Month: January 2005

It’s Good To Be The King

How might it possibly get any better for New England sports fans? Both the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots are the reigning world champions in their respective sports and, after Tom Brady, Tedy Bruschi, and the rest of the supporting cast took care of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and the mighty Pittsburgh juggernaut, they are off to their third Super Bowl in four years with loud whispers of dynasty heard almost everywhere you go. Let’s not forget that the University of Connecticut is home to the reigning NCAA men’s and women’s basketball champions and that the current Boston College men’s basketball squad is undefeated as of this morning (17-0) with just over a month to go before tournament time. Heck, witness even the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun, who won the Eastern Conference Finals before losing a three-game championship series to the Seattle Storm.

2004 seemed like a turning point in the recent fortunes of New England teams, although we can’t ignore other championships sprinkled here and there in recent years. The Connecticut basketball program also produced a men’s champion in 1999 while the women’s squad has claimed five of the last ten championships. The BC hockey team won the NCAA Frozen Four tournament in 2001. Of course, there was also the very first Super Bowl championship won by the Patriots, a surprising 20-17 victory in 2002 over the St. Louis Rams, who entered the game as 14-point favorites. The victory parade that followed two days later in Boston made people wonder just how crazy it would be if the Red Sox ever turned the trick.

Despite feeling to the contrary, it’s really hard to successfully argue about a lack of success in sports for New England sports teams, especially at the professional level. You have the Celtics with 16 championships, the Red Sox with six, the Bruins with five, and the Patriots with two. Compare that to Cleveland, for example, which has not seen a champion in major professional sports since the Browns won the NFL championship in 1964. What about Seattle, who has one professional sports title (the 1978 NBA title) on its resume, not counting the aforementioned WNBA championship?

Still, with all the accolades over the years, the area has never been the hub of the sports universe. Before 2004 began, the most well-known fact about professional sports here was that the Red Sox had not won a championship since the club shipped Babe Ruth to the Yankees around the time that my grandfather was ten. The Patriots, of course, never seemed to get it right; who could forget the embarrassment of watching them fumble and stumble through Super Bowl XX against the powerhouse Chicago Bears, who had cut a swath of destruction on their way to the title that year?

All of the sudden, the national focus in sports has turned its eye to this tiny northeast corner of the country where the summers are hot and sticky and winters find us buried under three feet of snow. The Red Sox are enjoying the sudden attention that comes with winning a World Series and gearing themselves for another run this year. The Patriots have won 33 games in the last two seasons and are poised to repeat what they accomplished in Super Bowl XXXVIII.

I realize that this run of good fortune will not last forever; it may even come as early as next Sunday in Super Bowl XXIX against Philadelphia if the Patriots come up short against the NFC champion Eagles. Brady may suddenly descend to the rank of mortal men and opposing teams may start to pick apart whatever Bill Belichick throws at them. As for the Red Sox, even with a championship in its back pocket, the team might stumble out of the starting block and never recover or, as has been the case before, play well for most of the year and then fall apart at the end; then it might be another few years before they return to glory. Even some great sports dynasties of the past, like the Dallas Cowboys, the Celtics, the New York Yankees, and the Montreal Canadians, have eventually crumbled, and there will be a day when the local sports media will return to reporting despair and misery, a pastime in its own right.

Nevertheless, there has never been a better time for fans in New England to enjoy watching its teams play. For all those years that I stayed loyal to these teams despite the struggles and misfortunes, the last year has been more than satisfying. For once, I feel a sense of elation, almost euphoria, and I plan to enjoy that sensation for as long as it lasts.

The Madness Of King George

Without looking at the calendar, it must be January, and that’s not because the thermometer outside my kitchen window reads less than zero and has more than a few icicles dangling from the dial. I just have to glance in the direction of New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner who, as he has about this time every off-season, has extracted his big, fat, obnoxious wallet from the back of his trousers to dole out another $32 million for a player who, when his new extension kicks in, will be 42 years old. After all, it’s been over four years since he’s had a chance to parade a World Series championship trophy through the Canyon of Heroes and he’s getting restless. Never mind that, after last season, he was slapped with a $25 million competitive-balance tax (whom are we kidding?) from Major League Baseball after paying out $183 million to watch his team execute, arguably, the biggest choke ever in sports history.

Yet, even with the signing of Randy Johnson, no one seems to have broken into a sweat; it’s as if a tree fell in the woods and no one was around to hear the branches snap as it smacked the ground. The situation is almost in stark contract to last year when, after Boston failed in its efforts, New York snatched Alex Rodriguez and his big, fat, obnoxious contract from Texas and declared themselves the only ticket in town. How about in 2003, when they again out-muscled the Red Sox for the rights to Jose Contreras? Let’s not forget what happened following the last championship season in 2000, when the Yankees pulled out all the stops to land Mike Mussina, staying one step ahead of Boston’s attempt to sign the free-agent pitcher.

Even a diehard Red Sox fan like me, who loathes the success of the Yankees over the years while my team wallowed in despair, readily admits that the pinstriped clubs that won four out of five World Series titles in the latter part of the preceding decade were unbelievably dominant. 1998 was probably the height of success for that dynasty, as New York won 114 games and finished 22 games ahead of second-place Boston before blowing through Texas, Cleveland, and finally San Diego for title number twenty-four.

So why hasn’t that dominance continued? The biggest reason is that the teams from 1996 through 2001 were legitimate baseball teams, not fantasy-league wet dreams. Sure, they had All-Stars on every one of those teams – in fact, what Yankees team has not sent multiple players to the mid-summer classic? – but they were fluid on the field, as if every piece fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. Now the philosophy is to go out and buy up all the All-Stars, but the chemistry just isn’t there. Yes, they are still winning in the regular season, with seven straight first-place finishes over Boston, but what have all these million-dollar babies done? How many championships have Mussina, Jason Giambi, Hideki Matsui, Kevin Brown, Gary Sheffield, and Rodriguez brought to New York? The answer: one less than the Red Sox won in that same time.

Still, Steinbrenner has learned nothing from this and continues to wear the cast from the Visa commercial to write check after check (that’s Johnson with no R’s). He’s banking on Curt Schilling’s teammate from the 2001 team that beat his Yankees in a seven-game classic to be the answer. He’s banking on Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright to add to the answer. He’s banking on the idea that all those overpriced, lengthy contracts that he gave to three of the four infielders that will start on Opening Day will provide answers.

It’s not to say that the $200-million-plus that Steinbrenner will owe this season to his players will not reward him with a the title at the end of the season; the Yankees are still a force with whom to be reckoned and you can almost never, ever count them out of the equation. The parade route between the Battery and City Hall in New York may once again be filled with throngs of Yankee fans and ticker tape when all is said and done this season. At the moment, however, no one in the baseball world, least of all from the Red Sox organization, seems to be complaining too loudly that he is trying to buy a championship once again; instead, everyone just sits back and watches in amusement as his impatient and frustration swells, much like his payroll.

Happy New Year, Finally!

About a week ago, I was suddenly regretting the thought that 2004 was coming to an end; after all, that was the year for long-suffering Boston Red Sox fans and perhaps I was reluctant to let go so soon after enjoying everything that went the excitement of a World Series championship. From the first day of spring training right, through the trials and tribulations of the regular season and an even wilder post-season, and culminating with the awakening of my 18-month-old son to have him in front of the television when Foulke softly tossed the ball to Mientkiewicz at first, it was almost too difficult to detach myself from the emotions that I felt.

2004 will be a year that no one who was a fan of the Red Sox will soon forget. 2004 was the year that a prodigal son returned to the fold and joined the ace-in-residence to provide a one-two punch that few teams could match. 2004 was the year when Jason Varitek and his teammates collectively shoved their mitts in the face of the New York Yankees at Fenway Park on a warm July afternoon and sent a message that the season would not end that day. 2004 was the year that a young general manager took the biggest gamble of his brief career and traded the Franchise. 2004 was the year that it wasn’t over until Big Papi took one last cut. 2004 was the year that a bloody sock characterized what this “team of idiots” was willing to do to end the years of frustration. 2004 was the year that it was someone else’s turn to choke at the worst possible moment. 2004 was the year that, finally, was the year.

However, perhaps there is much to look forward to with the dawn of 2005. For the first time in our lives as Red Sox fans (making the assumption that none of you reading this truly remember the last time it happened), we will watch our team play a season as defending world champions. For the first time, we won’t be wondering if this will finally be the year but if our team can repeat the feat. For the first time, perennial doubt has been replaced with renewed excitement and we can walk around with our chests held out a little further and our heads held up a little higher.

Am I aware that the other teams in the league will now approach their games against us with the intent of knocking us down from our lofty perch? Am I worried that Pedro Martinez has flown the coop after seven seasons in Boston to nest in the confines of the Mets organization next season? Do I dread the knowledge that Randy Johnson and Carl Pavano will be wearing pinstripes next season, as might Carlos Beltran, and that the Yankees will be looking to administer some payback for what happened in the American League Championship Series? My only response to these and other questions like those is that, if these are the dilemmas that come with being crowned as world champions, it’s good to be the king!

There is no promise that this season will be anything like last season; it would be next to impossible to recapture the essence of that run a year ago. Nevertheless, I look forward to another exciting season of Red Sox baseball as I have every spring since I can remember. Varitek will be back behind the plate as captain of the team and no one will need to see a “C” sewn on his jersey to understand that. David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez will be back with their bats to provide that awesome one-two punch at the plate. Curt Schilling will be back on the mound every fifth day to expend every ounce of energy available to keep opposing teams frustrated at the plate. Johnny Damon will be back leading the charge in center field and in the lead-off spot. Terry Francona will be back in the dugout and Theo Epstein will be back in the front office, doing everything they can to assemble and develop another championship team.

Best of all, on the second Monday of April, just a little before three in the afternoon, no matter what happens the rest of this season, a championship banner will be raised high above Fenway Park for everyone to see. The fact that the rival New York Yankees, no matter how many guns have been hired, will get a front-row seat to the festivities only makes it that much sweeter. With no more talk of curses, 1918, the Bambino, or any other ghosts of the past 86 years that always seemed to stand by, waiting for the most inopportune moment, it’s truly going to be a happy new year.