Some Boston sports fans just need to settle down

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”.

Taxis in Boston

Let me start by saying that I've lived in a very small town in Mass, Boston, and the one and only New York City. I've also traveled quite a bit within the states to places like Chicago, Dallas, Milwaukee, Las Vegas, Seattle, and so on... The point would be that I have a good basis for evaluating public transportation, specifically cabs.

Boston is by far the worst city (or town) in the US for cab service. This is coming from someone who thinks Boston is a great city. I love the RedSox, Celtics, Patriots, the heritage of the city, the nightlife, the cobblestone, the duck tours, the mix of young and old, etc... However, the cab situation is literally unbearable!

When I lived in NYC I could step out my front door, throw my hand up and there would be 8-10 cabs engaging in what looked to be a demolition derby to be the one to pull over and pick me up. In fact I think that is now the required training if you are interested in getting into Nascar! The sheer number of cabs compared to the population in NYC has to be 10-20 times greater than it is in Boston. One night I called for a cab and they told me it would be 15 minutes. Well, 45 minutes later I was still waiting. I called back and they said the delay was due to the fact that he only had 8 cabs active right now. Seriously! Eight drivers active! What kind of operation are they running here?? That would be like Macy's in Herald Square only having 5 people working in the entire store... or better yet it would be like showing up to the Super Bowl with a 4 man roster!! In NYC you can look down any street and I'd be shocked if you didn't see multiple cabs. In Boston, you can stand on the busiest road in the city for 15 minutes and you might not see any. And on a cold night in Boston, there is a better chance of seing Halley's comet or a giraffe playing a game of basketball with a polar bear than there is of hailing a cab.

Say you are one of the lucky few to call a cab company and actually have one arrive and pick you up... the service is literally ridiculous. If you aren't traveling far enough for their liking, the literally yell at you because the cab fare isn't going to be big enough. I'm sorry, I didn't realize that taking a cab was now a situation of negotiation. Even yesterday I had an incident with a cab driver. My destination was about 2.5 miles from my apartment. We were about 3/4 the way there and we passed a couple trying to hail a cab (good luck to them) and my cab driver pulls over and asks if I could get out here. I was baffled?!? Why does he want me to get out about 1/2 mile from friend Dan's place? He told me he wanted to pick up that couple for his next fare. I kindly said that he should start moving again, drop me off at my destination and then go back and get them. He said he wanted to go get them now and asked again if I was ok getting out here. Now I began to get irritated. I kindly asked him how we would feel if the next time he was out to eat at a restaurant if the waitor came out with his meal and told him the chef wanted to get started on the next order so he only half cooked his grilled salmon?? He was utterly confused... and I could see the gears in his head turning. There may have been a little smoke coming out his ears?? For fear that his head might explode like Smith from the Matrix trying to make sense of my analogy, I told him to forget about it, keep his mouth shut and drive to my destination. He finally did his job, drove that last half mile and pulled over for me. Sounds like a happy ending, right?? Not so fast! The fare came to $6.50 and I only had a pair of $20s on me. I would norally have given him $9.00, but due to his desire to ditch me in the snow a 1/2 mail from Dan's place I wanted to give him $8.00 and asked him to give me $12.00 back. Surprise, surprise, he doesn't have any one dollar bills!! He only has 5s and 10s. How can a cab driver not have any 1s? That is like a surgeon operating on a patient and then realizing he doesn't have any sutures or stitches to close them up! I didn't believe him for an instant. Normally I wouldn't care about the $2.00 and would have just asked for a $10.00 back, but this guy is the person who wanted to let me out 4 blocks before my destination. I thought about asking him to get out and empty his pockets to prove he didn't have any ones, but then I decided that based on his actions he probably has a tougher life than me and I dont need to embarass him further. I don't need those $2.00 as bad as he does either, so I didn't have him get out and I let him have the big tip despite his awful service... but I did repeat his driver ID number back to him as I exited the cab to get him thinking he was in hot water :) Hopefully, it worried him enough that he treated the rest of his customers that day properly! What's the point... its almost always better to be the bigger person... when in Boston really consider all of your travel options... and if you are an entepreneur, look into starting a cab company in Boston... we need a good one!!