I have been a Boston sports fan since I was roughly 8 years old. My first real memories of watching sports were somewhere around 1985-86. Back at that time we had the Celtics atop the NBA on an annual basis. I even remember watching parts of the 1986 Finals where the Boston Celtics won their 16th NBA title. At that time we also had the Patriots miracle run to the Super Bowl. Unfortunately they ran into a bulldozer and got hammered by one of the 5 best teams in NFL history by my accounts. The Chicago Bears put a beating on us worse than those awful racist cops did to Rodney King. On a side note, Rodney has appeared in VH1's Celebrity Rehab and is getting his life back together. All in all, it seems like he is staying clean and when he isn’t using… he’s a reasonably nice guy. Anyways, back to the early years in my sports viewing history. Finally, we had the heart and soul of Boston, our one and only Boston Red Sox. I remember watching pieces of that wild World Series with the New York Mets. I even remember being woken up in game 6 late in the game (8th inning I believe) to watch the Sox win their first title in 68 years…oops! That didn’t happen the way I had hoped. Instead I had my little, fragile heart ripped right out with a comedy of errors ultimately leading to the Sox choking and the Mets winning the World Series. And a quick thanks Dad for waking me up to watch Stanley throw wild pitches and Buckner miss grounders that I surely could have fielded when I was in little league. Little did I know that this era in Boston sports history was as good as it was going to get for some time.
Years passed by and I started playing sports myself, which only made my dedication to our local teams that much stronger. Yes, I was a fan during some pretty terrible seasons from all of our teams. My allegiance to my teams never waivered, although my impatience with them certainly was tested on many occasion. The losing seasons, the disappointments, the heartbreaks mounted year after year. We were so close at times and ultimately every season ended with a good ole, “we will get ‘em next season”. And I’m certainly not alone in this. Boston itself and the surrounding areas are very into sports. Boston is one of the great sports towns in this country. I personally feel it is the best sports town in America, but I’m sure others have differing opinions so I will gently say that Boston is clearly one of the top five sports towns in the US… and that’s not up for debate. You may ask how I can comment on other cities around our country. Well, I travel quite a bit for my job and I’ve even lived in New York City for 2 years. My travels have taken me to Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee, Las Vegas, Miami, Seattle, Dallas, and many more. Boston is truly a place where there is an overwhelming amount of diehard sports fans. I will admit some are knowledgeable and others are the type of person that you see on the side of the road, watch them, and wonder how they get out of bed in the morning without severely injuring themselves. At the end of the day, the support here is overwhelming and if you ever want to experience baseball in its truest form you have to come to a game at Fenway Park (preferably when we are playing the hated Yankees). The electricity in the air on a nightly basis is something to marvel at.
If we fast forward to the 21st century, the years of heartbreak were halted when the golden boy with the golden arm Tom Brady led our New England Patriots to a Super Bowl victory over the Rams in 2001. Since then, Tommy terrific and the rest of Belichik’s boys have amassed 4 trips to the Super Bowl in 8 years. The have won 3 of them cementing them as the team of this decade in the NFL. The Patriots winning ways seemed to rub off on our #1 team, the Boston Red Sox. After possibly the most devastating game 7 collapse in baseball history in 2003, the Sox rallied and put all of their demons to rest with the greatest comeback imaginable in sports history… erasing a 3-0 deficit to the rival Yankees and winning the ALCS in dramatic and unbelievable fashion. The Sox reeled off 4 straight wins against the Yankees propelling them into the World Series against a Cardinal team that just didn’t stand a chance. Not only did the Sox win a 2nd World series in 2007 by sending the Rockies packing faster than a Brad cast away Jennifer Aniston during the filming of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but they also have become the model franchise this decade in MLB. Finally, the Celtics jumped on board the victory train, made some key off season acquisitions that led to a worst to first story in ’07-08. The Celtics cracked the whip on the Lakers in the NBA finals like a seasoned dominatrix. The took our hated rivals from the west coast and sent them home looking sillier than Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch! All in all we are talking about 6 titles from these 3 teams in the past 7 years. This coming after a 15 year span where we took a big bagel, zero!
So my question to the sports fans of Boston who are down on the Sox for losing the ALCS to the Rays is why? To those people disappointed the Patriots missed the playoffs… are you serious? To people ready to bury the Celtics after a recent losing streak… back off! I think Boston sports fans have become greedy. They are so used to the winning ways of our teams that they have somehow come down with a case of Jason Bourne’s disease. They have amnesia and miraculously forgot that we used to be the people that always came up just short. We were the town begging for just one title to break the curse of the Bambino. We were the people talking about Bird, McHale, and Parrish 10 years after they retired. Just ask Rick Pitino how irritating that can be, lol. I think we need to be more appreciative of the great stretch we are likely winding down on. I think we need to be proud of a Patriots team that went 11-5 with Matt Cassel at the helm. Pop quiz, who took more snaps from center in an actual game in the past 6 years…Matt Cassel or Tim Hasselbeck?? The answer is Tim. I like Tim, in fact we sat next to each other in marketing at Boston College and worked on projects together. But the fact remains he was a career backup in the NFL and is already retired at age 30 doing some nice work for ESPN. The Patriots had a super season. How about the Red Sox? They traded away the best right-handed hitter I’ve ever seen and they still made it to game 7 of the ALCS. They were literally a couple hits here or there from another World Series. The way they came together as a team and rallied to that point was fairly impressive. Lets face it we could live in a place like Seattle where they aren’t just losing, they are losing teams to other cities. We could live in Minnesota. When is the last time they did anything of note? Other than Kirby Puckett getting arrested on domestic violence charges?? I think the tough season or the seasons that come up just short help you appreciate the titles. Without one, you couldn’t truly enjoy the other. So keep on cheering for your teams Boston, but the next time you feel the need to bash our teams for not being the best all the time, try to relax and remember the immortal words of Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get”.
Years passed by and I started playing sports myself, which only made my dedication to our local teams that much stronger. Yes, I was a fan during some pretty terrible seasons from all of our teams. My allegiance to my teams never waivered, although my impatience with them certainly was tested on many occasion. The losing seasons, the disappointments, the heartbreaks mounted year after year. We were so close at times and ultimately every season ended with a good ole, “we will get ‘em next season”. And I’m certainly not alone in this. Boston itself and the surrounding areas are very into sports. Boston is one of the great sports towns in this country. I personally feel it is the best sports town in America, but I’m sure others have differing opinions so I will gently say that Boston is clearly one of the top five sports towns in the US… and that’s not up for debate. You may ask how I can comment on other cities around our country. Well, I travel quite a bit for my job and I’ve even lived in New York City for 2 years. My travels have taken me to Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee, Las Vegas, Miami, Seattle, Dallas, and many more. Boston is truly a place where there is an overwhelming amount of diehard sports fans. I will admit some are knowledgeable and others are the type of person that you see on the side of the road, watch them, and wonder how they get out of bed in the morning without severely injuring themselves. At the end of the day, the support here is overwhelming and if you ever want to experience baseball in its truest form you have to come to a game at Fenway Park (preferably when we are playing the hated Yankees). The electricity in the air on a nightly basis is something to marvel at.
If we fast forward to the 21st century, the years of heartbreak were halted when the golden boy with the golden arm Tom Brady led our New England Patriots to a Super Bowl victory over the Rams in 2001. Since then, Tommy terrific and the rest of Belichik’s boys have amassed 4 trips to the Super Bowl in 8 years. The have won 3 of them cementing them as the team of this decade in the NFL. The Patriots winning ways seemed to rub off on our #1 team, the Boston Red Sox. After possibly the most devastating game 7 collapse in baseball history in 2003, the Sox rallied and put all of their demons to rest with the greatest comeback imaginable in sports history… erasing a 3-0 deficit to the rival Yankees and winning the ALCS in dramatic and unbelievable fashion. The Sox reeled off 4 straight wins against the Yankees propelling them into the World Series against a Cardinal team that just didn’t stand a chance. Not only did the Sox win a 2nd World series in 2007 by sending the Rockies packing faster than a Brad cast away Jennifer Aniston during the filming of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but they also have become the model franchise this decade in MLB. Finally, the Celtics jumped on board the victory train, made some key off season acquisitions that led to a worst to first story in ’07-08. The Celtics cracked the whip on the Lakers in the NBA finals like a seasoned dominatrix. The took our hated rivals from the west coast and sent them home looking sillier than Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch! All in all we are talking about 6 titles from these 3 teams in the past 7 years. This coming after a 15 year span where we took a big bagel, zero!
So my question to the sports fans of Boston who are down on the Sox for losing the ALCS to the Rays is why? To those people disappointed the Patriots missed the playoffs… are you serious? To people ready to bury the Celtics after a recent losing streak… back off! I think Boston sports fans have become greedy. They are so used to the winning ways of our teams that they have somehow come down with a case of Jason Bourne’s disease. They have amnesia and miraculously forgot that we used to be the people that always came up just short. We were the town begging for just one title to break the curse of the Bambino. We were the people talking about Bird, McHale, and Parrish 10 years after they retired. Just ask Rick Pitino how irritating that can be, lol. I think we need to be more appreciative of the great stretch we are likely winding down on. I think we need to be proud of a Patriots team that went 11-5 with Matt Cassel at the helm. Pop quiz, who took more snaps from center in an actual game in the past 6 years…Matt Cassel or Tim Hasselbeck?? The answer is Tim. I like Tim, in fact we sat next to each other in marketing at Boston College and worked on projects together. But the fact remains he was a career backup in the NFL and is already retired at age 30 doing some nice work for ESPN. The Patriots had a super season. How about the Red Sox? They traded away the best right-handed hitter I’ve ever seen and they still made it to game 7 of the ALCS. They were literally a couple hits here or there from another World Series. The way they came together as a team and rallied to that point was fairly impressive. Lets face it we could live in a place like Seattle where they aren’t just losing, they are losing teams to other cities. We could live in Minnesota. When is the last time they did anything of note? Other than Kirby Puckett getting arrested on domestic violence charges?? I think the tough season or the seasons that come up just short help you appreciate the titles. Without one, you couldn’t truly enjoy the other. So keep on cheering for your teams Boston, but the next time you feel the need to bash our teams for not being the best all the time, try to relax and remember the immortal words of Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get”.
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