BOSTON — Jim Fick might as well be wearing a “kick me” sign on his back.
He is walking down Yawkey Way, the front porch of Fenway Park, wearing a purple blazer. Red Sox fans are staring, pointing, giggling. Some are jeering, riding high after the Game 1 blowout.
“Welcome to the big leagues,” one had said to him Thursday. “This isn’t the J.V. any more,” another jabbed.
“Today, a few people had the smirk,” said Dave Carlson, who traveled with Fick from Denver to both World Series games in Boston and wore a Todd Helton jersey Thursday night.
It’s all in good fun, Fick and Carlson say. Plus, they know that dealing with Red Sox fans is a little like dealing with grizzly bears. If you don’t mess with them, they probably won’t mess with you. And a little honey never hurt.
In a town famous for its loyalty to its ballclub, most Rockies fans who ventured to Boston said they found Red Sox fans to be good sports if they obeyed the two main rules: Don’t disrespect Fenway, and don’t cheer for the New York Yankees.
“If you’re not a Yankee fan, they’re OK with you,” said Tom Knutsen, a Rockies fan from Westminster who attended Game 2. “They don’t like you, but they don’t hate you.”
And you have to be prepared to get razzed. Knutsen, in Rockies regalia, said his wife is a Red Sox fan, so he was ready for the jokes at his expense.
“If I can take it at home, I can take it from a couple chowderheads,” he said.
Thursday night, Mat Markman had on a Dante Bichette jersey and a Rockies hat he wore to the first home game the Rockies played. When he walked past the ticket line before the game, people booed.
“But it was good fun,” Markman, from Denver, said, “not aggressive.”
Even the friend he came to the game with, a Red Sox fan, was on his case.
“They’d be booing you more if they thought you had any shot in this series,” his friend, David, said. (David wouldn’t give his last name because, he explained, “No quotes from me in The Denver Post, or that will be the day I get beat up by all my friends here.”)
Yes, while the Red Sox fans didn’t abuse Rockies fans, they also didn’t really consider Rockies fans their equals. To a Boston fan, there are Red Sox fans and then there is everybody else.
In Thursday’s Boston Globe, columnist Kevin Cullen said that Coloradans are mildly interested in the World Series and that “most people in Colorado think baseball is a sport that strays far too deep into football season and perilously close to ski season.”
Longtime Red Sox season- ticket holder Don Parker offered faint praise.
“They’re nice people,” he said. “I’ll tell you what the difference is. They’re glad to be here. We’re here to win.”
Fick and Carlson diffused any tension there might be by making friends with their hecklers. Carlson shook hands and chatted up any Red Sox fan who ribbed him. Fick smiled for every photo a Red Sox fan took of him.
So, after Fick talked to Red Sox season-ticket holder Jack McDonald, McDonald offered the kindest compliment of all.
“He seems like a good guy and a good fan,” McDonald said. “He’s like a Boston fan.”
And in the end, after another Rockies loss, Carlson said he had no regrets. How many people get to see their team’s first World Series games?
“The experience of a lifetime,” he said.
John Ingold: 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com
