Welcome to Loserville
Monday, April 18, 2011
To paraphrase Rick Pitino, Asante Samuel is not walking through that door. Kendrick Perkins is not walking through that door, and Johnny Damon is not walking through that door. And if you expect them to walk through that door, they’re going to wipe those arrogant smirks off your faces because their former teams were either too stupid or too cheap to keep them around.
The days of Jonathan Papelbon Riverdancing in his Hanes and Kevin Garnett casting menacing glares at 5-foot-3 points guards are over. You can now address all Boston-bound mail to Loserville, U.S.A.
Jets Smackdown
The fun started in January when the underdog New York Jets sucked all the pompous air out of Gillette Stadium with a playoff win over the Patriots – the same Patriots who posted a 14-2 record during the regular season, which included a 42-point win over the Jets in December.
A big winter by the free-spending Red Sox temporarily softened the blow until the team actually took the field and lost 10 of its first 12 games. Even with back-to-back wins against the Blue Jays this past weekend, Boston’s big, fat 4-10 record ranks as the worst in baseball. Since the league expanded to three divisions in 1995, 72 teams have lost at least seven of their first 10 games. Only five of those teams have gone on to make the playoffs – crappy odds for this year’s overpaid, overhyped Sox.
Bruins Gag
On the other side of town, the new Red Sox – a.k.a. the Boston Bruins – are halfway to another playoff gag-fest after dropping Games 1 and 2 of their Eastern Conference series at home to the sixth-seeded Montreal Canadiens. If nothing else, the Bruins at least deserve credit for finding a new, creative way to trump last year’s meltdown against the Flyers in which they blew a 3-0 series and a 3-0 lead in Game 7 en route to one of hockey’s most epic collapses.
At least you still have the Celtics – for now. Count your blessings that the New York Knicks are in town for the opening round of the playoffs, because the basketball Gods couldn’t have picked a more unbalanced, selfish, group of miscreants for the Celtics to pound on, thus setting the stage for a major crash when some real competition arrives in Boston.
The problem starts off the field – or, in some cases, off the ice. After getting shut out in Game 1 against Montreal, Bruins’ defenseman Zdeno Chara said he was happy with how his team responded after the Canadiens scored their first goal. What response? You didn’t score the entire night. Head coach Claude Julien praised the team’s effort. Effort? Since when does effort trump victory? This isn’t Little League; winning is the only thing, and if players aren’t pissed off after losing, then they’re either disinterested or they’ve been brainwashed by an organization that has accepted its own mediocrity.
The Bruins represent the armpit of Boston, and these ‘pits reek of futility and self-pity. Such apathy is contagious, as is success. Not too long ago, Boston sat alone atop the sports’ universe. The Patriots won three Super Bowls in four years, the Red Sox captured World Series titles in 2004 and 2007 and the Celtics won their first championship in 22 years the following season. Now the wheels have come off. The Patriots have lost three consecutive playoff games, starting with Super Bowl XLII against the Giants, and the Red Sox have become the modern-day version of the ’92 New York Mets, dubbed “The Worst Team Money Could Buy” by sportswriters Bob Klapisch and John Harper.
The best part is it’s only April, which means there’s plenty of baseball left to be played – enough to drive your father back to the edge of the Tobin Bridge.
Related Articles
- Ignorance 101 with Johnny Miller
- No playoffs? Surprisingly, no outrage from Sox fans
- Sox get Gonzalez, but are they stronger?
- Sox throw in the towel on 2010
Follow us on Pinterest Google + Facebook Twitter See It Read It