the Evil Empire fails to comprehend the nation state

Hank Steinbrenner initiated the latest skirmish in the Red Sox - Yankee rivalry the other day by taking issue with the idea of "Red Sox Nation":

"Red Sox Nation? What a bunch of [expletive] that is," he said in an interview with The New York Times' Play magazine. "That was a creation of the Red Sox and ESPN, which is filled with Red Sox fans.

"Go anywhere in America and you won't see Red Sox hats and jackets, you'll see Yankee hats and jackets. This is a Yankee country. We're going to put the Yankees back on top and restore the universe to order."

Steinbrenner is apparently flummoxed by the dual meaning of "nation." He thinks a "nation" is the same thing as a "country"; as in "We live in a Red Sox Nation", i.e., the Sox are "America's team." But what the Sox are really after is the idea of "nation" as a group of similar people (usually defined by language or ethnicity). The existence of a Red Sox Nation does not preclude the simultaneous existence of, say, an Athletics Nation. I blame the 19th century for so ingraining the idea of a "nation-state" into our collective consciousness that it has become difficult to separate the two terms, thus causing rich, dim sons of rich, boorish owners to reignite feuds with other rich, not-so-boorish owners.