I’ve been very fortunate in my lifetime. It’s easy to overlook how great life has been when you look at the news every day, see the terrible things going in the world, see how messed up our government has become, see terrorism running rampant. It’s easy to wonder if there is any good left in this world? Well, for us in New England, our sports teams give us a little escape from every day life and give us something to celebrate more often than not. While it’s much smaller than the bigger things going on in this world, these teams give us such pride. Last night was another one of those nights.
I remember staying up late in 2004, only 13 at the time, I didn’t fully understand how much “breaking the curse” meant to so many people here in New England. It was insane how celebrated Schilling, Ramirez, Ortiz and Damon were in coming back from three games down to the Yankees, then sweeping the World Series. Now that I’m older, I’m glad I was able to see another true milestone for the team last night. With some old faces, and many new, they broke a 95 year, yes that’s a lifetime if you’re lucky, drought by winning the World Series at historic Fenway Park. After not giving us much to celebrate last year, they came back with a newly rejuvenated team, and showed just how STRONG Boston is. This time it was Pedrioa, Gomes, Napoli, Lester, Uerhara (that guy is a boss), VICTORINO, and of course, Big Papi David Ortiz. After grabbing many of these guys in the off-season, many of whom were just in a personal drought with something to prove, who would’ve ever seen this coming? That’s what makes it so special.
The other big part of this is seeing the streets of Boston celebrating once again, after what they had to go through earlier this year with the Boston Marathon bombings, this is only fitting that the team that they all love so much could bring them back and give them reason to celebrate again. I wish I could have just been there to celebrate with the thousands outside of the park, it’s amazing what happens when a city pulls together. As Ortiz said, “this is for the victims.”
While my parents never had anything to cheer for up here in New England growing up, I’ve been able to see the Boston Red Sox grab three improbable World Series trophies, the Patriots come out of nowhere with our God Bill Belichick and his protege Tom Brady and win three Super Bowls, and even though I personally don’t follow hockey or basketball very much, the Bruins and Celtics winning a title a piece is incredible. We as New England folks, or any fans of our teams, are very lucky. I wear my Boston cap very proudly. Turn up the Dropkick Murphy’s and drink some dirty water, we’re all Boston Strong!
