Born to Massachusetts natives in 1991, I am a member of the most spoiled generation of sports fans in history.
Committing to a professional sports team is an investment. It’s an investment of time, energy, money, and most of all, hope. Ideally, these investments are rewarded by championships. By that standard, Boston sports fans have received unprecedented, Warren Buffet-esque returns on our investments over the past 12 years.
Along with millions of other New Englanders born in the early 1990’s, I came into sports consciousness at the perfect time. I guess I have my parents to thank. If they had moved to Cleveland this would be a very different story.
When the Patriots organization won its first Super Bowl in 2002, I was eleven years old. I have some memories of watching professional sports before then, but they’re random relics from a time period where I was most concerned with Nintendo 64 and the gang of “Hey Arnold”.
Here what I do remember from my earliest days of watching sports:
I remember the night the Patriots lost to the Packers in the Super Bowl in 1996; my father had the flu. At five years old, I couldn’t tell which was making him vomit – the virus, or his frustration with Drew Bledsoe’s inability to “move his damn feet.”
When I was in second grade, my dad and I were part of the raucous Providence Civic Center crowd that saw the Providence Bruins capture the Calder Cup.
I remember watching the 1999 MLB All-Star Game. Pedro Martinez took the mound at Fenway and consecutively struck out the National Leagues’ four best hitters, including the steroid-infused Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa. I had just turned eight.
In third grade, I started tearing up in an argument with my best friends when he insisted that Derek Jeter was a better shortstop than Nomar Garciaparra.
At age 10, I prayed Randy Johnson, the guy who once obliterated a dove with a fastball, could do the same to the Yankees line-up in the 2001 World Series.
But, like many New Englanders my age, my induction into the fraternity of Boston sports fandom wasn’t cemented until the NFL playoffs in late 2001 and early 2002. I intently watched 23 year-old Tom Brady’s inaugural playoff campaign, and on Feb. 3, 2002, Brady delivered the Lombardi Trophy to the country’s six eastern-most states for the first time. My well-worn and faded Super Bowl XXXVI Championship hat remains one of my most prized possessions.
Despite the Patriots’ victory, Boston sports fans remained scorned and I felt as if it was my duty to inherit this sentiment. The Red Sox’s fantastic inability to win the World Series haunted life-long diehards like my dad, who once joked to his gullible young son that he would go streaking if the Sox ever won it all.
I received my first brutal dose of Red Sox induced misery in 2003 when Martinez, my hero, fell apart against the hated Yankees in game seven of the American League Championship Series.
Finally, everything changed. The next season the Red Sox fought through the playoffs in poetic fashion and won the World Series on Oct. 27, 2004. The following day of middle school was nothing short of epic. Streamers lined the hallways, our principal visited classrooms wearing a red and blue cape, my English teacher danced on her desk.
A few weeks later, my father, a man of his word, stepped out into the November night and ran a brisk naked lap around our house.
The following February brought the third Patriots championship in four years. And the greatest decade of professional sports success was well underway.
In the ten year period from 2001 through 2011, I transitioned from elementary school, to middle school, then on to high school, and finally on to college. In these, my most formative years, I was privileged to watch the Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics win a combined seven world championships. And while a Boston team hasn’t won its sports greatest prize in the past two years, they have earned additional accolades, producing 2001 to 2013 twelve year totals of 11 conference/league championships and 22 division championships in addition to the aforementioned seven world titles.
To put these totals into perspective, consider that during the same period, the New York City area (New Jersey teams also included) won only four world championships and nine conference/league titles, despite having more than twice as many professional organizations.
Overall, The Big Apple still remains king of American sports cities and won’t be leaving the throne anytime soon – its total of 48 world championships is tyrannical.
Yet, New York City has never been able to produce championships as efficiently as Boston did from 2001 to 2011. Beantown’s average of 1.75 championships per team during a ten year period is unmatched by any city with at least one team competing in each of the four major sports. (Figure does not account for World Series winners prior to 1903, pre-Super Bowl Era championships, or ABA championships).
Colleagues and friends are often quick to remind me that while Boston has experienced tremendous success since the beginning of the 21st century, the city has also been dealt several devastating losses during that time. This point cannot and should not be ignored. The Red Sox loss to the Yankees in the 2003 ALCS was brutal. In 2006, the Patriots looked to once again be Super Bowl bound until the team choked away a 21-6 halftime advantage to Peyton Manning’s Colts in the AFC Championship Game. The next season the 18-0 Patriots were embarrassed by Peyton’s little brother in Super Bowl – I stopped watching television for 2 months. The Celtics blew a 3-2 Finals lead to the Lakers in 2010, and in 2011, Brady and Belichick were once again punked by the youngest Manning brother on the sport’s biggest stage.
The region was on the wrong end of history yet again when the Chicago Blackhawks handed the Bruins a nauseating defeat in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Bruins allowed the Blackhawks to tie the game with 1:16 remaining in the final period. Seventeen seconds later, the Blackhawks scored again; winning the game, the series, and sports’ most iconic trophy.
These post season losses hit Boston fans, myself included, like a punch in the gut. Some, like a punch even lower. But I’ve realized, dare I say it, that it is bratty for anyone of my generation to obsess over these shortcomings as I once did. When a region’s teams are in the playoffs almost every season, it’s bound to get slapped with some difficult losses; the higher you climb, the harder the fall. But remember, it could be much worse.
The Buffalo Bills once lost four consecutive Super Bowls. The Cubs haven’t won the World Series since in 1908. The NHL’s Blues’, Canucks’, Sabers’, and Capitals’ organizations have each played in their respective cities for four decades and have never kissed the Cup. The only Seattle franchise to ever win a championship was shipped to Oklahoma City in 2008, and is now one of the best in league. Atlanta teams are nearing a cumulative 160 seasons played, but also only have one title. And Cleveland sports fans? Well, they deserve a medal of honor.
Maybe Boston’s title run will come to an end; I mean at some point it has to, right? Maybe I’ll regret writing this. Maybe the city should enter a lengthy mourning period after every playoff elimination because maybe that makes the victories even sweeter. Maybe I’ve even cursed The Bean by labeling my brethren as spoiled.
But I doubt it. If winning is a habit, Boston now has an addiction. Maybe someday it will once again go sober, but it won’t happen cold-turkey.
There was a time in Boston when watching teams win championships was considered a rare privilege, not an expectation. There was a time when only the Celtics could win it all. There was a time when the Patriots ownership wanted to move the team to Missouri and there was a time when the Red Sox hadn’t won the World Series in 86 years.
Like many, my allegiance to Boston sports will never falter. I’ll probably always argue Tom is greater than Peyton, and I will certainly always root against the Yankees, Lakers, and Habs. I’ll still enter a brief depression every time a playoff run ends without duck boats. If the bounce back Red Sox can win it all this year, maybe I’ll be the one to disrobe.
My existence as a spoiled fan is not good or bad, but it is the reality.
I’ll do my best to shrug off the disappointment of failed title runs because, honestly, I’m owed nothing. When that team of “idiots” broke curse in 2004, they didn’t do it for me; they did it for my principal, for my English teacher, and for my dad.
There are certain qualities of my fanhood that are inescapable, but ignorance and entitlement are not among them.