God Save the Red Sox

God Save the Red Sox

I use Emelie Durkheim’s book, The
Elementary Forms of Religious Life, as a
mechanism with which to analyze how sports,
specifically the Red Sox, function in the city
of Boston. Rooting my discussion in the
theme of the book, that religion operates as a
set of beliefs and practices through which
society forms and maintains a unique identity,
I cast being “Bostonian,” as a religion.
Further, I make the claim that the Red Sox
serve as a unifying factor within the
“religion,” to which Bostonians attribute their
feelings of community. To explore this claim,
I interviewed Bostonians wearing Red Sox
paraphernalia; hats or t-shirts, or Bostonians
with tattoos of either the city, or the Red Sox.

Gabrielle Bausano