America's Team: Red Sox ? (USA Today)

From USA Today:

Talk about a bandwagon.

When talking about "America's Team" (The term is worthy of a discussion of it's own), many to date have thought New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys or afew years back the Atlanta Braves or Chicago Bulls when Michael Jordan was around.

There's a new kid on the block, at least according to USA Today.

For along time, we've all known about Red Sox Nation as a unifying force in New England. Heaven help anyone rooting for another team, especially one for the Bronx.

For a long time there have been many Red Sox fans in the New York area (who in the past included myself from the days of Yaz and the Impossible Dream until the heavy-handed deal that brought John Henry in, more about that some other time too - I still love the ballpark).

Anyway, USA Today is now writing that perhaps the Red Sox should be thought of as "America's Team" because of teh buzz they cause when they come to town.

Remember a couple of weeks back when Boston visited Baltimore and some 80% of a sell-out were Red Sox fans. Not much Oriole magic was to be found there (BTW, how about those 30 runs scored against the Birds in one game (Texas 30, Orioles 3) - coincidentally, just after manager Dave Trembley was signed to a new contract. There's winning one for the skipper.

What do you think ? Are the Red Sox now "America's Team". Is the Yanks, teh Cubs, the Cowboys ? Is the idea of "America's Team" reality based or just a marketing ploy ?

Here's the USA Today article:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/al/redsox/2007-08-22-Roadattendance_N.htm