Jock Itch The Massholes are coming! The Massholes are coming!

It was 2007. The Boston Red Sox were in town and the Massholes were in full effect. As I stood in line for the bathroom during the first World Series game ever to be played at Coors Field, a delightful combination of Mark Wahlberg and the Jersey Shore exclaimed all too loudly that, “Denver sucks. The girls here are all ugly.” It was but one bon mot in the witty arsenal of the typical Boston Red Sox fan.

And like famed Bostonian Paul Revere, I’m here to spread the word that another invasion is imminent: The Red Sox make a rare appearance at Coors Field this week for a three-game set, bringing along with them their obnoxious fan base. The Massholes are coming! The Massholes are coming!

I used to be sympathetic to the plight of the Boston sports fan. The Red Sox went 86 years before they won another World Series. But after that happened, something changed. The likeable, downtrodden fans from Beantown became loud-mouthed, arrogant braggarts. Maybe they were like that all along. But after snagging two titles, they’ve turned into some of the worst fans to ever visit Coors Field. (Don’t worry Cubs fans, you’re still No. 1 on that list.)

Or maybe it has to do with the inferiority complex the Red Sox fans have about their East Coast division rivals (and current champs), the New York Yankees. I understand the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry and how it might make fans act toward their hated adversaries—after all, we live through Broncos/Raiders strife every day. But if going to another team’s ballpark, a team in an entirely different league, and acting like a dickhead is your way of supporting your baseball team, you’re obviously overcompensating for something.

Rockies fans are nice, docile, and family friendly—the complete opposite of Red Sox fans who act like Kennedys on spring break whenever they’re in town—and perhaps that’s what is creating the problem. If there’s a disadvantage to having mountains, yoga studios, and microbreweries within a stone’s throw of anywhere in Denver, it manifests in the unwillingness to act like a cockhole at a baseball game. There are worse fates, I guess.

Like having your best athletes outed as steroid users: Two celebrated Boston players were exposed as performance-enhancing drug users a short while after the team’s second World Series championship. Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz were included on a list of performance-enhancers as far back as 2003. And Ramirez sat out 50 games last season for covering up his steroid tracks. They were key members of a team that swept the Rockies in the 2007 series, and whose output at the plate suspiciously fell off after the heat on steroid infractions became white-hot. Is the guilt of two tainted World Series titles eating away at the psyche of the Red Sox fans? Is that why they’re acting out?

But for all of the negativity the Red Sox fans will drag into Coors Field this week, let’s try to remember some of the good to come out Boston: Boston cream pie, the Afflecks, the Pixies, Dropkick Murphys, plus the almanac of other great bands from the area. And don’t forget Cheers. I became a fan of Beantown and of fictitious Red Sox pitcher Sam Malone after dutifully watching that show for 11 seasons.

For the next three nights, we will have to endure the Red Sox fans like a groin pull. And instead of matching their hostility and bad manners, I would suggest restraint and tolerance. It’s really what any religion or spiritual teaching will tell you to do when dealing with less-evolved creatures.