Welcome to Brian’s Bean Town Bias
By: Brian Renoni
Please accept my apologies for my blatant New England bias. I’ll be honest. As a 28-year-old Sports fan from the Greater Boston area, I have been blessed with some amazing sports moments. I remember being wounded when the Patriots got man handled by the Packers in ’97. The only saving grace was the Blues Brothers halftime show. That was genius to 13-year-old me. From there things only got better for us fans. We had the brilliant year that was 1999, 23 wins and a Cy Young out of Pedro, 41 combined saves from Wakefield, Lowe and Gordon. The amazing show that was the ‘99 All-Star Game and 94 wins overall. That ran into the 2001 season and the birth of the Tom Brady Era. (Shout out to Mo Lewis for singlehandedly destroying the Jet’s franchise in 1 tackle.)
From there it goes wild. Super Bowl wins in 2003, 2004 and an appearance in 2007. Mixed in was the improbable run the Red Sox had in 2004 and 2007. Add on a wild run in 2008 by the Celtics, to the top of the NBA with the Big 3. 2011 brought the Bruins to the Cup and all of a sudden you’ve seen the 4 Major teams win a combined 7 Championships in 11 years. I’d go into what the Revolution did, but I’ll be honest, I never really cared. I think they made a few finals. Tyler Twellman is the only name that comes to mind. Anyways, moving on.
Since 2003 I have been living in and around NYC. It’s been an entertaining time with all the ups and downs of the New England sports franchises. It wasn’t pretty in 2003 for the Sox, but the Patriots win helped sooth that. 2004 was a shit-show. The Sox drove me to the brink of insanity in the ALCS and then I found myself sitting in Fenway for Game 1 of the World Series. That was a surreal experience. Watching them rack up 4 runs in the first inning, and make 4 stupid errors in the game and still pull it out with double-ear flap Bellhorn banking one off Pesky’s Pole. My mother is still pissed at me for blocking her view of that home run. Sox go on to pull it out in 4 games and I still can’t wrap my head around that October.
Then in February I got to stuff it in every Eagles fans face when we romped them in the Super Bowl. 2007 hurt a lot. It hurts even more being surrounded by Giants fans. It hurt even more having the 2012 Super Bowl come crashing down on the Patriots first offensive play, which was very offensive.
So where does this leave me now? Well, I’m accomplished in the art of avoiding punching NY sports fans in the face. I’ve also mastered the art of talking to people who don’t care for the sport but only their team. I’m all for people being die hard fans of their team. I think it’s a great thing. However, in any sport, I do think that all fans should have an appreciation of the history and current state of the other franchises.
One thing you hear over and over again is how hard it is to be a Sox fan and go into Yankee Stadium, or vice versa. Sure I’ve had bad experiences in Yankee Stadium, but I don’t let those carry as much weight as the stellar conversations I have had with numerous, educated, well spoken fans. It goes both ways. I’ve been at Fenway for Yankees games. I’m lucky enough to know several season ticket holders, so I get to sit in pretty good areas. We look forward to the baseball discussions with everyone seated around us, Red Sox fans or not. And if you’re not going to add anything constructive to the conversation, just shut your trap.
I’m new at this, but I’m looking forward to bringing you the terribly biased Boston sports perspective. I take back my earlier statement, I’m not sorry for it. I’m aiming to be right about 60% of the time, but just know that no matter what happens, Eli will never be elite and the Jet’s won’t recover till Rex and the gang are gone.
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Get With The AFR Program!
