Greetings from a joyless Mudville

CAN THIS be the start of a new curse for our beloved Red Sox? We could call it the NCS (non-cable subscribers) Curse. This is the first year without regular Sox programming on free TV. Folks with low incomes who have been following the Sox longer than the team's new owners have been alive have had to go back to listening to the radio.

The Babe's curse and this new curse are both based on the same premise: greed. Here's to another 86 years, Mr. Henry, et al.

VINCENT S. MARRUZZI
Holbrook

MAYBE NOW that the lowest of the low has occurred with the five-game sweep at the hands of the Yankees, Red Sox fans might think long and hard about their obsessive devotion to the team and the game.

For years, I've bemoaned the fact that so many Bostonians live and die for the Red Sox and worship their players and management like icons, while teachers, human services staff, social workers, and other admirable contributors to society barely make a living wage. I've decried the vast amounts of energy and time that go into watching, talking, and reading about the Sox when there are so many critical problems facing our planet and its people, locally and globally.

But if their most sacred and beloved idols Pedro and Johnny jumping ship for more dough didn't affect Red Sox Nation, if a spiraling cost of $300 and up for family tickets didn't affect Red Sox Nation, then I don't hold out much hope that lofty aims for a better world will. Instead, fans will ignore the fact that the team with the best players money can buy is the one that wins, they'll condemn anything that is less than a championship finish, and they'll begin waiting for next year.

SUSIE DAVIDSON
Brookline

PERHAPS BRIGHAM'S should re-rename its ice cream ``Curse RE-Reversed." Even Brigham's doesn't get licked as much as the Sox did last weekend.

MARYJO McGEE
Wellesley