E-Mail This Article to a Friend Jimmy Funders part two, and the Sox’ spiteful run BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

In Friday’s column, we recapped the Fenway Park "Lunch with the Boys" that was part of WEEI’s charity fundraiser for the Jimmy Fund. That same evening, the "Cocktails with the Legends" event, also held at the ballpark’s "Players’ Club," capped off the three-tier, day-long fundraiser. While one might imagine that such a $250-per-person event would be a black-tie affair with waiters passing trays of scallops in bacon and goblets of Champagne, where guests could enjoy the opportunity to rub elbows with the giants of the Boston sporting world, instead it was another low-key affair, as befits a charity event. Instead of taking place in the luxurious .406 Club at the park’s upper level, it was held in the small function room on the ground floor, with just one bar (and one bartender) for the hundreds of guests, a buffet dinner that had disappeared by 6 p.m., and a definite lack of local sports icons.

Nonetheless, a couple of events stirred the interest of the assembled masses. First, there was the surprise appearance of Boston’s most popular Oscar winner, Ben Affleck, who initially tried to remain unnoticed in a baseball cap and wrap-around sunglasses. Yet after warmly greeting Sox broadcaster Sean McDonough, Affleck made the mistake of removing his shades, and the attendees quickly recognized the paparazzi favorite and began moving in for pictures and autographs. The Gigli star, sensing his loss of anonymity, was swiftly led away to a safe haven, never to be seen again by the cocktail crowd.

Shortly after Ben’s departure, the only other attendees who could reasonably be classified as "legends" were ushered in for a panel discussion that lasted about 45 minutes, then quickly whisked out upon completion of the chat. So much for the fans’ hopes of hobnobbing with the upper crust of Boston sports. Still, the crowd thoroughly enjoyed former Celtics Tommy Heinsohn and John Havlicek, Patriots hall of famer John Hannah, and former Sox hurler Luis Tiant, and the panel discussion, like the earlier, similarly formatted lunch with the Sox players, was marked by its chops-busting nature and witty insights. With ESPN baseball guru Peter Gammons serving as MC, the foursome took questions from the audience. Heinsohn and Havlicek helped unlock the mystery of Auerbachian coaching wizardry, Hannah dismissed the current pro-football landscape, and Tiant discussed his career in the big leagues with his trademark humor and passion.

The panel discussion was followed by an auction of special-number Massachusetts Red Sox license plates, with all proceeds going to the Jimmy Fund. The plates, all featuring the Red Sox logo, included six of the most famous numbers in Sox history, past and present. Nomar’s number five went first, and sold for $9500. Yaz’s number eight went for 11 grand, Pudge’s number 27 sold for $12,000, "406" (Ted Williams’s batting average during his Triple Crown 1941 season) went for 20 bills, and number one (Bobby Doerr) sold for $40,000 (Affleck apparently made a proxy bid of $50,000 for that plate, a bid that apparently came too late but was still donated to the Jimmy Fund). The highlight of the auction, and of the evening for that matter, was the spectacular bidding process that went for the Splendid Splinter’s number nine. Starting at $10,000, the bidding quickly became fast and furious, with the atmosphere reaching a fever pitch as the top bid at one point jumped a whopping $25,000 to over $100,000. When the dust had finally settled, an older gentleman seated in the crowd had won the coveted license plate for an astounding $140,000. That bid alone would have covered nearly half the $325,000 that the day-long Radiothon had collected in its inaugural effort last August. This year’s auction total of $232,500 helped the fundraising arm of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute top the $1 million mark for that day, and put an exclamation point on Friday’s events.

Those who had tickets to the cocktail hour with the where-did-they-go legends also got free tickets to that night’s Sox game, won by Boston, 6-4 over the Seattle Mariners. While I very much enjoyed both the Radiothon events that I attended that day, I had a bit of a quibble about my seat at the game, which found me in the third-base grandstand — squarely behind a pole.

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For some reason, despite all the goodwill that the local nine have generated with their four-game winning streak heading into Monday’s matinee with the Mariners, it has become more than evident that an "us against them" mentality prevails among Boston’s players. Red Sox players continue to act as if the sportswriters, talk-show callers, and basic run-of-the-mill fans are covertly plotting the team’s demise, and that Red Sox Nation and its representatives in the Fourth Estate want nothing more than to see them fail.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth, as the fans who love all things Red Sox and pay the highest ticket prices in the land want nothing more than to see their boys in the home whites succeed in ending the 85-year championship drought. In recent days, though, even the team’s most popular players, like Kevin Millar, Pedro Martinez, Nomar, Byung-Hyun Kim, and Derek Lowe, have gotten overly defensive, withdrawn, and sometimes angrily animated about the perceived injustices inflicted on the team and its hopes for post-season glory. The sources of their discontent are too numerous to outline here, but it’s getting very tired for those fans just trying to enjoy the damn season without hearing about who’s not talking to whom and who’s looking to get out of town once his contract is up. In particular, both Lowe and Martinez have lashed out at the critics who supposedly questioned their recent maladies (a finger blister and throat infection, respectively), even though it’s difficult, if not impossible, to find print evidence of any media member having raised such doubts. Nevertheless, it’s provided more fodder for the pitching pair to gripe about, and has fueled their further withdrawal into the cone of silence enveloping the team’s superstars this season.

All the controversy has cast a bit of a pall over the team’s recent success. The Sox’ lowest moment was probably the 24 hours between their excruciating 8-6 home loss to Oakland — the second-straight night Boston’s bullpen had imploded, and a loss that dropped the Sox two full games behind the A’s in the wild-card race and seven and a half games behind the Empire in the AL East — and their bombs-away blasting of Oakland on Thursday despite the news that the fever-wracked Pedro would be unable to pitch. Since that 24-hour period, when the team’s supporters were bemoaning the Sox’ struggles in funereal terms, Boston began its recent streak, which included three in a row over the AL West–leading Mariners. All of a sudden, the Sox are again tied with Oakland for the wild card, the deficit to the Yankees is down to five games with six head-to-head battles coming up, and different heroes have emerged on a nightly basis. Johnny Damon and Todd Walker, immersed in dreadful slumps heading into the All-Star break, have broken out with resounding offensive explosions. Lowe, John Burkett, and Jeff Suppan, all struggling to achieve any kind of consistency, have each put together solid outings in recent days. The offense, which struggled during its 3-4 West Coast swing two weeks ago, is bashing again at will, especially on the home turf and in clutch situations. Finally, with Oakland and Seattle both seeming vulnerable heading into the September stretch run, New England again has reason to believe that possibly, just possibly, this band of bellyachers could reach the post-season — in spite of the naysayers embedded among the media in the pre-game-buffet line and throughout the box seats at Fenway Park. The Sox players seem to think that if they can pull this thing off, it will be because they’ve banded together and believed in themselves — in an atmosphere where no one outside of their clubhouse and front office shares their optimism and confidence.

Do they hate the media? Do they hate the talk-radio callers? Do they think the fans are too negative? Does this shirt go with this tie?

As long as they keep playing at their current top level, Red Sox Nation couldn’t care less if they’re kicking dogs up and down Yawkey Way.

It’s no longer a matter of the fans caring more than the players. The players on this team seem to care a whole lot more than their predecessors, and the fans are behind this team more than they have been behind any team in recent memory.

Red Sox fans just want their team to win. That’s more than obvious. It’s too bad that the Red Sox themselves can’t seem to understand that simple concept, and can’t seem to forgive Sox fans for caring too much.

It’s not the team against the fans. It’s the team and its fans against the rest of baseball’s major-league teams. Coming to a ballpark near you on a nightly basis.

The fans just want their team to win. They care. A lot.

So deal with it.

"Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com