Why the Sports World Hates Boston
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SPORTS
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The Red Sox are world champs, the Patriots are (almost) perfect, the Celtics are dominating the NBA, and all their insufferable fans won’t let any of us forget it.
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 Believe it or not, Bean Town was once a mecca of righteous sports fans. In the late 1800s, a group of Red Sox loyalists dubbed the Royal Rooters comprised what baseball historians consider the sport’s first fan club. The Rooters would follow the team to spring training, attend games at Fenway Park en masse, and sing the show tune “Tessie” when their boys needed to rally. From 1903 through 1918, the Sox won five of the first 15 World Series—an ode as much to quality players as to die-hard followers.
“They were passionate supporters, but also respectable supporters,” says Peter Nash, a noted baseball historian. “The Royal Rooters lived and died with the Red Sox—and laid the groundwork for other American sports fans.”
Following the 1918 season, however, the Rooters disbanded, and a year later their team traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees for six pebbles and a pack of Lucky Strikes. Another 85 seasons passed before Boston won a World Series. “It’s become cliché to write about how bad everything was for so long, but that’s not really the case,” says Steve Buckley, a Boston Herald columnist and city native. “Sure, the Sox blew a lot of clutch moments. They lost Game 7 of the 1967 World Series; they had the ball go through Bill Buckner’s legs in ’86. But would you rather have your hopes dashed at the last moment every single time, or would you rather be out of contention by May? Sure, we experienced a lot of heartache. But I see it as building character.”
If heartache equals character, Boston should be a city of Abraham Lincolns. While the Celtics
thrived throughout much of the century behind the likes of Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, and Larry Bird, fans were ritualistically let down by their other teams. The Pats failed to reach a Super Bowl until 1986, when Steve Grogan and Co. were crushed by the Bears, 46-10. The Bruins, meanwhile, are about to experience their 36th straight season without a Stanley Cup.
So where is the famous Boston humility? Where are the lessons learned from Buckner’s historic gaffe? From Bucky Dent’s home run? From Bobby Orr’s retirement? Where is the supposed dignity and maturation that comes from surviving tough circumstances?
Answer: It’s gone.
“The old way of thinking is dead,” says Ken Casey, bass player for the Dropkick Murphys, a beloved Boston-based Celtic punk band whose “Tessie” cover became a huge regional hit. “We used to assume our spirits would be broken at the end of the day. Now we’re cocky, we’re arrogant, and we’re standing proud.”
To illustrate his point, Casey recalls Super Bowl Sunday, when he, his band mates, and about 30 associates watched the Giants-Patriots clash from a hotel room in Aberdeen, Scotland. Everyone present was a die-hard New England fan, save one lowly sound technician who rooted for New York. So, in the game’s aftermath, did the Murphys let their friend enjoy his moment? Did they allow him to revel in the joy of Super Bowl triumph? Did they pat him on the back and say, “Nice job, bud”?
“No friggin’ way,” says Casey. “We chucked beer cans at his head and told him he could go straight to hell.”
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