June 16, 2011
Memories Bruin
(NOTE: I wrote this on Tuesday)
I don’t want to write about Anthony Weiner. I mean, I really don’t. However, when you look around the political and cultural landscape and see what the hot topic is, it seems to currently be Anthony Weiner and his…problem.
Fortunately, there is a local story (sort of local) that allows me put off the Congressman Weiner story for the time being. I suspect that the Weiner story (You see what I did there?) won’t be going anywhere for a while.
By the time you read this, a new Stanley Cup Champion will be crowned. Okay, that seems like a pretty safe position, but I have learned in the past that even a seemingly safe bet like that is not always so safe.
For instance, in 2000 I wrote on election night “next week we will have a new president.” That one sure seemed like a safe bet but as we all remember, the election wasn’t decided for another month or so.
Anyway, tomorrow night, Wednesday, June 15, 2011 the Boston Bruins will play Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals for a chance to win their first Stanley Cup since 1972. I find myself going back through time and remembering not their Cup win in ’72, but their previous Stanley Cup win in 1970.
I suspect that I really don’t remember the ’72 Cup because having seen them win it two years previous, I probably figured that they would be in the midst of winning several cups, but alas, it was not to be.
I’m going strictly on memory here, so if I’m off on some details, forgive me. I recall it being a Sunday afternoon. The Bruins wore black and gold and the St. Louis Blues wore blue and gold, and the Germans wore grey.
I was down the street at my Aunt Ruth’s house where we were having a Stanley Cup party. Being a wee lad at the time (I just like saying “wee lad,” a phrase one can only use on the written page), I undoubtedly was unaware of the frustration that Bruins fans had felt not having won the Cup since 1929, much as youngsters growing up in the last decade have only known the Boston Red Sox as an organization that has been a largely successful, winning two World Series, in 2004 and 2007.
They can only have a vague knowledge by virtue of their elders explaining the years of repeated failure; the particular years depend on the particular age of the elder. Some are old enough to remember the horrid years of the 1950’s when the Sox had Ted Williams and seldom much else. Then the continued bad years of the 1960’s featured Carl Yastrzemski, Yaz, and little else. In 1967 the Red Sox won their first pennant since 1946 and baseball was revived in Boston.
In the late 1960’s a young hockey sensation named Bobby Orr arrived in Boston to renew interest in the Bruins. Along with a talented cast of characters, Phil Esposito, Derek Sanderson, Johnny “Pie” McKenzie and goalie Gerry Cheevers, Orr and company took the Cup from the Blues on the home ice of the old Boston Garden.
The moment when Orr scored the winning goal in overtime was captured forever in a photograph as St. Louis Blues’ Noel Picard, who will forever be remembered as the jerk who tripped Bobby Orr, tripped the star.
It was a Sunday as I recall, May 10, 1970, a good month earlier than the current finals being played. I can still see my Uncle Dick jumping out of his chair with joy as Orr received a pass from Derek Sanderson and then put the puck past Blue’s goalie Glenn Hall, whom Orr has said has often asked him, “Didn’t you ever score any other goals?”
As the Bruins began their mini-dynasty, my Uncle Dan, for whom I was named and lived next door to us, got a color TV. This is something that young people today probably can’t imagine. This was a thrill for me to go see the Bruins in color, even though every few minutes Uncle Dan would have to get out of his chair to adjust the horizontal hold, something kids today would also not understand.
Sports are just sports and in the whole scheme of things, not that important. Yet, as the years roll by they can often serve as touch stones in our lives that bring us back in time to places and people that no longer exist except in our memories.
Here’s hoping that someday some current youngster will look back upon Game 7 as a touch stone in his or her life that bring a smile to the face.
Go Bruins!
Posted by dmargarita at 12:16 PM
June 4, 2011
A Non-Yankee, Yankee
If you go to a Boston Red Sox game you will hear derogatory chants directed at the New York Yankees, and that is true even if the Yankees are not the team that the Red Sox are playing during that particular game.
Despite being a Red Sox fan, having been born and raised in Stoneham, Massachusetts, I have never shared the fanatical hatred of the Yankees that so many fans of the Crimson Hose have come to personify.
It always seemed to me that it was a matter of jealousy, envy or whatever you wish to call it. For 86 years, after the Red Sox sold a certain pitcher-turned-outfielder to the Yankees, the New Yorkers went from baseball cellar-dwellers to a hardball dynasty.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox, a potent team in the early part of the 20th century, became perennial losers and inevitably, perennial chokers. It was this turn around in fortunes that led Red Sox fans to suffer from “pennant envy.”
I suspect that Yankee fans felt less so because they had nothing to be jealous of. What winner gets jealous of a loser?
So, for me traveling to Yankee Stadium to see a game doesn’t take on quite take on the aura of a cat willingly going into a dog pound as it might for other Sox fans.
Times are hard these days and we all try to save money and this was no exception, and thus my partner in crime, Jane and I opted to take a bus from South Station for the low, low price of $13. Never has the phrase “You get what you pay for” seemed more appropriate.
The bus was filled to capacity with other travelers who also decided to make the trek to NYC on the cheap. Thinking myself clever, I opted for seats near the bathroom. This proved to be far from my best idea as I never used the bathroom, but many other passengers did.
Nor did this prove to be a good choice since my seat reclined but would not revert to an upright position (fortunately there were no flight attendants to yell at me about it). Since the free Wi-fi that was supposed to be included never materialized I figured I might as well relax…and my reclined seat gave me no other choice.
Perhaps there were few other options but the bus got off in the Bronx and proceeded to make its way through the city downtown near Madison Square Garden, where we were let off. Maybe if the driver had taken a later exit we would’ve reached our destination much quicker but being the optimist, I prefer to think of it as a tour of the Bronx included in the $13 price.
The best way to get to Yankee Stadium is the train, perhaps the only reasonably priced thing in The Big Apple.
The new version of the Stadium is simply magnificent. Even if you hate the Yankees, if you love baseball, this place is a shrine, albeit an expensive shrine.
If you’re at a ballgame, especially if you’ve traveled over four hours to get there, a hot dog and a beer almost seems to be a requirement. Well, a beer, anyway.
The beer options are surprisingly limited at the Stadium. Besides the seemingly required at professional sports venues Budweiser beer, almost everything else was some form of light beer. I finally found a stand selling Stella Artois and ordered a couple of beers. I was ready with a $20 bill in hand when the server informed me that it cost $24. Two beers cost me more than the bus ride to New York City.
As mentioned earlier, Yankees fans don’t seem to have the hatred towards the Red Sox that Sox fans have toward the Yankees. Still, I figured it might be in my best interest not to wear any Red Sox paraphernalia into Yankee Stadium or to cheer too loudly against them. Hell, they’re the home team and I don’t mind cheering a good play by anybody.
While I might have lacked the courage of wearing my favorite team on my proverbial sleeve, the people sitting behind us, Blue Jays fans who had made the trek from Toronto, showed no such concern.
Low and behold, they received no threats, abuse or dare I say it, crap of any kind from the Yankee fans. Do you honestly think Yankee fans at Fenway Park would fare so well?
I’ve never participated in the traditional “Yankees Suck” chants at Fenway Park and never will. The only derogatory thing I will say about the pinstriped organization is that their beer prices seem a bit high.
That doesn’t sound too crude, does it?
Posted by dmargarita at 8:46 PM