This was my reply:

I've only been a Sox fan since 1986 (yeah, bad year to start). I think that in that time, the moment I recall most vividly is in 1988, when Mike Boddicker was traded to the Sox. My recollection is that in his very first game with the Sox he pitched in relief (which, incidentally, was the only game he pitched in relief between 1984 and 1990), although it might not have been his actual first game. But I distinctly remember watching him walk in from the bullpen. As a rule, though I have the utmost respect for pitchers, I don't generally find them very exciting to watch. Boddicker was different; he threw so much weird junk up to the plate, it was genuinely fun to see him throw some offspeed pitch and watch the batter flail away at it. He gave me an appreciation of one aspect of the game that no one else has given me.

I think that was when I decided that this baseball stuff seemed like a pretty cool hobby. 1988 was the first year I really, deep down, rooted for the Red Sox, and I hated the Oakland Athletics for beating them in the playoffs (and in four games no less!). It also indirectly turned me into a minor fan of the Dodgers, since I was rooting against the A's in the World Series, and Kirk Gibson's home run and Orel Hershiser's great pitching are perhaps the two finest moments I've yet witnessed in the game.

Being a latter-day Sox fan, I don't have the emotional attachment to the historic Sox greats such as Yaz or Williams that many fans do - although each of them had such towering careers that I'm proud to be a fan of the team on which they spent their days.

I think the event that best characterizes the Red Sox as a whole is the 1975 World Series. The Red Sox have been part of some of the absolute greatest moments in the history of the game, even if they do go down in defeat each time, and they continually prove themselves worthy of our loyalty. People say that Game Seven of 1975 was a great game in its own right, but everyone remembers Game Six.

And that's the Red Sox.