Green Bay is known as Title Town USA for all the NFL championships it has won (13 overall). It appears that nickname might have to travel east as Boston has won every major sports championship over the last six years. While that might be wicked awesome for Sully and Murph and the rest of the southies, I am wicked depressed. As a true New York sports fan, I have embraced the Boston teams as a natural rival. While I realize how fortunate I am to have witnessed many championships among my favorite teams (unlike my DC friends), we live in a “What have you done for me lately” society and Boston is on top of the sports world right now.
The Celtics won the NBA title in 2008. I was happy for Boston as they mortgaged their future to build an immediate contender with several big trades (Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen) in the off-season. They were rewarded by beating the Lakers to win their 17th championship. I would be more upset if the Knicks had managed to be competitive over the last ten years. When the Knicks won their last playoff game, I had never gotten drunk before and the Twin Towers were still erect.
The Bruins won the Stanley Cup last night over the Vancouver Canucks. I was actually rooting for the Bruins as they had suffered many bad breaks early in the series: they lost Game 1 in the last 20 seconds of regulation as it appeared a Canuck bit a Boston player’s finger earlier in the game, they lost Game 2 11 seconds into overtime as the biter scored (he was not disciplined), and they lost one of their best players five minutes into Game 3 to a vicious cheap shot. After several Canucks were taunting the finger biting incident and Canucks goalie, Roberto Luongo, took a cheap shot at Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas in the media, I was hoping Boston would win. After the Bruins won Game 7, Vancouver fans did what they normally do, starting fires and rioting. It reminded me of 1994 when the Rangers beat the Canucks and Vancouver fans decided to mourn the series loss by burning shit and rioting.
The New England Patriots have been one of the more successful NFL teams in the 2000’s, winning three Super Bowls. They are currently experiencing the longest drought of Boston championships, winning their last title in 2004. The drought would have been shorter if a) the NFL hadn’t caught them for “Spygate” and b) they managed to beat the Giants in Super Bowl 42. A truly great moment in my life as many of my friends were New York Giants fans just for that day to cheer for the Patriots to lose their first game of the year. Afterwards, they congratulated me. The next day, they told me the Giants blow. Good times.
The Red Sox won two championships in the last decade, 2004 and 2007, their first since 1918. To talk about the 2004 playoffs is as painful as it would be for Marcellus Wallace to talk about what happened in the basement of the pawn shop. If you don’t know what happened, Google it. I have two quick notes about that series. One, after the Yankees destroyed the Red Sox in Game 3, I commented to Asian Sensation John Holody how the Red Sox showed no heart with their season on the line. In hindsight, I was dead wrong. Two, I saw Dave Roberts on a plane several years later. Most people would have said hello to him. I’m not most people. It took all the will I had not to confront him and tell him how he ruined baseball for me. Until 2004, the Yankees never lost to the Red Sox in the playoffs. Yogi Berra told a nervous Bernie Williams before the 1999 ALCS, "We have been playing these guys for 80 years and they never win". Well, they finally won.
I will be traveling to Boston in early August to catch a Yankees-Red Sox game. I knew I was going to the thunder dome beforehand. I was going to be among many of the enemy fans infiltrating Fenway Park that night. Now, I will have to deal with the championship aura these massholes will have after their recent run. God damn it.
-Written by Marcus Boyd
-Written by Marcus Boyd
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