Boston Sports - "Life Was Simpler When We Were Idiots"

Written with apologies to Phil from Massachusetts:

"Life was simpler when we were idiots." That is the first line in a Boston Globe story by Brian McGrory about the state of Boston sports. You see, nearly every team in the city of Boston is enjoying an unprecedented run of success. The Patriots have won three Super Bowls recently and are killing everyone they face. The Celtics just picked up Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to play with Paul Pierce, and the World Champion Red Sox are about to embark on their second consecutive World Series after decades of futility (whoops -that last statement was an error. Tiger fan Dools points out the Tigers represented the AL last year. Sorry Dools!). And I believe Boston College is the second-ranked college football team in the country. Only Manny Fernandez's inability to block pucks is keeping the Bruins from seemingly challenging for the Stanley Cup. I've got to admit that I cannot fathom this run of success.

Why? Well, I'm a fan of the Vikings, Twins, Wolves, Wild (& North Stars - who relocated) and Gophers. As far as championships are concerned, following those teams has earned me two Twins baseball World Series Championships and two Gophers NCAA Hockey championships. It has also earned me despair, anger, disappointment, bewilderment, & annoyance on a continual basis. I have learned not only to accept, but expect, these emotions when following these teams.

What New Englanders are dealing with now is the acceptance (and expectation) of positivity, overcoming obstacles, pleasant surprises, overachieving, & domination. Oh, and championships. Now, I know it wasn't always like this. The Patriots were either horrible, or losing Super Bowls. The Red Sox were dealing with the Curse of the Bambino and hadn't won a World Series in nearly a century. They were lovable losers. People from around the country identified with them and even rooted for them. They were the "Yin" to the evil Yankees "Yang."

Not any more. These teams are now expected to win. They're Big-Market teams with immense payrolls. Now, Red Sox fans calling the Yankees evil is a little like Paris Hilton calling Nicole Ritchie a slut (sorry - I've used that before). Here's some more from Brian McGrory in the Boston Globe:

As it was, we claimed all the angst for ourselves, though the good people of Chicago seemed to have their own supply. Red Sox fans could always blame our misfortunes on New York's payroll, Boston's mismanagement, free agents' unwillingness to come here. It gave us our status as perennial underdogs, the lovable spectacle. We wore that suit, frayed as it sometimes seemed, very comfortably.

Without it, what have we become?

And here's the answer we know but dread: Another free-spending, big market team that buys its way into the postseason with every expectation that it will win.

McGrory points out that many "young" Bostonians don't even know what it is like for their teams to lose:

In the end, until that fabled October, we usually lost, but that was OK. In defeat, we had identity. We got to be the luckless loser. A team, its city, and indeed, an entire national following, thrived on it.

Tom Menino was sitting in his City Hall office yesterday saying what needed to be said. "This is different. In 2004, we never had a taste." He paused, then added, "When you think about Boston, 1 in 3 Bostonians is 20 to 34 years old. You and I know what it's like to lose. They don't."

Which means they don't know about our angst. It was our blanket, our source of comfort, our common bond. If angst were a natural resource, we could have had factories packaging it up 24 hours a day and shipping it to every part of the world.

In other words, along with the "well wishes" of much of the nation, these teams have lost a little bit of their soul. You certainly can't claim there is a generation of Minnesotans who is unfamiliar with losing. There are generations who are familiar with certain KINDS of losing, for sure. You know, losing championships vs. losing ALL of your games. Granted, I've often said that I would give a little bit of MY soul to have my aforementioned favorite teams win a few more championships. Even one championship (Hello? Vikings??). Part of the reason that this "Boston - Home of Champions" stuff is hard to take is jealously. All I am saying is that The Mystique is gone. Phil Taylor sums it up quite nicely on SI.com when he writes:

Maybe it says more about us than it does about you, Bostonians, but you were far more likable when you were long-suffering. Winning all the time might be fun, but it's not nearly as charming. We felt for you when you would face another bitter winter after the Sox had found one more agonizing way to lose to the Yankees. We enjoyed those long, melancholy odes to despair that you would produce as the Celtics floundered in the post-Larry Bird years. Writers such as Stephen King and Doris Kearns Goodwin turned Boston's mystique of losing into something grand, something literary.

Now you're winners, but you've lost something, too. Boston and its teams will never be quite as embraceable, and the local fans will never be able to wallow in their misery, which, deep down, we suspect many of them actually enjoyed. Congratulations on being the capital of the sports world, Boston. Now go douse each other in champagne again, or whatever it is you winners like to do. The rest of us will go on suffering without you.

Amen.

Jeff