Gomez, a 37-year-old native of the Dominican Republic, feels that the current team isn't the same as it was just a few years ago - or even a few months ago. With no Pedro Martínez and no Manny Ramírez, with Julio Lugo on the disabled list and possibly headed for the bench whenever he does return,Gomez and other Latino fans see a team that looks a lot less like them.
"We feel like we've lost something personal in our team," Gomez said recently, cutting hair at the Fernandez Barbershop in Jamaica Plain, where many Latino Sox players come to get haircuts. "It's a big community, the Latinos. It makes us feel proud to at least have representation."
"I've always been a Red Sox fan. That's not going to change. I want to be a Red Sox fan," said Javy Fernandez, a 22-year-old Dominican-American who owns a market in Dorchester. "But I get more excited when I see my people - people of my ethnicity - play on my team. It makes you feel like you're playing on the team also."
Jed Hoyer, the Red Sox's assistant general manager, declined to comment specifically on any of the recent moves, but he stressed that all decisions are based on a player's talent, not ethnicity. When making personnel moves, such as not re-signing Pedro in 2004 or trading Manny in July, Hoyer said club officials are only considering one thing: what's best for the team.
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So much is wrong with this article.
Apparently they didn't have enough to report on today. A poor population of mostly illegals, only in Massachusetts (a far cry from the Dominican) because of the free benefits offered by the state, latches onto a local team because a few Dominicans happen to be on it. They identify with the team and then with the city, celebrating two World Series victories (read: millionaires dancing around like morons who care nothing for the fans or the city in which they play - sounds kind of like illegal immigrant populations to me, no wonder they love the athletes so much). Suddenly they feel like "part of the team" (uh, sound a bit like a 7-year-old idolizing Mickey Mantle?) and are disappointed when a few of them leave for greener pastures (greener meaning more money). The sad part is they don't realize, or have tricked themselves into believing, that they wouldn't do the same thing. Like there aren't enough Latinos in LA (Manny Ramirez) or New York (Pedro Martinez) that these athletes can defraud into thinking they're part of the Latino community.
The Red Sox are racist because their Latino population is dwindling! Off with their heads!
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