By Ryan McGowan
Who would have thought they’d live long enough to see it?
I’m not talking about the Red Sox winning the World Series. I’m not talking about the Patriots winning the Super Bowl, once an unthinkable concept that never crossed our minds during the Tony Eason/Hart Lee Dykes/Zeke Mowatt era of the Patriots in which I grew up. I’m certainly not talking about the Patriots winning three out of four Super Bowls, which during my high school years in the mid-90’s seemed about as likely as my chances of getting with Tiffany Amber-Thiessen. I’m talking about the seeming impossibility of a Boston sports team winning a championship (a Super Bowl nonetheless, the granddaddy of them all) and watching hundreds of police officers in riot gear guarding empty streets and protecting vacant Kenmore Square from a bunch of fans who had celebrated so many championships lately, we didn’t have the energy to riot for one more.
This got me thinking. Watching the Patriots defeat the Eagles, 24-21 in Super Bowl XXXIX on Sunday was probably the most satisfying win of the current Golden Era of Boston Sports, because it represented the Pats’ third straight win over a supremely tough playoff opponent, proving that they were undisputably the best team in football and the Team of the Era, if not a “dynasty.” It wasn’t even close to the most euphoric, however. As the Pats lined up in every coach’s favorite formation (“Victory”), allowing Bill Belichick to get doused with Gatorade for the first time in the Super Bowl, I didn’t have any emotional energy left to celebrate, except for a few high fives and a random jump off my back porch into the snow.
Ho-hum. Another championship. Is this what it means to be a Patriots fan in 2005? I guess so.
As great and satisfying as this last Super Bowl victory was, however, it ranks very low on my Top 10 list of Most Euphoric Boston Sports Moments of the 21st century. In fact, the most euphoric moment of our party last night was when my friend Sully, breaking Mike and Carol Brady’s immortal rule of “Don’t play ball in the house”, tossed a football with a no-look pass at my roommate Scott, and we all watched in amazement as the ball sailed over Scott’s head and knocked over a shot glass that was on a shelf behind him. To our amazement, Sully had partially shattered a shot glass from Dave and Buster’s in Philadelphia, of all places. The room went crazy and cheers of “SULLY!! SULLY!! SULLY!!” drowned out the game on TV for about a minute. The ultimate euphoria, I guess, is in destroying symbols of your opponent’s city.
So even though these Top 10 lists are about as fresh as the green milk that I almost bought from the corner variety store yesterday, I wanted to tackle the issue of the Top 10 Most Euphoric Boston Sports Moments, 2000-present.
10. 2004 ALCS Game 4, Red Sox vs. Yankees (Bill Mueller drives in Dave Roberts, David Ortiz hits walkoff HR)
Simply a great moment for Boston sports fans. Years from now, sports historians (if such a position actually exists, and if it does, I want that job) might point the Dave Roberts’ pinch-running steal off Mariano Rivera, and Mueller’s subsequent single to tie the game, as the single event that sparked a team, and an entire city, from a culture of defeatism and losing to one of championships and confidence. Just for the record, SB XXXIX pushed my previous #10 off the list, which was Mueller’s walk-off HR against Rivera in the famous Varitek-bitch-slaps-A Rod game, which I watched half in the bag at my family golf tournament after-party.
9. 2002, AFC Championship Game, Patriots vs. Steelers
This game was euphoric in the sense that at the end of the game, the whole bar I was at (Funway Café in Foxboro) all erupted simultaneously in some bizarre epiphany of, “Holy shit… the Pats are going to the Super Bowl!” All of a sudden, what seemed impossible three months earlier when Drew Bledsoe lay near death on the turf at Giants Stadium after being leveled by Mo Lewis was a possibility. For the first time, people thought, “We might have a chance to win this thing!” The anticipation for the Big Game was the best I’ve seen yet.
8. 2002, AFC Divisional Playoff, Patriots vs. Raiders (“The Snow Bowl”)
F— the tuck rule. F— the tuck rule. F— the tuck rule. F— the tuck rule. I just heard the Big O say on the radio, “You can’t judge history on what might have happened, only on what actually did happen.” Very good point when it comes to the Snow Bowl. I can’t stand when people try to discredit this game because of the correct interpretation of an admittedly badly-written rule. Did they even watch Vinatieri’s awe-inspiring kick, where it seemed as if the force of God was willing it over the crossbar in the wind and snow? How about snow angels after the OT kick? (I’d be lying if I didn’t mention that we did some snow angels in the backyard after jumping off the back porch into the show post-XXXIX — a permanent part of Boston sports lore.)
7. 2005, SB XXXIX, Patriots vs. Eagles
Like I said earlier, extremely satisfying, very vindicating, and exceptional to watch one team just methodically execute the other. And a tense ending which added to some good drama throughout the game. But eventually you just run out of euphoric celebratory ability. I hate to sound like a spoiled winner, but it’s true. We just celebrated the most significant championship in the history of our city less than four months ago, and before that, another euphoric Super Bowl against Carolina. Like the car that Kramer and the salesman take for an extended test drive, we’re running on emotional fumes.
6. 2004, ALCS Game 5, Red Sox vs. Yankees (Ortiz walk-off single in 14th)
This game was euphoric in the sense that it was this night that I decided that there was no way we were losing this series. This game started when I was in the middle of the graduate class, continued as I watched at home with the roommates, then we brought a radio to the Watertown Middle School to listen to the game during our BSSC hoops game (even to the point of Scott stopping mid-dribble after hearing Ortiz’ earlier home run to applaud), THEN watched the end at home again until Ortiz mercifully fisted a single into center to score Damon. I have never seen two back-to-back games with as much sheer intensity and emotional angst than Games 4 and 5 of that ALCS. Both teams and fans were just spent after this one, but the Red Sox looked like the team that was getting a second wind from the victories, and the Yankees looked like the team that couldn’t wait to hit Pebble Beach.
5. 2003, ALDS Game 5, Red Sox vs. A’s
A lot of people forget about this game because of the Grady Little Game 7 Incident, but this game had a great, very euphoric ending. Don’t forget, the Sox were down 0-2 and were given up for dead, but battled back to force a Game 5 in Oakland, Pedro vs. Zito. I just remember the bar I was at for this one (Fitzy’s Pub in Plainville) going absolutely bonkers when D Lowe punched out Terence Long looking and then gave the A’s the DX “Suck It” signal, possibly the greatest strikeout celebration in the history of baseball. By the way, it should be pointed out here that Derek Lowe is prominently involved in no fewer than four of the items on this list.
4. 2004, Super Bowl XXXVIII, Patriots vs. Panthers
Another year, another Adam Vinatieri last-second Super Bowl game-winning kick. This game looked like a blowout at one point, then the Panthers battled back with some big plays on offense and some gutsy stops on defense, even taking the lead at one point. I think the fact that the Pats were trailing, 22-21, and Brady proved again that he is the best clutch quarterback in the league with yet another last-minute drive made this one all the more euphoric. This win proved that the Pats’ first title in XXXVI wasn’t a lucky fluke, as I listened to my Jets fan acquaintances claim for two years after that. (By the way, I haven’t heard any trash talk from them lately. Any ideas why?)
3. 2004, ALCS Game 7, Red Sox vs. Yankees
This game was like watching someone get executed with the possibility that at the last minute, the governor would pardon the condemned and replace him with you. As it turned out, it was a bit of an anticlimax, as the Sox pounded the lifeless, pathetic, defeated Yankees 10-3, and then celebrated on their field. In some ways, the inevitability of the outcome contributed to the euphoria. We were able to count down the number of outs until the game would be over, repressing our euphoric impulses in a near-bursting pit of energy, refusing to acknowledge it until the final out lest we risk jinxing it. Then when we finally let it out, it translated into a complete Vesuvius of emotion, running out onto the streets, hugging strangers, watching girls flash their breasts, celebrating the defeat of the Evil Empire, reminiscent of the Ewoks celebrating the takedown of the New Death Star in “Return of the Jedi.”
2. 2002, Super Bowl XXXVI, Patriots vs. Rams
We had them on the ropes. We were up, 17-3, in the fourth quarter. Then Tebucky Jones’ touchdown return got called back, and Ricky Proehl showed up, and all of a sudden it was a tie game. Every nightmare we’d ever had in our collective fandom was rearing its ugly head. Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, Sugar Bear Hamilton, it was all happening again. Enter: Tom Brady, Troy Brown, and Adam Vinatieri, and watch the collective attitude of an entire region change forever. Special bonus mention to the Funway Café for supplying free bottles of champagne to be uncorked and shaken all over the bar, and to the 10-12 random girls that I danced with on the stage over the next 15-20 minutes after the kick. Just a crazy, euphoric moment.
1. 2004 World Series Game 4, Red Sox vs. Cardinals
Was it everything you ever expected it would be? Yes. Was it a bit anticlimactic, after the Yankees series comeback? A bit. Was the outcome ever in doubt? No. How good did it feel to be able to celebrate something that we never had seen before, that our fathers never had seen, that almost all of our grandfathers never had seen? It was, quite simply, as good as it gets.
Welcome to Boston, Massachusetts: Titletown U.S.A.
