Heartbreak Immortality

I was born a Boston sports fan. I'll die one. But with a smirk on my face. The Beantown Red Hose lost three 7 game World Series in my lifetime. Count 'em. The unforgiving annals of sport has. And as a result critics spawned an intellectual sour grapes literary growth industry that spanned decades and generations.

After Super Bowl 42, a new sports print academic boom is about to be born. That of missed perfection lost in Arizona. Oh, there'll be books. And then some.

Although since 2004 old school BoSox ghosts have been exorcized with a new baseball world domination, a certain football team fallen from grace has made sure to it that the brand of Northeastern sports will always be rooted in victories buried in the sands of time and epic losses that shout always and forever.

So it went on the gridiron with the 2007 New England Patriots, a team of would-be immortals brought down to earth by an X&O espionage coaching staff who in this evil hip age of might makes right politic and pop culture corruption, treat competition more like actual war than sportsmanship. Yet if the pigskin pastime is indeed controlled violence on cleats, all's not fair in love and war...if you get caught as a voyeur videoing the practicing competition.

Well paid mainsteam sports media spin gladhanders and PC band wagoneers with happy-go-lucky bought and sold opinions---the same ones who downplay MLB's steroid era---will tell you wait until next year. Yet online for a truthful pittance I say that this franchise dynasty is over and done with. Those who upheld the Pats unlikely prowess regardless of the immoral specter of Spygate should have been more cautious and known better. When fair play is the prey of a win at all costs mentality, fate is the hunter to settle the score. And it shot arrows of justice in the heart of the Patriots on Super Sunday.

If the history of the NFL shows us anything, it's that finesse teams do not dominate without an edge. Rather it's the He-men gladiators with bowl over running games and mack truck defenses who rank among the cream crop of elite. This is why the '72 Dolphins record still stands up. And why the greatest dynasty of all time was the 70s Pittsburgh Steelers and not the Y2K+ football revolution Bostonians.

The Bay State bullies fatal flaw was that they got arrogant. They became fools anticipating New England turning into pro football's version of the Yankees. Some of the Pats roster even invited Giants to post game celebrations. They weren't just counting their chickens. They were voodooing their chances with tactless conceit and bravado, thus setting up a new T-shirt number for all time Hub sports infamy---18-1*.

1918 was a tame tease compared to this. Imperfection is not in and of itself shameful. The shame is in the excruciating closeness of a blind date with foregone conclusioned destiny. The cheating to get there and the failing quest to be perfect to make up for it in the end. That's what hurts.

I'm not usually in the habit of writing AC pieces because I'm not web market saavy enough to make a literary buck and my sentiments often get lost in cyberspace. But I called this one. I somehow knew intuitively that New England had to dominate to win and that if it were close the Pats would lose. Belichick is not the second coming of Vince Lombardi, who as a master motivator was God's coach. No, Bill is but a spy tactician. And the bitter loss was poetic justice.

They succumbed to a cloud of sucpicion and their offensive front line played like scared groundhogs stalked by a killer defense in a football horror film. I don't say we because I'm not a fan to stick by team home boys if they cheat. I think it's one of the things fatally flawed with this pop culture and country in general, the us vs. them appeasement, excusing or supporting of wrongdoing. In sports, politics and in life.

I felt this outcome in my gut like a sports swami on a psychic roll. The Pats never faced a King Kong ball club in the grand finale like New York. Rams, Panthers and Eagles were all air shows on turf. New York was a full scale D-day invasion. The scoreboard is eternal. You can't undo the numerology and a 4th title remains elusive. History won't respect the dynasty like Steeltown and Frisco. Smug experts will only disect the cheating and the lost perfection. Now and forever.

In quick retrospect, I don't know why a velcro man-to-man secondary didn't stick and seal the win for NE with the game on the line in the final seconds. And with 3 points making the difference, I can't help but wonder why the Pats didn't throw a mint at Vinatieri for his SB moneyman golden foot. Kraft is a billionaire short of a 4th ring building a Pats mall empire around past triumphs. But after 3 titles, it's not about commerce salemanship anymore. It's about respect.

Now New England sports is a Shakespearean soap opera all over again. For sheer excitement, XLII was either the drama king of Super Bowls or quite simply the greatest football contest of all time. Beantown's '75 football World Series for a new shell-shocked fanbase.

Back in the day I always used to replay the Beantown/Cincy '75 Fall Classic in baseball video games before '04. Hereafter, for the rest of my life I will be obsessed with replaying SB 42 2007 Pats/Giants on Madden. We have entered a renewed enigmatic bad karmic twilight zone where to be a fan from Boston is to win on a lark but continually admit and deal with ultimate defeat. Hated either way much worse than the Yanks and their 26 rings.

After this mother of all team sport choke jobs, it's safe to say that New England ballclubs will always be more famous for losing than most teams in all of athletic competition are for winning. And this one will never go away. 18-1* is heartbreak immortality.