Of course, there really wasn't one. You go with the guy who got you there, but that didn't stop the media from having a field day and Bono from lending his two cents and saying they should start Bledsoe (really).
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They were exposed as blatant cheaters, the new evil empire, the ones who suck joy from all other teams. And fun fact: I went to that 2007 super bowl and barfed after! I didn't even drink!
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Then in the next few years the Celtics would form their out of nowhere super-team and then the Bruins would win the stanley cup. The red sox won again. Suddenly Boston was now "title town." And I felt my relationship to all of it change.
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But it wasn't sudden or marked by singular events. It was a slow act of erosion.
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First with the absurd Fenway cost increases. I remember talking to my dad about how much he hated the red sox now and their lurid prices and he said: "baseball isn't baseball unless a working class family of four an afford to go to a game."
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Moreover, I watched the city of Boston, myopic to begin with, become irradiated. Because it's not like the chip on the shoulder magically disappears, it goes to "we earned this, we're the best" and it's like all greed, it just keeps going.
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You keep feeling disrespected and like more will keep proving... something? But you're just a dragon sitting on top of a pile of rubies. And that's when the defenses really come out.
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I would talk to friends from home, see posts on social media, and finally living outside it all, I could see the incredible callousness. Most notably in how out of step they were with the national sentiment... I didn't want to be like that.
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I'll admit this goes hand in hand with realizing how much it all tied into my relationship with Boston's toxic masculinity, something I still feel like I'm trying to work my way out from under it.
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But really, I just got tired of it all. Tired of driving to anaheim. Tired of the damn intensity... And got fucking help me when Brady and Kraft went in with the MAGA shit. I was apoplectic. But far more importantly to the process, I began falling in love with LA.
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Not the LA that had been built into my head by stereotypes. The real one. The brilliant, vibrant city full of so many amazing cultures and foods and joys. That's the secret no one wants to tell you. This city is amazing.
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The one that is also full of incredible Dodgers and Kings fans. The one that still passionately loves the Raiders even though they've been gone for years. More importantly, I came to realize that there's genuine joy in the fan diaspora.
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Suddenly things become a different kind of fun when you're best friends are Cavs fans, or A's fans, or genuinely love going to every Galaxy game. In turn, I went with friends to watch what they loved.
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And it's exactly what allowed me to go from a Boston fan to a Sports fan. I stopped paying for NESN. I gravitated toward the NBA and started watching every random game.
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I also started going to dodger stadium 1) because i love it there and 2) for the dodgers, at first under the reasoning of "they're in the national league, it's not cheating." But with pressure and time, they just became the team I watched.
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And when I hit the world series this year and the dodgers played the red sox? I didn't even have to make a choice. It was the dodgers. This was my life now. And that's okay. Things change. Often for necessary reasons.
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Now... all that may seem like a lot of build-up to say "I had a strange feeling watching the pats win the superbowl last night," but it's necessary to really understanding the complexity of it all.
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Did I get any joy in watching them win at this point? Not really. Hell, even the Patriots seemed bored. That was probably the least happy superbowl team I've ever seen in my life. But that makes sense for the team that already proved everything.
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Still, last night someone asked me with genuine disdain in their voice, "How the fuck can you like this team?" And all I could really do was sit there and grimace. The truth is I don't, really.
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But it's hard to explain that "this team" means something else entirely to me. You define it by right now. But I still can't help but define it by Tony Eason, Ben Coates, and the time they beat the greatest show on turf.
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It's also hard to explain that that doofus Tom Brady has historically provided more sports-related joy than you can imagine. Do you seriously understand how odd it's been to watch a competent football team for 20 years? ABSURD. But so are his beliefs.
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And it's so hard to explain to them all the ways I've slowly let go of him and Boston sports in general over the last two decades. Just as it's hard to explain that it's still attached to lovely days gone by and deliriously happy moments.
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When people talk about our sports identities, other fandoms speak in the narrative of the right now. Because for every sports fan, the narrative always depends how far back you want to go.
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It depends on where you lived and when. It depends what you want to hold onto and what you want to forget. It depends on what you want to hope for and what you want to pretend doesn't exist.
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I wrote this thread to simply say "I remember all of this." And I carry it al with me while understanding that everyone else does not. And that's okay. Because I really can let all of it go. Time simply moves on. And I'll move on with it.
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End of conversation
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