Red Sox vs. Cardinals: Hometown fans battle it out online
Tonight the Boston Red Sox take on the St. Louis Cardinals at Fenway Park in Game Six of the World Series, but Boston and St. Louis symphonies, breweries, food trucks, and public radio stations are already deep in extra innings online.
Though more than 1,000 miles apart on the map, fans of Boston and St. Louis have been brought together by the Web and some friendly wagers.
The brass sections of the Boston and St. Louis symphony orchestras already wowed local audiences with their tunes, but were also one of the first groups to bring the World Series to the Web. In a YouTube video, the two symphonies go back and forth trading disses (St. Louis: "Don't get impatient as we cruise towards our twelfth championship." Boston: "You remembered how to lose in 2004. You remembered really well.") before ending in a collaborative mash up of “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better,” “Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” "Meet Me In St. Louis," and "Sweet Caroline."
Though it’s tough to compare barbeque and baked beans, food trucks from St. Louis and Boston are currently competing in a special online edition of Food Truck Throwdown, which asks foodies to vote for their favorite local food truck from each city. The site offers 30 different options, from Boston’s Paris Creperie’s offering of a “Caramel and Sea Saltalamacchia Crepe” to St. Louis’s Completely Sauced “Beat Beantown Balls.” Need a sample before you decide which tasty team gets your support? Scroll past the voting to check out each contender, plus connect with them on social media to find out where they're stationed in each city.
Most people wouldn’t put public radio and baseball together, but that hasn’t stopped St. Louis Public Radio and WBUR from defending their cities via the virtual airwaves. Over Twitter, WBUR and St. Louis Public Radio agreed to these terms on Oct. 22:
If #STLCards win, @WBUR sends #RedSox Cabernet, @harpoon_brewery sampler, wears Cards hat & tweets photo… If #RedSox beat #stlcards, we send @Schlafly sampler, wear THE COVETED BEARD + take photo wearing said beard – and tweet.
Both public radio stations have an active social media presence (@WBUR has more than 32,00 followers, @stlpublicradio has more than 15,000), so a victorious TwitPic would likely be a coveted prize.
Harpoon Brewery in Boston and Schlafly’s Brewery in St. Louis are betting a keg of their best concoction that their baseball team will win the series. In a statement from Harpoon, president Dan Kenary says he agreed Dan Kopman, co-founder of The Saint Louis Brewery, to the following bet:
“The wager: if the Red Sox win the World Series, Schlafly will pour a keg of Harpoon IPA in their tap room and if the Cardinals win, a keg of Schlafly will be tapped in Harpoon’s Boston tasting room. Once the Series victors have been crowned, the brewery that has won the wager will ship a tap handle and a keg of their flagship beer to the losing brewery for tapping on their draft system. The beer will remain on tap until the keg is empty."
The banter kept going in each company's blogs. Schlafly's also has a bet with Boston Beer Company (maker of Sam Adams) owner to send a brewmaster to the winning city to help brew a victory beer, which means, Mr. Kopman says in a blog post, "Boston will have a chance to taste what 12 World Series Championships tastes like." Harpoon posted a blog on the bet telling St. Louis to "fear the beard."
Right now, the Red Sox are up 3-2 in the series, and if the team wins either tonight or tomorrow, it will be the first time Boston has won the World Series at home since 1918 (when Babe Ruth was pitching).
But for the symphonies, breweries, public radio stations, and food trucks, the World Series glory will live on past the baseball diamond, and on in the cyber stadium.
