Red Sox Redhead Rewind

Two weeks ago, Boston Daily became a Red Sox Redhead. At that time, the Sox were losing to the Indians and we feared we may have sent Amy Derjue on a fool’s errand. Luckily for her, she’s now sporting the colors of the 2007 World Series champions. With the season over, we asked her how she liked rocking the red.

At first, nobody made the connection between the red in my hair and the Red Sox. The day I got the extensions put in, I walked down Newbury Street to see if anyone reacted. The only thing I noticed is that people were actually nicer to me. At Trident Booksellers, where I am usually ignored, a staffer warmly asks if he can help me find anything. But nobody thought I added the red to honor the home team.

I tried wearing a Sox hat with my hair the next day. Still nothing. Even my baseball-crazed friends asked why I’d added the streaks as we watched the Sox come back against the Indians.

It was only when I wore a Red Sox t-shirt over a long-sleeved red shirt for Sunday’s possible World Series sweep that people understood what I was doing. “You dyed your hair Red for the Red Sox,” a man on the bus said to me. “Cool.”

At a CVS, an elderly woman laughed when she saw me. “I can tell a Red Sox fan from a mile away,” she declared. Even though I was clearly dressed to support the Sox, I like to think my hair was what caused her to come over and tell me why she thought they would win.

“You dyed your hair for the Red Sox!” The seven-year-old I babysit exclaimed when I walked into her house. “You don’t look like yourself,” her three-year-old sister added.

Even if the Red Sox weren’t World Series champions, I still would have liked having the red in my hair. I finally had the crazy colors I’d coveted as a teenager but never attempted because I feared my mother would pluck each Manic-Panic soaked strand out of my scalp. While I thought it was obvious the red streaks were extensions, others thought I’d treated my own hair instead of adding more. Maybe if the Celtics do as well as they’re expected, I can add in some green.