I ♥ the Red Sox

When we packed up our 11, yes 11, suitcases we had to make some pretty hard decisions about what we were going to be bringing back.  There were some obvious I lived in Asia items; handmade scarves from Laos, a wooden Buddha head from Thailand, a red ceramic Mao face, a Mongolian hat and along with the clothes and toys were four Red Sox caps in a variety of sizes and colors that had all made the trip over and would make the trip home.  After all, Red Sox fans never leave a cap behind.

Four caps you say confused? Yes, four, and only three children.  We have a collection; there's the infant sizes reversible red and blue for yes, our then newborn (5 weeks when we left), the small pink cap for our then 2 year old who not too recently grew to the size of a 6 year old (it's the Chinese food) and needed a larger pink hat, and last but not least is the classic white and blue cap that our son has worn for 4 years and has his name embroidered on the back.

Red Sox caps and Red Sox love have history in this house no matter where it is we have lived. My grandfather was born in 1918, my dad celebrated his 60th birthday the night the Red Sox came back in a stunner against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS, and my husband attended Game 1 of the World Series in 2007.  We have watched the parades from the Cambridge side of the river and frozen our backsides off at playoff time and sunburned our shoulders and faces while sitting in the "cheap seats" in younger days.

Can you watch baseball in China? Yes, yes you can.  Now if you can get by the Japanese commentary you can catch all the west coast games and the Red Sox vs. Angels is never disappointing, or you can find a pub at 8:05 am and cheer the Sox on from Shanghai or you can upgrade your satellite TV package and get all the games live.  Same with the NFL.  Who said western media couldn't be accessed?  Let me tell you about Facebook sometime.

Here's the other thing you can do in China that really catches people off guard...while jogging you can shout "Let's Go Red Sox!" whenever you see a Sox cap (and there are a few) and people actually stop to talk (hey buddy, I'm jogging not talking) and whenever you see a Yankees cap (and there are a few) you can shout "Yankees suck!" and they have no idea how to respond...quite frankly because they are Yankees fans.

Red Sox love never fades, it only gets stronger the farther away you are from one another.