We tend to focus all of our energy on Boston, and on greater New England, and it is easy to understand why. After all, it has been almost three full months since a team from there won a championship. That much time passes, the locals there tend to get the bends. It has been a cruel wait since Game 5 of the World Series.
Thank God the Patriots are a week away from possibly ending that torturous wait.
It’s easy to understand, of course. Boston is so close by. Hop on a train. Hop on a bus. Hop on the Mass Pike. They were in our faces, and we were in theirs, long before the teams from Boston started this endless string of championships. We annoyed each other long before we annoyed each other.
So much of our sporting envy is aimed at them.
So much of our sporting ennui is caused by them.
Boston has rented space inside our heads for so long it has been easy to forget that it’s the other city that should really be hacking us off.
Los Angeles is in the Super Bowl?
Really?
LA is such a non-NFL town that it went 21 years without a single pro football game being played in its city limits or its suburbs, and it didn’t seem to cause a single ripple of angst. The Rams left Anaheim and the Raiders left the Coliseum in the same year, 1994, bound for St. Louis and Oakland, and almost immediately you started to hear folks inside the league claim that this was a cavity that couldn’t be tolerated, that pro football must return to LA as soon as possible …
And this is how L.A. responded to all of that:
Yawwwwwwwnnnnnn ….
And really, isn’t that just like LA, the town that’s always come off like our cooler older cousin, mostly unbothered by the fanaticism that strangles so many other sporting towns, not just ours. There are still those among us who are smarting from the Dodgers’ defection, and that was 61 years ago. LA loses a team … and hardly anyone there notices.
(And you thought fans who leave in the seventh inning ticked you off … )
What’s worst is this: It’s so … easy to be a sports fan in LA. Think about it: The Dodgers are good all the time, and only rarely sink into the wilderness. The Angels are a bad team, but you get to watch Mike Trout every day. The Kings and Ducks have both had nice runs. Even the Clippers have been a legit team for more than a few years now.
The Lakers? Don’t get us started on the Lakers. The Knicks have somehow resided south of oblivion for almost 20 solid years now. Whenever the Lakers have spasms of failure, it’s like a five-alarm fire has broken out and they must be rescued at once. Years ago it was Shaq and Kobe who arrived to paint their own run on top of the faded memory of Showtime; this time it is LeBron James. The team may seem like a mess now. Wait a few weeks. Let’s talk then. Meanwhile, Knicks fans dream of frozen envelopes.
And now, football. For years, LA almost took pride in not having football. Saturdays were enough, back when Pete Carroll was at USC. Sundays? Have you looked outside that window? That’s the sun. That’s the beach. And who needs to wake up in time for a 10 a.m. kickoff anyway?
Nope. They get football back. And they get this season, the Chargers and the Rams, one a 12-4 team that tied for first place in its division, one a 13-3 team that finished alone in first in its division. The Chargers are so invisible and irrelevant that they are virtually unwanted in LA, but that doesn’t matter.
The Rams?
Well, at least there is history there. But in keeping with the city’s tradition of thievery, never forget that they started their existence in Cleveland. Naturally, it took all of three seasons — and perhaps the greatest referee’s break of all time — to land in the Super Bowl.
So, sure, rage at Boston. They’ve earned your ire. It takes a special city to supplant them for sporting anger. Stand up, LA. You win again.
Vac’s Whacks
If you gave the other members of the Houston Rockets truth serum, how much do you suppose they enjoy playing with James Harden?
As I told my friend Michael Kay the other day: Maybe as a compromise Mike Mussina’s plaque could have had him wearing an Orioles cap, but the Oriole on the cap should be wearing a cap with an interlocking “NY.” That would be better than a blank, anyway.
I hope Spike brings home the trophy for “BlackkKlansman.”
These Saints fans who believe they’ve been wronged more than any fans in history …. fans of the ’85 baseball Cardinals would like to have a word.
Whack Back at Vac
Richard Siegelman: When the Nets play the Knicks, it’s a little like a Dinwiddie team playing a dim-witted team.
Vac: Even when Dinwiddie is out, alas, the dim-wits stay behind. Like Friday.
Vito Pesce: I was positive on Zion Williamson when I first saw him: I think he will be a very good pro. The question is will he be a star who the Knicks can build around. I don’t know if offensively he can do that. He is someone you want I just wish he could shoot a little better. Then again he is 19.
Vac: The last five words are the key five words there, I believe.
@jsmyth926: Need another scathing Wilpon article Mike. Now’s the time.
@MikeVacc: I won’t say I’m as sold as, say, Brodie Van Waganen on the Mets’ status as a favorite in the NL East. But I’m not sold that either of the big-ticket free agents is worth the price take they’re seeking either. (NOTE: I reserve the right to change my mind if they start 5-12.)
Walter Liddy: I have to laugh at all the hand-wringing about Mike Mussina’s election to the Hall of Fame. There’s nobody pitching in the majors today and no young prodigy pitching in little leagues for that matter that’s ever gonna
win 270 ballgames. Ever.
Case closed.
Vac: I agree with folks who argue Curt Schilling was just as good. But Schilling will eventually get in. And when he does, nobody will care who got in first.
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