Feeling down in the dumps because unlike last year, the Patriots have lost a few games and are in a tight battle to make the playoffs? Still sleeping poorly because the Red Sox failed to get into the World Series?
Well, shape up. Our football and baseball heroes gave us five championships over the past six years. Starting in 2002, the sun was always shining, the moon was full and all of us departed the fields of battle with a smile on our faces. The complaint counter is closed.
Besides, if you glance at Page 2 of this sports section, you’ll notice both of our area’s other two professional teams – basketball and hockey – are as hot as the days are cold.
The Celtics, winners of last season’s NBA championship, are at it again, leading their division with an 13-2 record.
The real surprise is the Bruins. They haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1972, but there they are –14-3 and on top of their division.
I, for one, have not paid nearly as much attention to these two sports as I do baseball and football, but fair-weather fan that I am, I hope soon to know as much about Paul Pierce and Zdeno Chara as I do Dustin Pedroia and Tom Brady.
If you’re still unhappy with the current drift of the Boston sporting scene, imagine how you’d feel living in Detroit. The Lions are winless this year, almost as bad as the local companies that produce automobiles. The Tigers, a favorite to win the American League pennant, began the season in quicksand and quickly disappeared.
Detroit does have the Red Wings, who won the Stanley Cup last season and are looking every bit as good now. And the Pistons have won twice as many games as they’ve lost and figure to make the playoffs. (Of course in the NBA, virtually every team makes the playoffs, but that’s a subject for a future column.)
Years ago, Sports Illustrated would identify the city that was most down on its sporting luck. One year it was San Francisco (pre-Joe Montana), another time Atlanta. New York might have been a good candidate a year ago – Yankees, Mets, Knicks and Jets all sucking air – save for the Giants’ last-minute heroics.
Now Greg Bishop of The New York Times has alerted me to the city that may qualify as the all-time doormat, the champion loser. That would be Seattle, where evidently nothing positive has happened since Meg Ryan met Tom Hanks and Frasier and Niles Crane sipped mocha lattes.
The Mariners lost 101 games this past season. The Seahawks are 2-9. The SuperSonics – who won the city’s last major championship nearly 30 years ago – lost three times as many games as they won last season, then moved to Oklahoma City, renamed themselves the Thunder and have won only one of the 13 games they have played. Some thunder.
Ah, it gets worse. The University of Washington football team finished 0-11. Washington State is located in Pullman, about 300 miles away on the eastern edge of the state, but not far enough away to avoid catching the bug. The Cougars ended the season 2-10, beating Washington but losing three games by a combined 193-3.
Now I’m going to give you some good news. I went to the flea market at the Wellfleet Drive-In last weekend and bought a dusty bottle that obviously had spent many years in someone’s attic. At home, I began to rub away some of the grime when out popped a genuine genie.
“Thanks for the rub, buddy,”
he said. “You get three wishes and make it quick. I want to catch the latest Betty Grable movie.”
“OK,”
I replied. “Wish 1 is that the Patriots win the rest of their games this season and beat the Giants in the Super Bowl"
. “Consider it done,”
he said.
“My second wish is that Tom Brady returns next season, good as new.”
“No problem,”
he said.
“Finally, that the Red Sox are able to acquire heavy-hitting free agent Mark Teixeira this winter.”
The genie frowned. “What do you need the guy Teixeira for,”
he asked. “You already have Williams, Doerr and Pesky.”
