Profile: Boston sports fans hoping for World Series win for the Red Sox following success of its football, basketball and hockey teams
Host: JACKIE JUDDTime: 10:00-11:00 AM
JACKIE JUDD, host:
Boston Red Sox fans are familiar with drought. Their baseball team hasn't won the World Series since 1918. But things are looking up. The Red Sox currently hold the best record in baseball. Also, the Celtics are in the National Basketball Association's Eastern Conference finals, never mind they lost last night's first game to the New Jersey Nets, 104-to-97. The underdog New England Patriots won the Super Bowl, and the Bruins finished the regular season at the top of their division in the National Hockey League. From member station WBUR in Boston, Jason Beaubien reports.
JASON BEAUBIEN reporting:
For Boston's sports fans, 2002 feels like a year when anything is possible. It started with a young backup quarterback named Tom Brady leading the Patriots all the way to a Super Bowl victory. The Red Sox have combined talent and luck to get off to one of their best starts ever. And at the Fleet Center, the Celtics' new coach has guided the band of young players deep into the playoffs.
(Soundbite of basketball game)
Unidentified Announcer: And they are just burying the 76ers here. It's a 36-point game.
BEAUBIEN: When the Celtics eliminated Philadelphia earlier this month, it was the first time Boston had won an NBA playoff series since the twilight season of Larry Bird in 1992. That same night in Florida, the Red Sox pulled off an improbable, ninth-inning, two-out, come-from-behind victory over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
(Soundbite of people milling about)
Unidentified Man #1: ...all here. Celtic pride T-shirts here. The (unintelligible)...
BEAUBIEN: Before game three of the Celtics-Pistons series, the gritty area outside the Fleet Center looks like it slipped back in time to the glory days of Boston basketball. Crowds of young men in green and white Celtics jerseys spill out of the bars under the elevated train tracks. Scalpers, with fistfuls of tickets and rolls of cash, frantically try to buy low and sell high.
Unidentified Man #2: Do you want to give...
Unidentified Man #3: ...second-seat, second-tier tickets.
BEAUBIEN: And mixed in with the scalpers, the T-shirt hawkers and a man passing out `Jesus Saves' fliers are the leprechauns.
Unidentified Man #4: They absolutely do have the luck of the Irish. That's why we're here. They have good coaching, good players, and they've got teamwork. That's what we're doing.
BEAUBIEN: Bill Fromm(ph) of Nashua, New Hampshire, is decked out in an emerald-green tuxedo, long, floppy shoes and a sparkling bowler hat. He says this is Boston's year and not just for the Celtics.
Mr. BILL FROMM: It's all about the fans. The cities get hot; Chicago gets hot, New York gets hot. Boston's hot right now. We're it. We're the team to beat.
Unidentified Man #5: Whoo-hoo!
BEAUBIEN: Across the street from the Fleet Center, Jim Tevarno(ph) is standing in front of a sports bar with several dozen other Celtics fans. Tevarno says the Patriots' Super Bowl victory over the heavily favored Rams this year shifted Boston's fortunes.
Mr. JIM TEVARNO: Hey, it's '86 all over again. '86, the Bruins made the playoffs, the Celtics are in the playoff, and the Red Sox are going to win the World Series before I die.
BEAUBIEN: 1986 was a great year for Boston sports teams, up to a point. Tevarno could have died a happy man if, in the 10th inning of game six of the World Series, Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner hadn't let a routine ground ball slip through his legs. In game seven, the Mets won the title. But Tevarno isn't the only Red Sox fan who thinks this might be the year.
Mr. SOL GITTLEMAN (Tufts University): No question, the Red Sox fans are right now floating on cloud nine.
BEAUBIEN: Sol Gittleman is the provost of Tufts University. He teaches an American studies course using baseball as a way to view urban social trends of the 19th and 20th centuries. Gittleman says fans in Boston have a unique relationship to the game.
Mr. GITTLEMAN: The reason why they're quirky is because they've had such a long tradition of failure.
BEAUBIEN: Which often comes in the latter part of the season. Boston Herald sports columnist Michael Ghee quips that if the World Series was on Mother's Day, Boston would win it every other year. Gittleman notes that agonizing over their own imperfections and woes has become part of the Red Sox culture.
Mr. GITTLEMAN: They are so focused on the Yankees. I mean, I'm embarrassed, as many Boston people are, by all this `Yankees suck' stuff that you hear at the ballpark. It's embarrassing. It's shows an inferiority complex, and they ought to learn that they--you know, put their history to bed. Americans don't have much memory, and that's very good. We don't hold grudges, and we don't have memory. Boston has a memory, and it's a curse.
BEAUBIEN: Some Sox fans, with their long memories, remember that heartbreak often lurks at the end of summer, but the success of the Patriots and the Celtics has others hopeful the sports gods will finally smile on Boston's long-suffering baseball team, too. For NPR News, I'm Jason Beaubien in Boston.
JUDD: It's 11 minutes before the hour.
