Article: WHY IS THIS PINK HAT SO HATED? Fans say it's a fashion statement. Naysayers counter that anyone in a Sox cap this color is a poseur.

Anne Houseman was never into baseball, but after moving here in 2002, she became a devoted Red Sox fan. To pledge her allegiance to Red Sox Nation, she bought a pink Sox cap and wore it proudly around town and to Fenway Park. For a while, the convert shared a peaceful coexistence with lifelong Sox fans. But something changed in late 2004, after the Sox won the World Series.

Houseman, 28, soon found her pink hat was about as welcome here as an A-Rod shirt in the bleachers. Rather than a sign of support, the pink hat somehow outed her as a poseur, a bandwagon fan.

"I was watching a game on TV with a girlfriend of mine and the camera zoomed in on a female fan in a pink hat," she said. "My ...

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