Taking a page out of the pre-'04 Red Sox playbook last night, your current local nine decided to take a shot at history by endearing themselves to countless self loathing sports writers, and specifically Dan Shaughnessey. Sensing there was no way the team had what it took to actually make a run at the 'ship in the playoffs, the team seems to have collectively decided that the best alternative allowing the team to go down in history was to put on a collapse of absolutely epic proportions, great success guys, great success.
While watching the Sox self combust and keeping tabs on the Devil Rays suspiciously improbable comeback (just saying, 7 runs? in two innings?), I began debating what I'd write about this. There are basically two routes I can take. 1) Post a slew of generic comments blasting Lackey, Crawford, Daisuke, Pink Hats, and the front office. Or, 2) Try and throw this loss into historical perspective and get this baby published before Simmons posts a 5000 word manifesto on the subject explaining that he went through the same process while walking his dog around his mansions yard.
So with a little help from The Meastro and Seany Mo, I present to you, the list. One note, all events take place during my generation, so '78 is not on here, '86 is not on here, and any 80's losses from the Celtics that I can't remember? Not on here. If I can't coherently remember being a fan, it doesn't really count to me. In reverse order:
7. 2006 Patriots - 21-3. Twenty One, to Fucking 3! The phantom Hobbs pass interference call to which the league later apologized, and Peyton freaking Manning going on to win his first, and presumably only, Super Bowl. Fuck, this blog is going to make me angrier than I thought it would.
6. 2011 Red Sox - It helps to have the perspective of two champion ships in the last 7 years. Because otherwise, I'd be calling out of work hungover today and spending my day attempting to call into sports radio. This is presumably as close to knowing how my parents generation felt about '78, except they didn't have the benefit of a couple of trophies in the bag, and that loss was to the Yankees. This sucks, but its not something you couldn't see coming a week ago, and we're not desperately clinging to chances for another championship here. Yes, Dan Shaughnessy, to some extent, I have changed as a fan since they won.
5. 2011 Patriots - An MVP Brady season absolutely wasted. And to that foot-fucking Rex Ryan and the rival Jets of all teams. This one hurt, ALOT. The Pats were ass kickers last year. They finally seemed poised to make up for the lost 2008 season, and replace the trophy that should have been from 2007. It's now been 7 years since the Pats were crowned champs. SEVEN!
4. 1999 Red Sox - No one's going to mention this one today I'm sure, but this killed the innocence of teenage CW's sporting fan youth. This was Pedro in his absolute prime. This was Nomar mashing the ball every-which way. This was one of the last, if not the last Red Sox season where I still rooted for the Sox from the perspective of a kid. The magic was lost shortly after this. This was my first real introduction into the Sox-Yanks rivals (hard to believe considering I was 15 at the time, but in truth, they'd rarely played meaningful late season games to that point, and hadn't met in the playoffs as of yet). This was a complete kick to the balls for adolescent CW.
3. 2010 Celtics- Ron fucking Artest. It'll probably be another 15-20 years before we're that close to a championship with the Celtics. Basketball is the hardest sport to build and maintain a contender. If we lose this NBA season to the lockout, the C's window is closed. That really sucks.
2. 2007 Patriots - Going to be honest, I initially had this number 1. Seany talked me out of it, and I'll explain why in a minute. This was brutal. I didn't watch SportsCenter or read ESPN for a solid week and a half. I always watch SportsCenter, and I was a working man at the time, do you know how hard it is to get through a day of work without browsing ESPN for a couple of hours? It's impossible. This was as big of a let down as possible as a sports fan. Even bigger than the next loss, because this team was supposed to win, this team was historically good, this team was supposed to give us bragging rights as fans, over any fan base in history. All of that, gone. 8 years later, we're still waiting for the next Super Bowl trophy. Tom Brady is still in his prime, but its the latter end of his prime, and as a fan I'm well aware that the window won't last more than 2 or 3 more season. Pats fans have had 3 Super Bowl quality teams cut down early (06,07, 2011). The decade of dominance may have been a wild and spectacular ride, and I've loved every minute of it, but if this list proves anything its that we've had our fair share of horrrreennndous sports fans moments as well. But it comes with the territory I guess.
1. 2003 Red Sox - Deciding between the 2007 Pats and the '03 Sox is splitting hairs in a contest where there are no winners, only losers (unless you happen to write books about Boston Sports fans and our team's histories of collapses, then you'd profit wildly). In picking between these legendary losses the deciding factor went to thinking back on the effect the events had at the time they happened. With the Patriots, as miserable as that loss was, you had three very recent Super Bowls to fall back on. It sucked and took a while to get over and we lost our chance at history, but the team was still a group of winners, and would continue to be for the foreseeable future. The '03 Sox? Not so much. They hadn't one shit to that point. 85 futile years and counting. And this wasn't a loss to just any team. This was a loss to our greatest tormentor, the Yankees. We were leading, we had Pedro on the mound, nothing was going to go wrong. This was finally our time. Not so much. The loss resonates particularly vividly with me as I was still in college at the time. I didn't have a job, or real responsibilities, I sunk my heart and soul as a Sox fan into that series. When it was over, I jumped off of our dorms balcony. I took a long walk. I joined in on the riots later on. I avoided the mere mentioning of sports talk, I didn't witness a minute of that year's world series. I finally understood what all the previous generations of Red Sox sports fans had been through. I'd experienced one of those crushing losses that were just Sox folklore and teams my Dad talked about previously. This sealed a sense of hopelessness that I'd never truly felt as a sports fan, and still haven't felt again to this day. As crushing as that Pats game was because we were supposed to win, this was worse. We'd never won, and it honestly didn't seem like we ever would, game 7 just cemented that feeling.
Oh, Bruins fans, the 2010 B's rank about 20th on my list...No disrespect intended, but complete disrespect intended. It just wasn't a real sport for decades in Boston until last year...Enjoy the Pink Hats this coming season.
