If you're not reading Soxaholix, you really should be. Yesterday, Doug and Mike had an excellent take on the all-encompassing hate-on for the Red Sox (and their fans) that is all the rage lately. Namely: bring on that hate, 'cause it means the Sox are winning.

As Doug says (slightly paraphrased):

I'd rather a billion people hate us for being winners than one person pity us for being losers.

And then commenter Bob quoted from a piece called "The Penalty of Leadership" written by Theodore F. MacManus for Cadillac back in 1915 - and which I'm also going to quote from here... both because it's awesome, and because I'm a Sox fan and so obviously I am arrogant enough to do so:

In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity.

Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction.

When a man's work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be merely mediocre, he will be left severely alone - if he achieve a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a-wagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting.

The leader is assailed because he is the leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy - but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as the human passions - envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains - the leader.

That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial.

And that's your deep thought for the day. Bring on the haters!