When You’re Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop

2 02 2010

A weary traveler checks into a hotel late at night.  He lays on his bed and drops his shoe, banging loudly on the hard floor; realizing how loud and rude he was being, he softly takes off his other shoe and places it on the floor.  A few minutes passed and a man below can be heard shouting, “Drop your other shoe already!  I can’t sleep waiting for it to hit the ground!”  For the man on the floor below the traveler, he was waiting for the other shoe to drop on the floor; the inevitable conclusion of the man’s anticipation of the undesirable thud.  Cowboy fans have witnessed the shoe drop after 1996 and their third Super Bowl of the ’90s.  Bulls fans witnessed it after Jordan-era.  Meg Ryan dropped the shoe after You’ve Got Mail.  Now, the fans in/(of) Boston are witnessing it happen right before their eyes.

These are the years of the last championship seasons for the teams of The Hub – with the Bruins in 1971.  In a decade, no city has enjoyed more championships than Bostonians in the Aughts.  (Please send refuting emails to Dwight Schrute at beeswax@notyours.com).  2007:  Celtics win their league-leading 17th championship, the Red Sox win World Series for the second time in 3 years and the Patriots win their 4th Super Bowl in 7 years; undefeated, no less.  (It happened.  Yes it did!  Just leave me alone!).  Okay, fine:  2004, Patriots win their 3rd Super Bowl in 4 years.

Since then, fans have parachuted in on the Bandwagon of Beantown from all over the country.   Well, I for one don’t mind all the bandwagoners seeing as how in this day of universally on-demand media anyone can follow any team no matter where they are.  I guess what I’m saying is, there’s nothing you can do about them so we should just live with it.  But I do have a message to those that may choose to stay:  ”Things are about to get rough, so buckle up or get off.”

2010:  the Patriots have expired their 5-year grace period for winning Super Bowl XXXIX.  2007 was definitely good year for the Pats but the first-round debacle of this year’s playoffs to the David Tyree Ravens combined with the humiliatingly, flukey loss to the David Tyree Giants in 2007 can swiftly lead to loss of good faith for their prosperity.

The Celtics are old.  The Big Three can’t hold the team together any more.  Leads aren’t preserved down the stretch without the intimidating defense of a truly healthy Kevin Garnett.  The general manager actively tried to get rid of Rajon Rondo on two separate occasions before giving him an extension this year.

The Red Sox.  I’m holding on to hope that last year’s sweep from the ALDS was an aberration, too.

Despite disappointing finishes the Pats did go undefeated during the regular season and won 18 games in a row, the Celtics and Bulls gave NBA fans an unforgettable 7 game series without KG in 2008 and the Red Sox…well the Red Sox added John Lackey to the rotation.  (I can’t honestly think of something I’m excited for about the Red Sox this year or last year).  The Bruins made the playoffs and lost to the Hurricanes in 7 games.  Silver linings are everywhere.  But how long will that hold?

Spoiled, like the cast of Jersey Shore getting paid to drink and fight.  New Englanders just expect good things to come, easily forgetting hardships that came before this decade.  You’re the father of a kid that will inevitably lose a game of basketball in the driveway because you’re getting older, fatter and slower and your kid is getting more agile, stronger and figuring out your weaknesses.

So what can you do?  I can’t say whether or not I’m handling the situation very well.  Every Celtics game I see, I have no reason to believe that they’ll win the game even with a 20-point lead in the 4th quarter.  I didn’t even predict the Patriots to be in the Super Bowl (but there’s no way I predicted the first-round piss-fest) this year.  The Colts have figured the Patriots out.  The Chargers would have beat them too.  (In hindsight, everyone in the playoffs could have beaten the Pats).

If you’re a bandwagoner and want to jump off, be my guest; you are entitled to your decisions and what makes you happy.  If you’re a die-hard, you can join me and prepare yourself to endure the inevitability that the shoe is getting closer and closer to the ground.  Take the insight of the late sportswriter Dave Halberstam, “If you need a victory by your favorite sports team to give you some kind of enduring emotional upgrade, then you are, I suspect, in real trouble.”

Go out and enjoy life.  No lovable losers here.


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A Long, Long Time Ago in a World of Sports Far Away

15 07 2009

Alpha-male instincts are at its highest with sports.  My-team-is-better-than-your-team countered back and forth between friends (and the occassional not-so-friends) shared over a drink in your favorite bar.  You had your team and you defended it ’till the end.  The reason your team was superior was justified by anything you belted out at an increasingly higher volume and an occasional sharper tone.  No matter how heated the argument got you felt like Mel Gibson avenging his freedom in Braveheart/The Patriot until someone was dead, covered in his own pool of blood.  Even if it was false  – but that was ten years ago.  A lot has changed since then.

Before the All-Star break, ESPN re-aired the 1999 Home Run Derby in Boston, clearly telling at how different the times are.  The hit-tracker that drew lines from home plate to the outfield was the highlight of production value during that derby.  Ten years from then, the State Farm 2009 MLB Home Run Derby glowed the ball flying through the air much like Fox’s attempt to glow the hockey puck blue so the audience can follow it.  And was able to track the amount of feet the ball traveled on contact – emasculating Bradon Inge trickling the ball 20 feet from home-plate.

Dave Halberstam wrote multiple times, compiled in Everything They Had, about his time reporting in the Vietnam War and befriended a man from Boston (Halberstam himself, a Yankee fan since a little boy) and both would watch the ticker scroll with box scores of Red Sox games and be in awe of the consistency of Carl Yastrzemski’s batting line.   That was the media in the sporting world in those days.  You read it off print and sporting magazines or electronic marquees.  This is how men became accustomed to reading their newspapers, from back to front starting with the sports section – a method I practiced even though I’m in my twenties and a dying newspaper industry.

That’s not how you get your stats now: your cellphone – not merely limited to the iPhone – is the gateway that allows you to look up stats, past and present, mobile applications brought us the ability to look up stats to fire back at your drunken friends in seconds (guys  – drunk and sober – only have an attention span of a couple of seconds).  Twitter gives you updates on trade rumors and firings – a la Kevin Love breaking news on Kevin McHale’s firing from Memphis; more ammo to mercilessly beat down your opponent until they’re in their own pool of blood like Brock Lesnar standing over Frank Mir in UFC 100.  Mobile blogging beat reporters give us instantaneous information of real-time events.  Photographers directly update their pictures online.  Those of us that are lucky enough to subscribe to baseball packages were able to watch Jonathan Sanchez pitch the first no-hitter of 2009 out-of-market from the San Francisco area.   MLB has given Blackberry and iPhone users the ability to watch videos of LIVE games.  LIVE!  (I watched a baseball game during a summer lecture.)  New media has dominated the sporting world in the past ten years.

If Sports had teeth, Media punched it all over the octagon.


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Waiting Till Next Year, Again

6 10 2008

I should have wrote this before game 3 of the Red Sox/Angels series, but since I didn’t I’m going to try my best to keep my focus while the game is going on (1-0 Angels, Bottom 2nd).

While I watched last night as the Cubs went down to the Dodgers to continue their centennial World Series drought, I couldn’t help but think about what Seth Mnookin wrote in “Feeding the Monster.” He mentions the way the sport is played out to its fans as poetic in nature but of course in terms of the 2004 Red Sox. The “Original Sin” started when Babe Ruth was sold to the “Enemy” – the Yankees in 1918 (or 1920 by other sources). Year after year since then, the Yankees have dejected the Red Sox organization, players, and fans by not only beating the Sox, but in heartbreaking fashion (e.g., as in the 2003 ALCS when they rallied from a 5-2 deficit in game 7 to win) He continues on to say how fitting it was for the 2004 Red Sox to face the Yankees the very next year in the ALCS and started down 0-3 in the series. As we all probably know what happened afterwards as the Red Sox came back to win the American League and go on to win the World Series, my stance on the Sox, Cubs, and pretty much sports in general, is that every team has to have a defining moment in which everyone involved has to commit themselves to winning. No matter the cost. And put the “Curse” to rest.

The defining moment of the 2004 Red Sox clearly being the rally from an 0-3 deficit to beat the “Evil Empire” as the clear underdog. Once that happened, the door to the World Series trophy was opened to be claimed by the Sox by a sweep of the Cardinals. But would it have been less significant had the Sox not gone through the Yankees? I’m willing to bet that it would have. Hell I’m willing to bet that the Sox wouldn’t have beaten the Cardinals if they hadn’t gone through the Yankees. Every story has to have conflict and at that point, there was no conflict for the Sox that didn’t involve the Yankees.

So take note, Cubs fans. Who is your main antagonist? As far as this drought has gone on, there hasn’t been one team in the way. The Cubs have been eliminated by about 15 different MLB teams so as far as I can tell, the Cubs have been their own worst enemy. The clubhouse has to change its personality dynamic in which the players believe that they are in control of their own destiny as the “Idiots” of the Red Sox had their “Fuck ‘em All” mentality.

This philosophy continues on to the Tampa Bay Rays now, which worries me and should worry every Red Sox fan. The Rays have just continued to fight against all oncomers while being counted down and out. It appears that the Rays are the team this year that doesn’t pay attention to outside pressure from the media and fan-base (since they don’t have much of one). I view that as the most dangerous weapon any team can have.

Oh and if the Red Sox DO beat the Rays and the Dodgers beat the Phillies, Derek Lowe, Nomar Garciaparra, and most of all, Manny Ramirez who all play for the Dodgers have at one point, played for the Red Sox. So the Dodgers then wouldn’t just have the “Fuck ‘em All” mentality, but “Fuck the Red Sox” mentality.

Should be exciting.

EDIT after Game 3: I don’t know why I didn’t mention the Angels before, maybe I was hoping they wouldn’t be in this whole category but after they beat the Sox in extra innings to FINALLY beat the Red Sox in post-season play after losing 10 straight they totally fit the equation of everything I mentioned above. The ALDS is pretty much playing out the way the Sox rallied against the Yankees, the roles are just a little different. Crap.


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Ready for October

30 09 2008

Okay, I might not ever write anything about the Hogs for a while.  I had a post ready to go earlier, welcoming Petrino and the new season, however I let a couple games go by to really get a good grasp of what I would be involved with and after the ‘Bama and Texas games, I’m pretty satisfied with leaving the Razorbacks out for a while.

Tomorrow is officially the start of the MLB playoffs and the Red Sox are in the AL Wild Card spot.  I didn’t have the best weekend last week when they only took 1 out of 3 games from the Yankees while Tampa Bay was equally floundering with the Tigers.  I wasn’t a big fan of the fact that the Friday night game continued after a 10+ hour rain delay in which Daisuke got scratched from the start (and in turn, pitcher Pauley, decided to pitch with his eyes closed – or he pitched underhanded – I can’t tell) but then to have Saturday’s game postponed to have a double header on Sunday to finalize the season?  The Sox can fight against a lot of obstacles but let’s face it, Mother Nature can’t collapse like the ’04 ALCS Yankees or the ’07 ALCS Indians – so good bye AL EAST Division and hello Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.  I maintain that if Friday’s game didn’t get delayed and Dice-K still started, Friday’s game would have been ours and since Tampa had already lost to Detroit even before the Sox/Yankee game’s scheduled start – Tampa would be looking up at the Sox from the Wild Card (correct, I continue to assume that the Sox would have swept the embarrassing Yankees and Detroit would have swept the nervous Rays — no, I’m not kidding).   Alas, it was not to be.

Yes they owned the Red Sox during the regular season but the Sox – just like every other team that didn’t make the playoffs was injury-filled.  I have to believe that a healthier team (hopefully 87%?) in the playoffs is better than the team that was barely 70% healthy all season long.  So bring on the Angels and here’s hoping they continue their best to be the Cubs of the American League.

Hang on.  Who would I want from the American League to go against the Cubs in the World Series?  Do I want the Red Sox to elminate the Cubs from their bid for a championship after 100 years?

Eh, I’ll live.


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