Worst Week: A Bad Seven Days in Boston Sports

Listen, we get it. New England fans are hated due to our success and seem to be thought of as a group of dense fools that drink too much, talk funny and relentlessly torment other fan bases due to multiple championships and winning teams.
(Actually, parts of those stereotypes might be right. Keep reading anyway.)
Whether it’s karma or not, there is no denying that the average Boston sports fan had a terrible week. Even with Christmas a few days ago and New Year’s coming up (both great excuses to get together and throw down 12-14 Sam Adams or a fifth of Allen’s Coffee Brandy), the past seven days was a big ol’ glob of bird crap on our shining championship trophy of a region.
> Tuesday: It began with the news in the late-afternoon that the New York Yankees had swooped in and signed first baseman Mark Teixeira to an eight-year, $180 million deal. Why this had specific significance to Red Sox fans was that we fully expected big Tex to be swatting home runs out of the Fens while wearing the home whites. Now, he’ll be in pinstripes and helping the Evil Empire open up a new stadium.
The swiftness and ninja-style signing was what caught us off guard the most, making us upset at what we never had to begin with rather than focus on what we did have. In our minds, incumbent third baseman Mike Lowell was out, Kevin Youkilis was moving to third and Teixeira would be a cornerstone player at first. It was like the day we heard that Alex Rodriguez was traded to the Yankees, another superstar we wanted. New York came in (again) and simply provided a better offer, leaving the front office to have egg on their face and for Red Sox Nation to have a little more red in theirs.
> Wednesday: As fans attempted to deal with the Teixeira news, the Boston Globe reported that Youkilis and the team were far apart on a long-term contract and that they would go to either arbitration or sign a one-year deal for ’09. Normally, this wouldn’t be huge news but when you take Sox owner John Henry’s post-Teixeira ‘monumental challenge’ comments into consideration, the team suddenly began looking cheap. Call me crazy, but I have a bad feeling about where this is going. If Teixeira was worth $20+ million, how much is Youk worth? $15 million? Will that be too much money?
> Thursday: Christmas is supposed to be a day for relaxing and celebrating the holidays with friends and family. The NBA has added a triple-header of games to the tradition and their marquee match-up this year was the Celtics vs. the Lakers, a rematch of last year’s Finals.
With both teams having great years and with Boston riding an 19-game win streak, it was destined to be a great game. Of course, the Lakers won fairly convincingly, breaking the streak and causing national media to essentially proclaim that L.A. was the Finals favorite. So much for celebrating.

> Friday: You’d figure that a day removed from dropping that Lakers game, the Celtics would be ripped and raring to go against an injury-plagued Golden State team that entered the game at 8-22. Well, that didn’t happen as Boston lost its second straight, 99-89.
> Sunday: Two things needed to happen for the Patriots to make it to the playoffs: they had to win at Buffalo and either Miami or Baltimore had to lose. The Dolphins were playing against the NY Jets in the Meadowlands, a game New York had to win to keep their hopes alive. Baltimore got a home game against a surprisingly hapless Jacksonville squad, so it was really up to Brett Favre and company to make it happen. As expected, the Patriots took care of business in Buffalo, winning a game that was played in Hurricane Jack Wilson.
But the Jets just plain sucked, doing just enough to tantalize New England fans but ultimately coming up short. This rivalry is so good for so many reasons and their inability to take care of their business just escalated it. Buffalo also deserves some blame here as their play-calling against said Jets a few weeks ago likely cost the 11-5 Pats a postseason berth. Meh, bleh and poppycock to it all.
Also reported by somewhat irrelevant NBC Sports.com Sunday was that Tom Brady is ‘well behind schedule’ in rehabbing his surgically-repaired knee due to scar tissue that might have to be surgically removed and – the kicker – the ACL and MCL are ‘loose’. I’m not a doctor, but if true, that doesn’t sound good. Of course, this info is coming from a ‘league source’ and reported by Tom Curran. Who knows how accurate it is?
But if true, this might force the Patriots to make an unexpected decision on free agent-to-be Matt Cassel and perhaps put a franchise tag on him if Brady’s not ready. That obviously raises more issues, but I’ll leave those for another day of discussion.
However, things are starting to look up as the Boston Bruins have extended their win streak to nine, their longest since 1993 and that team is green is still playing ok despite their Tuesday loss to Portland. And all in all, given the success that the local teams have enjoyed, we were due to have some low points along the way, so maybe things aren’t that bad after all.
Pass that coffee brandy, will ya?
Josh Nason – josh [at] smallwhiteball [com] – is the publisher and main writer of Small White Ball, an all-encompassing sports blog that began in 2007. You can also read on mixed martial arts, boxing and pro wrestling at brother site RopesRingandCage.com. If you’re using any part of this post, please link back to http://www.smallwhiteball.com. Thank you!

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