Undying and relentless support for an individual or group of individuals, a sentiment that can easily span 86 years.

Yet still we are faithful; to steal the title of a movie that played in New England this past spring, still we believe. Tonight we'll once again fill the old green church of baseball on Lansdowne Street, in some part because it's the only church of baseball on Lansdowne Street, in some part because it's the only church of baseball we have; in large part because--even on mornings like this, when the clean-shaven Yankee Corporate Creed seems to rule the hardball universe--it's still the only church of baseball we can really love. No baseball team has ever come back from a three-games-to-none deficit to win a postseason series, but a couple of hockey teams have done it, and we tell ourselves it has to happen sooner or later for a baseball team, it just has to. We tell ourselves Derek Lowe has one more chance to turn 2004 from tragickal to magickal. We tell ourselves it's just one game at a time. We tell ourselves the impossible can start tonight. -Steven King in FAITHFUL, a chronicle of the 2004 season, on Red Sox fans going into Game 4 of the ALCS