Red Sox fans have learned over many painful years to not take anything for granted. So even with their team up 8-1 Wednesday night, they could not rest easy. They’d seen it before, their team on the verge of victory only to see a win disappear in the most improbable way. Remember the 1986 World Series?

Of course you do.

For eight decades, Red Sox fans have been saying this is the year. This time, momentum appears on their side. No team had ever come back from a three-game deficit to win a league championship. The Sox just did – in their typical fashion of gut-wrenching extra-inning games. The Red Sox, perhaps more than any other sports team or perhaps just because we pay more attention to them, take their fans on a yearly roller-coaster ride. Just when they seem well on their way to winning a game, mistakes are made and fluke plays happen and then, sigh, the other team – way too often the New York Yankees

– ends the game with more runs.

Maybe that’s why Sox fans are among the most superstitious around. Nearly every fan believes his or her personal actions affect the outcome of a game. Didn’t shave and the Sox won? Grow a beard for the series. Wore your hat with a rightward tilt and the Sox lost? The hat slants left for the rest of the series. Some fans even refuse to talk about a game or a series until it is over for fear of jinxing the outcome.

There is a tendency to view sports as a metaphor for life. Many relished the victory of an unkempt, workmanlike team over the corporate, rule-bound and overpaid players from New York. The image of pitcher Curt Schilling’s bloody ankle in game 6 symbolized the grit and determination that many see as America’s strength.

Red Sox fans have learned to live with defeat and disappointment. They’ve had 86 years of coming close but not winning a World Series to perfect an aggrieved attitude. It rallies them together. So, here’s a disturbing question: What if the Sox do win the World Series this year? Then what? What will bind Red Sox fans together? Is hatred of the Yankees enough?

Of course, such an outcome is still just a dream. There remains much time – up to seven long and emotionally draining games – for things to go wrong.

So, if you notice your spouse hasn’t changed his shirt in a week or that the kids will only sit on the couch in a certain order, forgive them, for they are true Red Sox fans.