Bleeding Red: A Red Sox Fan's Diary of the 2004 Season

On October 27, 2004 the Boston Red Sox won the World Series by completing a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals, capping an improbable postseason run that saw the team exorcise demons and send its fans into paroxysms of joy. Catsam's goal in writing this diary was to chronicle the day-to-day existence of an impassioned sports fan and to provide insight into what it means to root root root for the home team. Although Bleeding Red chronicles in great depth much of the 2004 season, it is truly a memoir about identity, unrequited love, and almost inexplicable loyalty to a team, to an idea. Even knowing the results, one cannot help but be caught up in Catsam's emotions, a blend of humor and passion. "Passionate, lively, and funny, Bleeding Red is a captivating, intensely personal record of the most glorious baseball season of the author's life. It should be fine reading not only for citizens of the "Red Sox Nation" but for all baseball lovers¯except perhaps Yankees fans." - Charles C. Alexander, author of Our Game and Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era. "When you are crazy about something it is always refreshing to find someone crazier. [Bleeding Red provides] a great way to remember the best year in the history of mankind or any other species." - Seth Meyers, Saturday Night Live cast member and lifelong Red Sox fan.

When not obsessing over the World Champion Boston Red Sox, Derek Catsam is an assistant professor of history at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. During the writing of Bleeding Red he had fellowships at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities in Charlottesville and the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford, and he participated in a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute at Ferrum College in Virginia.