This Red Sox disaster isn't just about the losing

Strange as this may seem coming from a Yankees fan, but I have a respect ... albeit highly grudging respect ... for what the Red Sox have done over the past several years.

Their biggest rival plays in a metropolitan area of 19 million people, while theirs is a little under 4.6 million, but ownership has tried to play at on something resembling the same financial field as the Yankees. Even during this time of caterwauling that the Red Sox owners are spending money on Liverpool and not the baseball team, they have the third-highest payroll in baseball. They've wasted a lot of it (see Crawford, Carl; Lackey, John; Matsuzaka, Daisuke), but they are spending it.

They've been able to do it by leveraging their fans, both the hardcore fans and the ones who have been lifelong fans since 2004 (or 2007), into paying high ticket prices at Fenway Park every night and watching on NESN. But with that, there has always been another half of the bargain.

The team must always be right.

Unlike the Yankees, there aren't enough people in the Boston area to justify losing fans, not if they want to keep pace with New York. Therefore, anytime something happens, particularly when players leave, the Sox and their friendly media need to make sure that it's not their fault. That's what leads to Johnny Damon being a Judas who can't throw, Jason Bay strikes out too much, Pedro Martinez's arm is going to fall off ... and of course the biggest of all ... Nomar Garciaparra is a cancer.

So after last September happened, the Red Sox needed to make sure the fans didn't turn on them, so they fired Terry Francona, even though they weren't going to have any "scapegoats." The only problem, they would have had you believe, was that Francona lost the clubhouse, but a new manager (who turned out to be Bobby Valentine) was going to make it all better.

Except it hasn't worked.

Of course, playing crappy hasn't helped, including losing the 100th anniversary game (where that "a-hole" Garciaparra got a huge hand, as I knew he would) and then blowing a 9-0 lead the next day.

And now we have the latest in "As Josh Beckett Turns."

The natives are getting restless, and it's more than just the booing. It has the potential to start hitting the team in the pocketbook, and soon, especially since we now know that the team has a sellout streak mainly because ... well, it says it does.

If attendance drops to the point where not even freebies will make a difference, that's a lot of money, and the difference between New York and Boston starts getting a lot bigger.