Although the snow may be falling outside, spring training is in full swing down in Florida. With baseball season quickly approaching – the Red Sox played their first spring training game last night – I must say, it is pretty exciting to know that within weeks, the man who wears Yankees shirts to Fenway Park will get hit by a drunk, old Sox fan. I can hear the unnecessary profanity already.

Two older men were arguing about Curt Shilling the other day on the T. It was quite interesting. The Red Sox are hesitant to sign Schilling for another season because of his age and pudginess. One of the men was wearing a pair of those bulky, square eye-glass covers — you know, the kind eye doctors give out to put over a regular pair of glasses – thinking they were real sunglasses. With his Martin Scorsese-esque eyebrows holding a disturbingly high amount of lint, he argued the Sox should tell Schilling to go to hell “because he’s nothing but a fat bum.” The man he was arguing with, who was wearing a 2004 championship sweatshirt for a feeling of hope, I guess, said they should keep Schilling out of respect. This guy, however, is pretty huge. Coincidence? I think not.

Ever since I came to Boston University, I have been told Red Sox fans are obnoxious just like these two fellas. Many Sox haters have told me they just root for whichever team Boston is playing against just because they hate the Sox and their faithful fans. But are Red Sox fans actually obnoxious? Of course, but I can justify our behavior.

So please follow me through the official Red Sox Nation corporate building, where we will discover why our baseball team just knocks our socks off.

The first stop on our little tour is what I like to call the department of “I thought there were only 25 letters in the alphabet.” Although some people around here are coherent, most of us are in fact missing a crucial letter — the one that falls between “Q” and “S.” I didn’t know until I came to BU that I, in fact, had what outsiders call a “Boston accent.” One time, when I told this guy that I went to Bar Harbor, Maine over winter break, he exclaimed how fantastic it must have been to be in the warm delightful sunshine of the Bahamas. I looked at him blankly, shook my head yes and giggled quietly to myself about the idiot who thought Maine was warm in the winter. Little did I know that my “R”-challenged self didn’t realize that Bar Harbor sounds pretty close to Bahamas in normal speech.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Boston accent is actually an incurable medical condition. Strange, uncomfortable bubbles form under my upper lip every time I try to prevent a language barrier forming between me and new acquaintances as I dreadfully attempt to say “carrr.”

So there you have it, we in Red Sox nation can’t speak. When we all gather together in Fenway, though, we forget our linguistic shortcomings, and instead focus on the Red Sox. It is basically like the political rallies of 1960s and ’70s, without the historical importance, government involvement and, of course, “R’s.”

The next stop on our engaging tour is the Red Sox Nation Fine Foods Division. Boston corresponds to baked beans and clam chowder. First of all, I hate baked beans. Sure, they are a great source of complex carbohydrates, protein, iron, calcium and thiamin, but beans remind me of the food I will be smushing up and drinking through a straw when I am old, decrepit and clinging to life. Then there is clam chowder. Delicious but not very nutritious, clam chowder would not be too bad of a representation if companies were not inspired by our language deficiencies and thought spelling it “chowda” was cute. Not only do we scare people off with our spoken word, but now we can’t spell either? Damn you, Boston Chowda Company and your insulting ways.

The final stop on our discovery of why Red Sox fans are who they are is the Chamber of Self-Loathing Music. Frank Sinatra sings about wishing to wake up in the Big Apple to spread his love of the city that never sleeps in his classic “New York, New York.” The 1960s band The Standells sings about our polluted harbor and the Charles River in addition to the muggers and thieves you’ll find throughout the city in “Dirty Water.” Even though the most famous song about Boston is about the city’s hygene problems and bandits, it is still blasted after every Red Sox home-game win because we don’t have much to work with here.

Okay, we think a team who has won the World Series once in 86 years is the best, and we chant “Yankees suck” during Red Sox vs. Orioles games. But when you realize we have such pride for our city and its historic baseball team – even though we can’t speak correctly, are known for funny-colored legumes and for dirty water – can you really blame anyone for joining Red Sox Nation?

Megan Murphy, a sophomore in the School of Education, is a columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at [email protected]