By Stephanie Vosk and Sarah Metcalf

It was not a lifelong passion for the “idiots” in red and blue that drew Amy Lacroix to Lansdowne Street Monday night. In fact, it was not a passion for baseball at all.

A native of Boca Raton, Fla., the freshman philosophy major had seen her hometown Marlins take the season in 2003, but after witnessing the Red Sox extend the series to Game 6 with a 14th inning victory Monday night, she had to see “The Nation” for herself.

“I became [a Red Sox fan] the last two days just because everyone else got so into it and I wanted to be a part of what everyone was being a part of,” Lacroix said.

For middler biology major Ian Fowler, a transfer student in his first semester, his new team loyalty was partially a matter of distaste for his home team. Fowler joined friends to watch Game 5 in the Stetson West dining hall.

“I might as well pick up the Red Sox, because the Diamondbacks are terrible,” the Arizona native said.

Some students born and bred in the Bay State said they never felt the pull of Fenway Park until they could see the stadium lights shining through their campus windows.

“This is my second baseball game that I’ve ever watched,” said Samantha Heim, a freshman pathways major and native of Marlborough, sitting close to the Stetson West flat-screen TVs Monday.

The first game Heim said she watched was Sunday night, when the Sox regained their life in the series, taking the game in the 12th inning, 6-4.

“If I don’t know at least a little bit [about the games], I’ll be made fun of,” she said.

But it was not Heim or the other newfound Sox fans being made fun of in the dining hall Monday — it was the few daring individuals clustered in the back, loudly cheering for the Yankees.

For three friends who just “came to eat” Monday night, two from Philadelphia and one from New York, their allegiance to the pin-striped team was a matter of defiance.

“I personally don’t give a damn, but I’m a Yankee fan just because the Sox are so damn stupid,” said Myles Jameson, a freshman criminal justice major.

Jameson denounced the “Curse of the Bambino,” saying the Sox were at fault for trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1918.

Like Jameson, the passion for the perennial enemies of Sox fans everywhere has spread to a new group of students — the “fair-weather” Yankee fans.

“I never watched baseball before I got here, but it sucks you in,” said newfound Yankee follower Sophie Duron, a sophomore business major hailing from New York. “But now, I’m all about the Curse.”

Despite being seated in a sea of Sox hats and jerseys, Yankee fans held the majority at her table, with Duron and Melissa Famiglietti, a Connecticut native, cheering as New York put men at first and second in the sixth inning.

“They’re two good ball clubs, the rivalry is good to see a good game, but just stop all the Yankee hating,” Famiglietti said.

Janainl Robinson, born and bred in Beantown, did not hesitate to interject and defend her team, despite being the lone diehard Boston fan of the group.

“Shut up,” Robinson said to her friends. “This is what I hear all the time.”

While some students jumped on the bandwagon of one of the two rivaling teams upon arriving at school, lifelong Red Sox fans preparing to attend Northeastern could not wait to be close enough to Fenway to be accosted by street vendors with anti-Yankee T-shirts and to smell the aroma of sausage and roasted peanuts in the air.

After the game Monday night, freshman international affairs major Dana Kightlinger flocked with the rest of her residence hall to the streets surrounding the park.

“I’m so excited. This is why I moved to Boston,” she said.

– Correspondent Jill Campbell contributed to this report.