By definition, the usage is not incorrect. I’ll grant that. One of the four definitions listed in my dictionary for the word nation says, “A people who share common customs, origins, history and frequently language.”

In the case of the so-called Red Sox Nation, the inhabitants certainly speak the same language. You and I wouldn’t want to speak it or sound like they do, but it’s not their fault they were born in Boston and surrounding neighborhoods.

What we can blame them for, however, is their obnoxious attitude toward the rest of the country, or, keeping with the theme of this column, other nations.

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With so many free agents still running around loose, maybe it’s time for the second coming of the Homestead Homies.

The first incarnation of the Homies came in 1995 when the Players Association conducted a spring training camp for unsigned free agents after the players returned to work following their nearly eight-month strike.

“I was a Homestead Homie,” Scott Sanderson said. “That was the name of our team. We had a pretty darn good team. We were thinking that if we were to put together a team and play some spring training games, we would have a pretty good team.”

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If this were an Internet version of the old television show “This Week in Baseball,” it would feature only two stars, Joe Torre and Jay McGwire. Jay McGwire? Yes, he’s Mark’s younger brother, and in trying to peddle an outrageous book, he has done Mark the kind of favor Brian McNamee has done for Roger Clemens; Kirk Radomski has done for dozens of players, including Andy Pettitte, and Jose Canseco has done for McGwire and others. With friends or brothers like these, who needs enemies?

Torre, on the other hand, has only himself to blame for planting his feet in his mouth, and boy did he plant them deep. Torre, with help from a co-author, has published an outrageous book.

When news of Torre’s new book first erupted last weekend, I initially decided I would not write about it. I’m not in the practice of selling books for misguided authors. But then I saw something that got my attention and changed my mind.

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