I renounce your right to my head.

Proudly, I wore the hat in ’78 in spite

of Bucky Dent. Your brim capped

my headache when Buckner booted it

in ’86 and shaded my eyes after Grady

left Pedro on the mound in ’03. But now

I’ve thrown it off, stomped it and hung it

at the back of the rack.

This is no hasty fit of intemperance.

No, the team didn’t win a championship

for 86 years, and still I wore the logo

the length of Vietnam, across Patagonia

and past the funeral fires of the Ganges.

In thanks, I gave a new hat to the Masai

who guarded my night path to the privy

on the Serengeti.

But you quit in ’11: lost

13 of 20 in September, blew

a 9-game lead and missed the playoffs

while noshing Kentucky Fried

and beer in the club house – not steak

and eggs, or even Fenway Franks.

That’s when the hat came off.

Like discarded club house socks

the miasma worsened. The GM

abandoned town. You fired

the manager and replaced him with

a Valentine, then lost 93 games in 2012

and lied about attendance.

I have scraped your scarlet “B”

from my forehead, banished

your brand from my T-shirt

and re-set my radio button to NPR

at least until opening day.