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Sawxheads Making Splash in BostonBy Tammy Daniels - October 24, 2007
 | | Japanese fans believe. |
and Matt Rodovick
NORTH ADAMS - They're popping up all over Boston - deep-blue signs proclaiming "Believe."
From Yawkey Way to Newbury Street, along the ubiquitous blocks of construction fencing, and in the hands of fans, a Web site based here was spreading what is perhaps the one word that brings all Red Sox fans together as Game 1 of the World Series neared Wednesday.
It seems obvious now, but it took a trip to Red Sox Fantasy Camp to inspire Web developer Osmin Alvarez to put the Internet and baseball together. The result: www.Sawxheads.com , a fan-driven networking site for the BoSox fan base.
"I had been thinking about something like this for about a year now," said Alvarez, a die-hard Sox fan. "With the success of MySpace.com and Facebook.com, I was surprised to see the sporting world hadn't jumped into this avenue of networking yet."
Alvarez is president and owner of Boxcar Media, a fast-growing Web site development company on Main Street that includes iBerkshires.com and Racingjunk.com among its holdings.
The Drury High School graduate attended the Sox camp at Fort Myers, Fla., this past spring and ran the idea past Sam Horn, former Sox first baseman and postgame host at New England Sports Network. Horn currently operates a sports center in Rhode Island.
Horn thought the idea was a sure home run. Alvarez launched Sawxheads.com in July with Horn helping promote it. Since then, the site has exploded, with more than 60,000 unique visitors and some 5 million page views. Members hail from all 50 states and more than a dozen other nations.
It incorporates the latest technology that allows fans to interact in a wide range of ways, using so-called Web 2.0 formats made popular by sites like Facebook and YouTube, said Alvarez. Sawxheads can post videos and pictures, chat in real time, blog, debate, engage in "slugfests," keep abreast of news and rumors and find links to Sox-related sites. They also can create their own dream teams and enter contests offering everything from Sox tickets to iPods to lithographs.
The purely fan site is not affiliated with the Red Sox or Major League Baseball.
Staking out a place at Fenway. |
"We have caught the attention of the Boston Red Sox with Sawxheads.com, and also had a very positive meeting with club officials in the past few weeks," said Alvarez.
Sawxheads has grown exponentially over the summer primarily by word of mouth, he said, and has recently run advertisements in the major Boston papers and on NESN, Fox Sports New England and locally on Time Warner Cable.
The response has led to a sister site, Patsheads.com for New England Patriots fans, and the soon-to-be launched Celtsheads.com for the basketball crowd. The overwhelmingly positive feedback has Boxcar Media planning hundreds of other niche sites for fans of professional and college sports, said Alvarez.
As for the posters, which also carry the Sawxheads.com logo, a thousand wasn't enough for eager fans - thousands more were being ferried to Boston on Wednesday in time for the Sox showdown against the Colorado Rockies at Fenway Park.
Thumbs up for Game 1. |
One indicator of the depth and breadth of Red Sox Nation could be found in a group of young Japanese tourists in Boston who didn't quite understand the English word "Believe" but clearly understood "Dice-K." They grabbed the posters from a Boxcar employee and held them aloft - all the time jumping up and down and chanting "Dice-K."
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