The networks and news media aren’t the only ones contacting Konrad. Rambunctious Red Sox fans have flooded his inbox with sometimes unflattering opinions.
“Lighten up,” Konrad said. “It’s not a Holy War. It’s just baseball.”
And it’s all part of a simple joke. A Chicago White Sox fan throughout his youth, Konrad experienced some of the most turbulent years of the storied Red Sox-Yankees rivalry in the late 1970s during his time at Harvard.
He became a Yankees fan after moving to New York and experiencing the “Derek Jeter Era.”
“It was just a great team,” Konrad said. “You had to love them.”
Konrad pointed to the recent A-Rod affair—Jeter’s Yankee teammate Alex Rodriguez has repeatedly received verbal barbs from the Red Sox since the opening of baseball spring training camps a week ago—as proof that Red Sox fans should, wink-wink, respect his proposal for a name change.
“The Red Sox keep comparing A-Rod to [Jeter], saying ‘We respect Derek,’” Konrad said. “[Jeter] is a great guy. He handles himself like a champion.”
In the end, Konrad noted that there was “no insult intended” with the joke, and that he meant to “tease” and “amuse” friends from his Harvard days.
Consider Rappaport, who added $6,275 to Konrad’s donation, teased and amused. A graduate of the College, the Kennedy School of Government, and the Graduate School of Design, where received a degree in City and Regional Planning, Rappaport has been “having some fun” with the situation, Konrad said.
A Red Sox fanatic and current president of New Boston Fund, Inc., one of Boston’s largest real estate investment funds, Rappaport could not be reached for comment.
Nonetheless, now that the difficult details of the situation have settled, Konrad said he expects a calmer future ahead. That is, except for the Carson Daly interview.
“I’m not going to rant and rave...or say ‘Red Sox suck,’” Konrad said.
“The real story,” he said—a story that has been buried within the context of bitter regional enmity—“is my friends and I worked it out.”
“I don’t even care what they call [the FleetCenter] at this point,” he added.
After all the attention, he may be the only one.
—Staff writer Alex McPhillips can be reached at rmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.