RAFAEL DEVERS, JAYLEN BROWN, JAYSON TATUM AND CHARLIE McAVOY — BOSTON’S BOUNCING BABIES
We are so lucky.
Oh, for many reasons surely but for the purposes of this piece, we are lucky because we live and in some cases have lived for a very long time in the greatest sports town in the world.
Ahem.
Pardon me.
Boston is the greatest sports town in the world.
Boston is the greatest sports town in the world.
I am struggling to remain objective as any passionate person (with hopefully something meaningful to say) might.
It’s not easy.
A lifelong Bostonian now middle-aged, I have traveled all over this country and to several spots outside it.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have made Boston my principal domicile for 62 of my 63-plus years on Earth. And I have been an avid sports fan — okay zealous bordering on hard-core — probably since around the time I took my first breath.
I make no apologies for this; actually I am rather proud of it. Along the way I have developed a keen eye and understanding of sports and by osmosis, a deep well of knowledge.
Let us not confuse this with the rage and craze of sabermetrics, fantasy leagues and the like. To each his own. I am more old-school, old-fashioned. I look for certain things and end up seeing plenty.
I know what to look for. And I know what I see.
Boston is the greatest sports town in the world.
A shared love and reverence for and devout faith in Association Football, known as soccer in America, is a common thread among more than one-half of the world’s population. The sport boasts an estimated following of about 4 billion people, dwarfing the numbers of those who call themselves fans of Tennis, Volleyball, Basketball, Baseball and Golf.
American Football, the most popular U.S. sport in terms of school-level participation [for the moment] interestingly ranks 6th. on the list of our nation’s most popular sports overall behind NASCAR, Golf, Tennis, Track and Field, and Swimming. Basketball and Baseball are 7th. and 8th. with Volleyball and Hockey respectively rounding out one of many top ten lists.
Cricket fans number 2.5 billion worldwide primarily in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries; Field Hockey buffs — 2 billion of them — are largely located in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia; Table Tennis aficionados-875 million thanks to formidable global powerhouses such as South Korea, Sweden and China; and Rugby party animals bleed and inhale keg beer to the tune of 475 million around the world.
Last checked, Boston does not qualify as a hotbed of soccer, cricket, field hockey, table tennis or rugby.
Of the aforementioned five sports, only soccer has made professional inroads in Boston in the estimable form of Major League Soccer’s New England Revolution, founded in 1994. One of the league’s ten charter franchises, the Revs debuted in 1996.
Boston is the greatest sports town in the world.
That’s the thing.
With the exception of college hockey, particularly Beanpot Hockey; the Boston Marathon; Crew — The Head of the Charles Regatta — and occasionally Boston College Football, long the only major college Division I (now FBS) program worth its weight in the geographical area (due respect willingly paid to Harvard and Holy Cross in Massachusetts; Dartmouth in New Hampshire; Brown and URI in Rhode Island; and UConn and Central Connecticut in Connecticut), Boston is a professional sports town boasting a very rich history.
The measure of a professional sports town is made in the number of franchises it is able to support and for how long. The long-term existence of four reasonably successful professional major sports teams in one city has historically served as the universal barometer.
Boston is at the top of the list, featuring four storied entries — the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins and Patriots, with a nod to Foxborough — and one perhaps in the works — the Revolution, also based in Foxborough.
(It is true that New York, Chicago, California, Texas and Florida are large enough markets to support multiple teams playing the same sport, but somehow to me it’s not comparable, not the same).
This is part of what makes Boston unique in the sports domain, part of Boston’s fabric. The mix of professional sports with the sprinkling of annual renowned amateur spectacles is like none other.
Other sections of the United States weave their own sports tapestries.
Major college football, small college football and all of their feeder systems are the bomb elsewhere: read Texas, California and all over the South. College football rules even in locales which offer a taste or more of professional sports. (Georgia and the Carolinas spring to mind). In countless places, high school football dominates the sports landscape.
More esoteric athletic endeavors — indeed sports — lend themselves nicely to geography: think surfing, beach volleyball and downhill or cross-country skiing for example.
Or mountain climbing, rock climbing, snowshoeing, road racing or sled dog racing (as in the Iditarod).
These athletic pursuits among many, many others are every bit as important and even more so to their disciples as are the fortunes of professional or college sports teams to their most rabid fans.
And certainly that is how it should be.
The Boston Red Sox were established in 1901 and after early World Series successes (1903; 1912; 1915; 1916; and 1918) which made winning seem routine, the organization endured an eighty-six year championship drought. The “curse” was reversed in 2004 and two more World Series wins followed in short order (2007; and 2013) anointing them baseball kings three times in ten seasons.
The Boston Celtics defined ‘dynasty’ in much the same way as baseball’s New York Yankees, the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens or the NFL’s Green Bay Packers.
Founded in 1946, the C’s’ 17 world championships are the most in NBA history. They won eight in a row from 1959–1966 and 11 in 13 years. Their last title came in 2008 and they lost in the NBA Finals in 2010.
The Boston Bruins began play in 1924 and with but six Stanley Cup championships to their credit in 94 years — the most recent in 2011 — they unwittingly appear to play the poor sister to the Red Sox and the Celtics.
Not so.
With two Cups in the early ’70s (1970 and 1972) they owned Boston lock, stock and barrel, redefined the sport in New England and elsewhere and remain extremely popular.
In December of 2016 their consecutive home game sellout streak had exceeded 300 games and the $800 million value of the franchise per Forbes ranked them #5 in the NHL at the time.
Thank you Bobby Orr.
The New England Patriots’ beginnings in 1960 could charitably be described as humble. Back when they were known as the Boston Patriots, a charter member of the AFL, they enjoyed modest success and experienced epic failure under owner Billy Sullivan.
(Back then “home games” were played at Boston University Field — 1960 and 1961; Harvard Stadium — 1962 and 1970; and Fenway Park — 1963–1969).
In 1970 the AFL and NFL merged; in ’71 the team moved to Foxborough and changed their name; and in 2002 they won their first of five Super Bowls (2004; 2005; 2015; and 2017).
The franchise has appeared in ten Super Bowls altogether — eight since 2001.
Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have crafted a legacy which assures them what should be the well-deserved and undisputed recognition as the greatest coach-quarterback tandem in the history of professional football.
(This in spite of the fact that those in our nation’s 44 non-New England states and plenty around the world despise them unconditionally for whatever host of reasons).
Boston is the greatest sports town in the world.
Success in the world of sports — professional or amateur — is founded in part on the seamless infusion of young talent.
The Red Sox have it in Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr. and now 21-year-old Rafael Devers.
The Celtics’ Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum — big-time stars in the making — are 41 years old between them.
And the Bruins’ Charlie McAvoy began to impress, anchoring the defensive corps last season in the playoffs with no prior NHL experience and improves by leaps and bounds each time he takes the ice.
He was nineteen when his skates were put to the big-league fire.
(Accolades must also be bestowed upon 21-year-old Jake DeBrusk — 2 goals — and 22-year-old Danton Heinen, both of whom scored in last night’s first round playoff-series clincher against Toronto, with DeBrusk pocketing the eventual winning tally on a Mark Recchi-like assault on the net).
Occasionally youth can be wasted on the young.
Not here.
There are those who will disagree with my assertion about Boston, some vehemently, as is their right and privilege.
I will be accused of homerism, ignorance and worse.
That’s okay. Good luck to them.
I can take it and so can Boston.
Boston is the greatest sports town in the world.
Period, end of report.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in April 2018.]
ADDENDUM: Since this writing, the Red Sox won another World Series (2018); the Patriots won another Super Bowl (2019 — Super Bowl LIII); and the Bruins lost in Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Finals.
