Boston, Stronger

My kids have been spoiled by the wealth of championships that Boston teams have won during their lifetime. 2007 Red Sox, 2008 Celtics, 2011 Bruins, and now, again, 2013 Red Sox. What a run. If the Pats could only regain their early 2000s form, then Andres and Celia would truly be in hog heaven.

They are too young to understand how lucky they have been. I am not. I was a die-hard Celtics fan growing up, with the Sox not far behind--the greater frequency of my trips to the Garden likely being the reason why I preferred the former over the latter. I lived and died with those teams. In one Finals series--likely either 1984 or 1985, as it was definitely against the Lakers--I got so mad during a blowout loss that I stormed out of the basement and basically threw a tantrum in my room. I was inconsolable. In 1986, I was ecstatic about the Celtics winning it all, again, though I felt betrayed by my own father, who went to the clinching game with his brother, not me. I held that against him for a long time.

The Sox are the Sox, though, and the 1986 vintage was something special. I was swept up in playoff fever like everyone else that year. I remember where I was when Dave Henderson hit his famous shot in Anaheim that would begin Donnie Moore's long, sad decline (in my parents' room, stealing moments in front of the TV away from dinner). I didn't see Buckner's infamous World Series play live, but I do remember the aftermath--that play being shown over and over and over, and a whole city depressed. We had been so close. Still, there was Game 7, and though I was young enough to hold out hope for just one more win, even I could see that things were not going to end well as an early Sox lead turned sour, the Mets slowly chipping away and reducing the team and all of New England to rubble.

The failures experienced during your formative years are parasitic. They find tiny habitats in your mind, and there they lie, never growing, never dying, just waiting, waiting for a moment to feast on hope and optimism.  So it was in 2003, when a certain Sox victory over the Yanks in the ALCS turned inside out and upside down in a matter of minutes, with Aaron Bleeping Boone confirming what all of us in the room already knew but so desperately didn't want to believe: it wasn't our year, again. That night was a tough one. As was the next day, a day I spent on my couch, hungover and listening to the group therapy of sports radio.

This is old history now, given the Red Sox Dynasty of 2004-2013 (excluding September, 2011 and all of 2012). We have been spoiled. And perhaps we deserve it, having spent 86 long years in the desert. Many diehards spent their lives in that desert--rooting, rooting, rooting for the home team, but not living long enough to claim, as many finally did in October 2004, that now they could die in peace.

All of this--the failures, the hopes, the dreams, the heartbreak, the memories--is why I tried to wake up Andres and Celia for the 9th inning last night. What a moment I thought it would be! All of us celebrating another championship. Another World Series, at that. Celia would have called it a "magical" moment. And it would have been an accurate description, as there was definitely magic in what Ortiz and Farrell and Lester conjured up this postseason.

But despite our efforts to rouse them, they stayed asleep, turning over and trying to snuggle deeper into whatever dream they were having. It was fitting. Having seen so much victory in their short lives, what was one more banner? I guess the old saying holds true, even now: There's always next year.