Sox fans are right

6/21/07
Red Sox fans have mostly gotten over their communal, lifelong inferiority complex — and whenever they start feeling down, they can always pop in a tape of the 2004 American League Championship Series to make themselves feel better. But in one important way, they really are being treated like second-class citizens around here.
Mets and Yankees fans are all set; they can watch every inning of every one of their team’s games, from spring training to the victory parade. Sox fans, though, are shut out. New England Sports Network, which carries the team’s games, is not available in Fairfield County. Because the area falls in the New York market, Boston fans have to do without.
Even more galling have been a series of technical problems that kept Red Sox games that should have aired off the television. When national outlets like ESPN show games involving a local team, those games are only available on the local network; for example, a Yankees-Orioles game slated for ESPN would be shown on the Yankees network, YES, while ESPN in that area would show alternate programming.
But something was missed during a few Sox games this year. Even though NESN isn’t available here, nationally televised Red Sox games on ESPN were blacked out in Fairfield County. Somehow, local Boston fans got caught in some sort of baseball double jeopardy.
It’s not the end of the world, obviously, but people take their baseball-watching seriously. And when fans tried to get to the bottom of the problem, they got the pass-the-buck response — blame was cast on the cable company, local stations, ESPN and Major League Baseball, or all of the above.
Boston fans are famous for reveling in their suffering, but they have a case. ESPN can do better; get those games on TV where they belong.