Whose Fans Are Crazier: American Idol, or the Red Sox?

People who are overzealous for any cause make us nervous. The fainting women at Barack Obama rallies leave a deeply unsettled feeling. He is, after all, still a politician. People who chastise strangers for their religious beliefs get on our nerves too. But the people who bother us the most are American Idol fanatics.

Don’t get us wrong—we watch that stupid show. But we don’t troll Google alerts in order to pick a fight with some random blogger who says my contestant of choice sucks. (Hello, Taylor Hicks fans!) It’s just a pointless fight that means nothing in the grand scheme of life.

That said, we’re beginning to have the same attitude toward Red Sox fans.

Some of our best friends are huge Red Sox fans, but none of them would shove a child to get an player’s autograph as Kevin Cullen describes in his column today.

Whenever one of the players stopped, some of the adults – not a lot of them, but too many – pushed and squeezed kids aside. How any supposed grown-up could consciously use their reach and size to beat out a kid for an autograph is beyond me.

Allow me to corroborate Cullen’s story with a personal anecdote.

Last summer, I took the three kids I babysit to catch the last game of the year for the Paw Sox. At the end of the game, players and the grounds crew tossed soft souvenir baseballs into the crowd. The older kids fended for themselves pretty well, but I was holding their 3-year-old sister and helping her catch a ball.

I had one in my hand as a fat guy in a Harley Davidson hat tried to wrench it away from me.

“She’s three,” I hissed at him. “Let her have the damn ball.” He rolled his eyes, let go of the ball, and slinked away.

It was a souvenir ball. From McCoy. And this guy was ready to ruin the day of a kid who was barely out of diapers to get it. This bad behavior may be proof the fanaticism has gone to the American Idol fangirl level. Next thing you know, that fat guy with the Harley hat will have a sign that reads “Red Sox, I’m you’re [sic] biggest fan!!!!!” in pink puffy paint.