New Year's Eve, early in the first decade of this century. I'm riding the Red Line home with a bunch of other revelers. One young inebriated gentleman is trying

New Year's Eve, early in the first decade of this century. I'm riding the Red Line home with a bunch of other revelers. One young inebriated gentleman is trying to induce the rest of us to join him in a sports-related chant. "Let's go Red Sox!" he bellows. "Let's go Red Sox!" No one follows his lead. "Let's go Patriots!" he essays. Crickets. One last arrow in his quiver: he begins to chant "Yankees suck! Yankees suck!" By the time he reaches the fourth iteration, the whole car, me included, is shouting along with him.