Win It for .... What a World Championship Means to Generations of Red Sox Fans

The 2004 season was magical for every Red Sox fan. Despite a midseason slumber for the Red Sox, optimism ran rampant at SoSH. The community was tighter and seemed to rally itself around the club. In short, we believed. Then came the postseason with its ups and downs. The Sox swept the Angels in the American League Division Series and then fell hard in the first three games of the championship series to the Yankees. Down 0-3 on baseball's greatest stage, the Red Sox mounted an impossible comeback. They took Games 4, 5, and 6 from the Yankees as the fans held their breath in anticipation and hope. On the eve of the seventh game, Shaun Kelly (a.k.a. JackLamabe65) began the thread that is chronicled herein, a lasting tribute to anyone who ever gave their heart to the Olde Towne team only to see it cruelly broken in the end. The posts show a range of emotional stories about Red Sox fans' love for Boston, the team, and baseball in general. It is a celebration of the dedication and torment that has haunted Sox fans for months, years, and decades. Share in the personal wishes, hopes, and lives of those who watched their beloved team overcome a stigma 86 years in the making and emerge victorious late one October night. In keeping with the spirit of Win it for...., SoSH wants to support those who research cancer and ALS. The vast majority of the author proceeds is going to the good folks at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Curt's Pitch for ALS. In 1998 a small group of diehard Boston fans with a bent on noise-free intelligent baseball conversation assembled at dickiethon.com's Red Sox message board. It was a haven for those who were tired of sifting through the garbage that pollutes most of the larger sports message boards on the Internet. Spirited debate and deep analysis were the daily fare until those forums eventually crashed in February 2000. In an effort to maintain the terrific core group that had formed, Eric Christensen set up a temporary message board on a free network; it was crude, but it worked-and it also needed a name. Thus began the existence of the Sons of Sam Horn (www.sonsofsamhorn.com) and its bizarre quality-driven journey to the top of the Red Sox underground. SoSH has steadily grown ever since. In 2002 the site made the tough decision to close membership, requiring prospective new members to submit an application. Over the next two years the web traffic increased exponentially-mainly due to non-members ("lurkers") stopping in just to read the threads. SoSH also began having more regular brushes with the local media and celebrity, including Gordon Edes, Jerry Remy, Jim Callis, Bob Lobel, Sox general manager Theo Epstein, Curt Schilling, and Red Sox principal owner John Henry.Sons of Sam Horn is the author of 'Win It for .... What a World Championship Means to Generations of Red Sox Fans', published 2005 under ISBN 9781596700840 and ISBN 159670084X.