Oct. 21 was – by any standard – a pretty good day in Boston sports history.
On the gridiron, South Florida’s loss to Rutgers the previous Thursday allowed the unbeaten Boston College Eagles to slide into second place in the BCS standings, and Tom Brady threw a team-record six touchdown passes as the New England Patriots continued an unbeaten season of their own, trouncing the Miami Dolphins by a final score of 49-28.
Overshadowing these accomplishments, however, were those of the beloved Boston Red Sox. As the day came to a close, the Sox were putting the finishing touches on a dramatic Game 7 win over the Cleveland Indians, capping off an improbable comeback in the AL championship series and punching their ticket to this year’s Fall Classic (sound familiar, Yankee fans?).
And there he was, right at the center of the on-field celebration at Fenway Park: Manny Ramirez. His long braids flailing wildly behind him, Ramirez – who had bounced back from a sub-par regular season to become Boston’s most consistent threat at the plate in the playoffs – leaped gleefully into the arms of teammates Jonathan Papelbon and Jason Varitek. It was hard to believe that, just days earlier, the man was being scrutinized about his will to win.“It doesn’t happen, so who cares?” was the damning question Ramirez had posed with his team trailing three games to one. “There’s always next year. It’s not like it’s the end of the world or something.”
An Associated Press story forebodingly taunted Ramirez, “Try telling that to all those people in New England.” Well, on behalf of “all those people in New England,” I think everything turned out just fine.
We all know Manny Ramirez likes to stay loose. He never loses sight of the fact that – despite the extreme fervor of Red Sox Nation – baseball is still just a game. Sometimes Ramirez’s attitude rubs fans the wrong way, but should we really want him to change? Consider the other end of the spectrum, as personified by Beantown’s newest star, Boston Celtic Kevin Garnett.
Upon Garnett’s arrival in town this summer, Boston Globe columnist Jackie MacMullan gushed that KG “plays hard, plays long and plays with an intensity that has been sorely lacking around here,” adding, “He desperately wants to win.”There is a famous interview Garnett gave on TNT during All-Star weekend in 2004-05. John Thompson spoke of various aches and pains Garnett was playing through at the time, and asked, “What’s driving you?”
“That I’m losing,” Garnett replied, his voice trembling. “That I’m losing. (A pause.) I’m losing. (Another, longer pause.) I’m losing.” The big man failed to contain his emotions from there, explaining that he was crying “tears of pain,” and that “this (expletive deleted) is killing me.”
“I hate that I’m like this in front of you right now, man,” Garnett confessed to Thompson, who quickly replied that he respected Garnett, calling his waterworks “refreshing” and “a sign of strength” rather than “a sign of weakness.” My take: How about a sign for concern? I love KG, but when ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons regularly joked about the inevitability of him one day turning homicidal on his teammates – and it didn’t seem particularly farfetched – perhaps he’d ratcheted up the intensity a bit too high.
Meanwhile, the facts are these: Garnett has made it past the first round of the NBA playoffs once in his career, while Manny was the 2004 World Series MVP, and, now, three years later, might have a crack at it again.
In the final analysis, in a world of robberies, burglaries and staph infections, is a pro athlete who sees the big picture in life the worst thing to be?
