There’s a wicked crazy trend in sports that has been going on lately. It has less to do with the recent uptick in the consumption of Sam Adams, clam chowder, and the noticeable dropped “R’s” on many of the words in the English language than it does with the fact that, well, the city’s teams are … winning (to quote Ricky Vaughn’s likeness). Boston has, gasp, become the center of the sporting universe. The mere mention of such a sentence has caused fans from New York to Los Angeles to swear off eating baked beans, lobsters, and steamed clams for the rest of eternity.
In the last decade, Boston has laid claim to titles in each of the four major sports with the Celtics (2008), the once-hapless Red Sox (2004, 2007), the Patriots (2001, 2003, 2004), and, this season, hockey’s Bruins. Beantown’s success is enough to drive non-New Englanders, who wouldn’t know Plymouth Rock from a Pet Rock, to announce “Ich bin ein Bostoner.”
The northeastern United States has not seen this great a ride since Paul Revere sounded the alarm to every Middlesex village and farm. For those who have been thrown for a loop by American History Perplexed from Sarah Palin (different Tea Party), Revere was warning colonials about the incoming British. Unfortunately some Minnesota Twins fans are still convinced that the midnight ride was carried out by their centerfielder, Ben Revere. However, the closest thing the AL Central has to a monarch is the Royals, and the only thing they’ve successfully colonized is the bottom of the miserable division.
