The Red Sox brand stirs a lucrative passion. Fans keep their money with the official bank of the Red Sox; buy official plumbing and lighting supplies, office supplies and automobiles; they take their vacations with the players, name their pets after the ballpark, dress in logowear on the weekends and serve barbecue on plates glazed with playoff statistics. Fans fret about the high cost of gas for a trip to Fenway Park, but once there, spend like their millionaire heroes.

Boston sports teams have reinvented winning. Call it the “Ubuntu salary structure”, coupled with old-fashioned team play. But now it is time for the fans to reinvent themselves by also rooting for the collective good, instead of a win-at-all-cost everyday mania. After all, we are not New Yorkers. Jason Varitek, Captain of the Good-Ship Red Sox, and steward of two World Series pitching staffs, should never, ever be booed. When you boo your heroes, you diminish their heroics. Period. The yahoos in Red Sox Nation should pay attention to Varitek’s colleagues, who give him All-Star status in the twilight of a legendary career.

George Carlin, RIP, famously spoofed the gentle, pastoral history of baseball, but as Manny Ramirez reminds, the sport has many similarities to football and the Willie Andrews of the world. Professional baseball can be a violent, aggressive sport requiring nerve and hair-trigger skills. When a big league pitcher towers on a mound above you from just sixty feet away, and throws a hardball ninety miles per hour seemingly right at you, well, that is a battle that players have to be ready to fight four times a day, every day, for six long months. It’s only natural that a player’s aggressive athletic instincts may regretably spill over into other areas of life like ticket allocation.

Don’t hate us because we’re (almost) perfect! The Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics are three winning dynasties in the City of Champions, Titletown, or…America’s Teams? And there is no sign of let-up. But Boston can only go to the ball as Cinderella so many times, before we become the hunted and envied one, the team to beat, or in today’s new blogging culture, the City and teams to hate. But don’t be a hater, it’s not the Obama way. Call it Ubuntu, the Patriot way, or Theo-ball, Boston sports teams, in an age of obscene sports celebrity and stardom, have figured out best that there is strength in the collective, strength in numbers, and that it might just take a village to be the best!

Something was desperately missing from Tiger Woods at the U.S. Open playoff. There is seemingly no connection between him and his surrounding environment. His “gaze to nowhere”-definately not at you-and body language, were Obama-esque. It was worse than Kobe, pre-Schilling smackdown. Is it just sporting arrogance or worse, indifference? No one wants to root for a pre-programmed robot. Beware the pursuit of excellence that produces utter exhaustion, and not just by the viewing public!

What do you give the man who has everything? More! Kobe, Tiger & Red Auerbach’s legacy have it all, and still want more. Another title. More U.S. Open’s. Another Larry O’Brien trophy. On Father’s Day Tiger plays for a Major in his hometown, for the first time without his Dad present. Paul Pierce and the Celtics play in the Finals for the first time without Red. Deep down they all seethe like Kobe.

The Red Sox were heartbreakers before they won two championships, and captured the affection of dancing sportsfans across America. The Patriots followed a similar path until the gloom and Belichick doom cast a pall over New England. Now, here come the geeked Celtics, a trio of exciting veterans in the twilight of unfullfilled but ridiculously compensated career$, seeking redemption or Donna Summer, with a “let’s dance, the last dance, last chance…” America’s Teams? Or Dancing with the Boston Sports Stars”?

Image is everything in pro sports, and playing the game just might be easier than maintaining your public image. Try hitting a 95 mile per hour fastball. Whif. Okay. But now try having hoards of freaky strangers (fans) stare you down like a piece of hamburger, and watch your every move, beg for your signature, every public moment of the day. Double whif. Image is also very important to large corporations where the fate of many is tied to sport teams. Or is it? Are the New England Patriots a sports business? Or are they an entertainment and construction company, currently building a large, very expensive shopping mall that hinges on the Patriots image. Touchdown. And don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Coach Belichick.

Pro basketball looks and feels like professional wrestling, of the Jessie Ventura kind. Players flop and fake fouls, then plead their comic case. Coaches preen in a zoot suit with an exaggerated look of frustration. The music is too loud, the lights and confetti are ridiculous, the dancers belong in a strip club, and no one watches the game. Instead, fans stare at the giant scoreboard over the court which tells them what to say in between video of dancing fans.

Baseball is an intimate sport. On television, during each at-bat, four times a game, the camera gets in very close to the athlete’s face and body for an extended period of time. Same with the pitcher. Thirty years after a player’s career is over, a backyard wiffle ball game will likely feature his mimicked batting stances and routines. Fans carry baseball images with them their whole life, and apparantly to the end, hoping to scatter their cremated ashes at a most familiar home plate.