NEW ENGLANDERS LOVE TO CONGRATULATE THEMSELVES.
We have the world's best hospitals and institutions of higherlearning, the finest fried clams and foliage. We even have the bestof the worst when it comes to drivers, political corruption, andweather. This is why we are so sure we are home to the best sportsfans in America.
Truth be told, we are the best and worst. We are the mostpassionate and the most provincial. As fast as we anoint athleticgods, we label them bums. And if you are a professional athlete,Boston is the best place to be a hero and the worst place to let aground ball pass between your legs. Bobby Orr, Larry Bird, CarlYastrzemski, and Adam Vinatieri can eat free here for life, but GradyLittle will be He Who Must Not Be Named whenever New Englandersgather to celebrate triumph or grouse about ignominious defeat.
It was more than 16 years ago, on tax day, 1990, when I firstattempted to itemize the four major fan groups of New England inthese pages. What distinguishes a Celtics fan from a Bruins fan, aSox fan from a Pats fan? Can one be a disciple of both winter teams?Which fans are the most devoted, spend the most money, watch the mostgames on television, and buy the most jerseys? Who are the lifers andwho are the bandwagon jumpers? Based on information gleaned fromfans, barkeeps, parking lot owners, team officials, and mediamembers, I outlined rough profiles of the four fan bases. The effortwas totally unscientific, rife with stereotypes, and utterlyinconclusive.
And this is how it ended, with a quote from Steve Sheppard, 53, afreelance writer and folk singer who was raised in Brockton and -then and now - lives on Nantucket: 'If there's one proven thing, it'sthat the Red Sox are never going to win the World Series. Never,ever, ever. The sooner you realize that, the happier you are.'
I'll get back to Sheppard later.
But if there is one certainty this time, it's a seismic shift infan allegiance. In 1990, Boston was a Red Sox town with lingeringloyalty to the great Celtics and (to a lesser degree) the blue-collar Bruins. The Patriots were irrelevant. Today, the Patriots havevaulted over the Celtics and Bruins, and some argue that we arebecoming a football town on a par with Cleveland or Pittsburgh. Thinkof our four teams as The Beatles: The Red Sox and Patriots are Johnand Paul; the Celtics are George; and the Bruins are Ringo, happy tojust share the stage and meet the spillover groupies. Says WBZ-TVsportscaster Bob Lobel, 'Obviously, the Red Sox and Patriots arecarrying the town, and the other two teams are stepchildren.'
Still, Boston remains a baseball town. Other teams have theirsalad days, but the Red Sox are forever (and I'm not saying thisbecause Daddy Globe is owned by the New York Times Co., which alsoowns 17 percent of the Sox). Baby boomers remember that Bruins feverdominated the early 1970s when Child Bobby glided across the sheet,we all hummed the 'Nutrocker,' and ice time was hotter than RaquelWelch. In the Celtic 1980s, it was Larry Legend, a string of selloutsand the best basketball the NBA will ever know. Now, thanks tocoaches Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick, some players namedVinatieri and Brady, and the magnificent local ownership of BobKraft, the Patriots are princes of New England. They have a state-of-the-grid stadium, a model franchise, and a neo-dynasty.
But no string of Lombardi trophies can trump the century-long sagaof New England's American League baseball franchise. The Red Sox arenever out of season, Fenway Park might as well be on the FreedomTrail, and baseball is the sport that endures while our other threegames float in and out of fashion.
Argue all you want, Patriot fans, but remember that the crowdchanted 'Yankees Suck' at the Pats' City Hall championship rally in2002. Two years later, a Red Sox World Series victory brought 2million people downtown, spawned more books than the Kennedypresidency, and inspired some to visit local graveyards to bring thenews to those who waited a literal lifetime in vain. The Patriotshave fans. The Red Sox have a Nation. The Sox are a regional ballclub with a global following. It's not anybody's fault, and it drivesthe Kraft family crazy, but it's simply impossible to replicate thepassion of Red Sox fans.
Something else has changed, too, since 1990. Female fans have comeon board like never before (and don't think the teams haven'tnoticed; hence, the pink Sox caps). Credit the rise of women'sathletic programs. By 1990, a generation of young women had grown upwith Title IX equality; today, they are the sports-minded mothers ofa new generation of athletes and fans.
The good news is that the Sox and Patriots are not just greatteams but also cultural touchstones. The bad news is that the once-important Celtics and Bruins have been erased from our consciousness.The disparity is startling, especially for those of us who rememberwhen the Bruins (1970s) and Celtics (1980s) ruled here.
(A parenthetical word now about the New England Revolution: Sorry,but the local professional soccer franchise has failed to earn a seatat our table. The Revs are owned by the Krafts, play their home gamesat Gillette Stadium, and last year advanced to the championship gameof the MLS. But even among the soccer crowd, they fail to inspire thepassion that is generated during World Cup competition. Twogenerations of New England children have grown up playing soccer,and it still has not translated into an adult fan base for theprofessional game.)
So let us reexamine our four teams and their separate and unequalfan groups, in alphabetical order - which also happens to representthe size of their respective constituencies - bottom to top.
BRUINS
WHAT WE SAID IN 1990
This group is loud and loyal. It's said that the Bruins have only11,000 fans in all of New England - but each fan attends every game.
Not much has changed. With the exception of the Orr era, the B'sare followed by people who love hockey. And there aren't manycrossover fans. A Bruins fan grew up going to the rink at 6 a.m. andskating for an hour while mom or dad drank hot chocolate off to theside. He played street hockey in the summer and roller- blade hockeywhen it exploded in the 1990s. Bruins fans go to high school andcollege hockey games. They are Hockey Krishnas, a secret society ofrugged New Englanders who never get cold.
Let's say the typical Bruins fan lives in Beverly, makes less than$100,000, and sends his kids to public schools. He owns a team jerseywith the name of a great ex-Bruin (McKenzie or O'Reilly, perhaps)stitched across the back. He drinks beer and invested in a plasma TVwith HD so he can watch the road games in his paneled basement. Hehas never eaten sushi. He went to a lot of Boston College and BostonUniversity hockey games during the NHL lockout, and he wishes therewas more hitting in today's professional game. His wife has big hairand loves to go to the Garden. His sons and daughters play hockey,and no sacrifice is too great in the quest for ice time. Rather thanpark at the Garden, he finds a spot by Government Center to save 15bucks. He doesn't listen to as much talk radio these days, becausethose guys hardly ever talk about the Bruins.
Think we are making this stuff up? Check with the Bruins's owndata bank. The team hired Scarborough Research to identify their fanbase. According to Scarborough, 39 percent of Bruins season ticketholders go to Dunkin' Donuts at least four times a week. Eighty-fivepercent are between 18 and 54, and the highest percentage come fromthe North Shore.
'Take the Tobin Bridge away, and there's no more Bruins fans,'says John Iannacci of Lunenburg, a salesman in the apple-growingindustry who grew up watching all four teams.
'The people who go to the games have to be into the team, becausethere's nothing trendy about it,' says Gerry Callahan, who co-hosts asports talk show on WEEI radio. 'It's not like you want to go to workthe next day and say, `Guess where I was? I was at a Bruins game.'They'll look at you and say, `Did you pay for the tickets?' My theoryis that there's no such thing as a Bruins fan who is not a hockeyfan. There's a lot of Red Sox fans who are not baseball fans and Patriots fans who are not football fans. Not so with the Bruinsfans.'
If one thing has changed since 1990, it's that more of the hockeypeople are female, no doubt the result of ice hockey becoming one ofthe fastest growing women's sports. Hockey was rarely an option forgirls in 1990, but today, rinks are full of girls eyeing a highschool hockey career, a college scholarship, and even an Olympicmedal.
Don't look for a lot of minority fans. The Bruins crowd is whiterthan the ice in front of the Zamboni.
The Bruins haven't won a Stanley Cup in 34 years, haven't made theplayoffs in three of their last six seasons, and were an absolutedisaster last year. But they still managed to draw 16,212 fans perhome game, the fourth-highest average since they moved into the newGarden in 1995. 'I'm beginning to think the Bruins just re-grow theirfans,' says Lobel. 'I think it goes back to the nature of the sportitself. Hockey is more hard-core and visceral and attracts thosekinds of fans. The Bruins tap into something that's somewhere in ourculture.'
The Bruins base also tips better than fans of the Celtics. Thishas not changed since I last touched this subject 16 years ago.Bruins fans make less but spend more. 'I think it's unanimous withworkers here that Celtic fans are not as polite, certainly not as generous as Bruins fans,' says Bob Runco, a concession worker at thenew Garden for 11 years. 'A Bruins fan comes in and says, `Can I havea hot dog, please? And a soda.' If it comes to $5.25, he gives yousix bucks and says `keep the change.' He doesn't have the quarter onhim. Celtic fans will say, `I have the quarter.' They always have thequarter.'
CELTICS
WHAT WE SAID IN 1990
Celtics fans were the first ones on your block to have answeringmachines, microwave ovens, VCRs, and CD players. They read the stocktables before anything else. They are the winners in life. They wantto be associated with winners.
Twelve men in search of a fan club - say hello to the 2005-2006Boston Celtics. The most decorated franchise in our midst, theCeltics lost their way after the golden 1980s and limped into thiscentury trying to cultivate a new generation of fans. While a once-great league deteriorated into a lazy game of young, skilledmillionaires who put style over substance, the Celtics were plaguedby bad hearts, bad luck, and bad management. It's been 20 years sincethe last banner was raised. Today, fans wait impatiently whilegeneral manager Danny Ainge shuttles players in and out of town,making it impossible for folks to grow attached to their team.
The Celtics no longer have a legitimate drawing card. There wasalways a Cousy, Russell, Havlicek, Cowens, or Bird. No more. PaulPierce is a bona fide star and one of the greatest scorers infranchise history, but he doesn't put fannies in seats. Nobody paysto watch Pierce put his head down, drive to the basket, and getfouled.
And let's not forget that the old Garden is gone. Its replacementoffers air conditioning and all the right creature comforts, but itcan't replace the intimacy and pool-hall atmosphere. The Bruins andCeltics both lost some edge when the barn came down.
Challenged to attract fans in this climate, the new (and local)Celtic owners have opted to emphasize something they politely referto as 'game presentation.' Translation: bombardment of the senses,including ear-splitting rock and hip-hop music, T-shirts shot intothe crowd with toy cannons, carnival acts during timeouts, andgrotesque overuse of the Jumbotron scoreboard. Next season, theCeltics will eschew tradition and become the final NBA team tofeature a cheerleading squad/dance team for home games. The premiseis that the game itself is no longer enough to attract and hold fans.Given the slippage of the appeal of the NBA and the Celtics, thismight be an accurate appraisal. It doesn't matter if the Celticswin: Young fans go home happy if they've seen themselves on the bigboard.
Callahan, for one, is not bothered by this. 'I went to a Celticsgame last year and took eight 8-year olds, and I was amazed. I wentto every game in the '80s, and it was a corporate look-at-me crowd.Now it's just the opposite, and it's a good thing. I think it'sespecially a good thing for the people who get shut out by the RedSox and the Patriots.'
Bob Rogers, former Sox broadcaster and sports talk-show host,says, 'All the small kids in my neighborhood, they really seem tocare about the Celtics.'
Like the Bruins, the Celts collect data on their season ticketholders. The team's executive vice president, Rich Gotham, says thoseholders most likely are men 36 to 55 years old with families thathave incomes over $100,000 and two or three cars in a garage. Mostlive in the western suburbs. Celtic fans 'lead active lifestyles andare more likely to have interests such as running, jogging, tennis,and golf,' Gotham says. 'They are more likely to invest in the stockmarket and real estate. They also travel and donate to charities at ahigher rate than the average Massachusetts consumer. They are lesslikely to hunt, sew, fish, or camp out.'
To be sure, season ticket holders are a privileged subspecies. Butto the extent it represents the genus fanaticus, Celtics execs canassume they won't lose much gate by scheduling a home game during thefirst day of hunting season or the Daytona 500.
'There's been a generational shift,' says Lobel. 'When theychanged buildings, everything changed for the Celtics. The new Gardenexperience is more about the building than the teams right now, andthe only thing that's going to change that is four or five years ofwinning.'
Lou Mazzola, 28, a research lab technician from Natick, says:'I'm definitely still a Celtic fan. Not as many people like them now,but I feel a lot more loyal to that team. I like my team. I fell inlove with them in 1986. It's an uphill battle now.'
From behind his beer tap, Runco says: 'Celtic fans are here to eatand eat and eat. They're big on grilled chicken sandwiches andkosher hot dogs. The salad stand has a line from the beginning tothe end of the game. The Celtics games also draw a lot better lookingwomen. I don't know what it is, but the girls seem to be attracted tobasketball.' The Celtics also seem to draw more black fans than anyother Boston franchise. Maybe it's the hip-hop entertainment or the obvious fact that three-quarters of the players in the NBA areAfrican-American.
Iannacci has the final observation: 'When the building firstopened, Celtic fans were in three-piece suits, right out of work. Allwhite. Now it's more mixed. I think the brie-and-cheese crowd hit theroad when the losses started to outnumber the wins.'
PATRIOTS
WHAT WE SAID IN 1990
Few New Englanders admit to being Patriots fans. Greater Boston'sfootball fans are out there, but finding them is like trying to findpeople who admit they voted for Richard Nixon in 1972. We liketradition, and football has none. Not here.
The Patriot fan is easiest to pick out of a lineup. He's between30 and 50, has a beer gut, drives a Ford Explorer with tiny Patriotflags on the rear-view mirrors, and has a poster of the Coors twinsin his den. He has a mustache and loves spareribs and sports bars. Helistens to WEEI at least four hours a day and calls the Whiner Lineonce a week. He played football in high school, but the story hetells is that a knee injury cut short his potential career. Hedoesn't read a daily paper but never misses Sunday Night Football,Monday Night Football, or the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving. Hewatches college football on Saturdays and thinks he knows who thePatriots should draft. He's a man's man, but he's also a good husband and dad. Just don't get between him and a replay of thatquestionable pass interference call.
'By any measure, it's a football town,' says WEEI's Callahan. 'Howcan it not be? There's more interest in out-of-town football thanthere is in out-of-town baseball. The passion for the Red Sox doesnot make it a baseball town. Look at the TV ratings. A couple ofseasons ago, the Patriots played an exhibition game that beat a Soxgame which had Pedro Martinez pitching against the Yankees. They havephenomenal TV ratings. And I don't think the guy with the schnappsbottle down his pants and the hat on backwards is the only onefollowing the Patriots now.'
One difference, of course, between football and baseball is thatthe Patriots play only eight home games per regular season. Everygame is an event. The fan circles the date on his calendar and makesa 12-hour commitment. You leave four hours before the game to avoidthe traffic on Route 1. You bring half of what's in your kitchen, andyou camp out in the parking lot with your friends. The game takesthree hours, then there is another two to three hours in the parkinglot afterward waiting for the traffic to clear. Nobody complains -not even when the temperature is in the single digits.
Dan Paglia, 49, a manager at Russo's produce store in Watertown,says: 'I go back to the days when they were playing at BostonUniversity. I loved them so much, when the games were blacked out onlocal TV, I'd make my wife, Kathy, drive with me to Portsmouth, NewHampshire, and we'd watch the game in a bowling alley. The Patriotswere just a joke at the time. If you were a Patriot fan, you were ridiculed. It was like being a Republican at the DemocraticConvention. You didn't see too many people wearing those old redPatriot jerseys. Now you can walk anywhere in the country and give itright back to them. Now it's the greatest thing on earth.'
Christine Kenney, 35, who lives in Quincy and works for theDepartment of Youth Services, says: 'I'm a football gal. I've alwaysloved the Patriots, even when they were losing. I like the games, Ilike the atmosphere. They're fun. There's more of a crowd now, andthey are more engaged. I know it's a Red Sox town, but I still likemy Sunday afternoons watching football.'
Approximately 60,000 seats at Gillette stadium are occupied byseason ticket holders, and the waiting list to join them is 50,000-names long. Unlike their counterparts at other franchises, Patriotsofficials declined to share data about their fans. But people likePaul Comerford, of Marshfield, have made a few observations. 'Everything changed with the coming of Bill Parcells,' saysComerford, a bank vice president who has been attending Patriotsgames since 1976 and now splits one season ticket with a friend.'Early on, there were some eras that were tough for people toswallow.
Parcells brought instant credibility to the franchise, and the fanbase now is much more upscale. Gillette Stadium is the place to be.The expectations now are that they are going to win. I see many morewomen at the games, and most of them are wearing Tom Brady jerseys.'
Hefty ticket prices and the distance from Boston make a trip toGillette difficult, but I bet you'll still see more African-Americanfans in Foxborough than at Fenway or any Bruins game.
'The thing the Patriots have going for them is that America is afootball country,' Callahan says. 'Everywhere. There's only eightgames, so fans expect to make a major financial commitment when theygo to a Patriots game. Baseball is not as much of a special occasion.Football is like your wife's birthday. You expect to spend somedough.'
And then there's the stadium. While Fenway has improveddramatically and the new Garden offers amenities that hadn't beeninvented when the original was built in 1928, Gillette Stadium bearsno resemblance to Schaeffer Stadium/Sullivan Stadium/Foxboro Stadium -the hideous home of the Patriots from 1971 to 2001. For 30 years,Foxboro Stadium was hands down the worst in the NFL. Today thePatriots play in a sparkling gem that's regarded as the league'sbest. And their fans are the happiest in New England.
REDSOX
WHAT WE SAID IN 1990
This is without doubt the largest and most powerful fan bloc inNew England.
The Red Sox hold New England hearts in a vise. Even the owners ofthe franchise, now here four years, are a little embarrassed by the unconditional love. Fans come early, stay late, and - if they cannotscore tickets - worship Fenway from afar. On May 28, the Sox markedFenway's 250th consecutive sellout, and no increase in ticket priceis too steep. Tours of the empty ballpark ($12. Nothing is free,Bunky) sell out regularly, and a seat atop the Green Monster hasbecome a coup on a par with front row at Springsteen or the Stones.On the day of the 2006 home opener, the state lottery introduced theRed Sox scratch card. It doesn't get any bigger than that.
Until 2002, the Sox commissioned Marketing InformationTechnologies, of Little Rock, Arkansas, to regularly analyze andprofile attendees. Among the 2002 findings: 61 percent of the fanssurveyed were male, 95 percent were white, 64 percent came fromMassachusetts, and a whopping 78 percent of those identified as headsof households were college graduates.
The Sox don't need these surveys anymore. At this hour, the RedSox fan is Everyman. And Everywoman. Even non-sports fans considerthemselves Red Sox fans. 'The new owners have done a great jobreaching out to a fan base which has made the fans even morededicated,' says Iannacci.
'This is Red Sox Nation,' says Celeste Vezina, 52, treasurer ofMaloney Properties in Wellesley, whose father brought her to see TedWilliams play when she was a kid. 'It's just more popular than theother sports, especially with the women I work with. I can alwaysask, `What about the Red Sox?' Everyone has an opinion about them,much more now than before 2004.'
'If you're trendy, you transcend the traditional fan base,' saysCallahan. 'And the Red Sox are trendy. You have people who want to beseen at the park. Kids. Women - who aren't necessarily into thatsport, but they adopt the team. It's like American Idol. Why do youwatch? Because everyone else does.'
It's also expensive. Fenway Park features the highest ticketprices in baseball, and demand has allowed the Sox to pricethemselves out of the range of the common fan. Those $16 field boxseats and $6 bleacher seats from 1990 are now going for $95 and $23respectively, and if you want to sit, the Monster experience will runyou at least $90. The cushiest club seats fetch an imposing $275. Andthat's before you order sesame-seed tuna, pan-seared with roastedtomato and ginger sauce.
You won't see a lot of African-American or Hispanic fans atFenway. It remains to be seen whether the Dominican crowd thatflocked to each Martinez start is sticking around or whether Fenwaywill be a sea of white faces. But while the ticket holders may berich and white, the fan base is far more inclusive - and hungry forany and all information about the Red Sox. The Spanish BeisbolNetwork has broadcast every Sox game since 2001, and countless wordsspill onto the pages of fan sites, blogs, and books - including morethan 25 since the 2004 World Series. Last year, the Sox invited QueerEye for the Straight Guy to throw out the first pitch. Now that'sinclusion.
From Havana to Haverhill, from St. Petersburg to St. Peter'sSquare, you will see Red Sox caps in the crowd. And if you go to aSox game in Tampa, Baltimore, or Oakland, you will find yourselfsurrounded by thousands of like-minded road trippers whose cheers candrown out the home team's fans to a demoralizing degree. About theonly place that truly feels like a road game is Yankee Stadium.
'It's totally unique,' says Lobel. 'It's got to be pure love. Youwatch people in the spring training workouts in Florida, and theycome out in the hot sun to watch people play catch. We're still abaseball town. And they never die off. They just keep growing.'
So back to Steve Sheppard, the Brockton-raised folk singer who declared in 1990 that the Sox would 'never, ever, ever' win the WorldSeries. 'Red Sox fans have gotten their reward,' he says now. 'Ifyou're born in New England, you're really born into it. Being a RedSox fan is some kind of odd birthright, and you are a Red Sox fan forlife. No matter how far you travel or how distant you may be from theteam, if you pass by a TV set and see the Sox are playing, you aregoing to pause to see what the count is and what the score is.'
A much safer prediction.
