Boston Strongest, pt. 2

Of all the teams to pull through for the city of Boston, it was the Red Sox. People will talk about the seeming turnaround from Boston as a baseball city to Boston as a hockey city, and rightfully so. In two years, the Bruins had won a Stanley Cup and two division titles. In the same two years, the Red Sox suffered one of the worst September collapses ever, and had a misery-filled 2012 season, culminated by the firing of a manager who epitomized zero of the ideals that belonged to the Red Sox and the culture of baseball in Boston. But 2013 completely reversed that, and cemented the Red Sox as Boston's team. For this year, for next year, for however long it is, Boston belongs to the Red Sox. And it's because this team cares, and this team gets it. Jonny Gomes, the poster child for the appeal of these 2013 Red Sox, came out after the World Series and said that "We didn't put Boston on our back...Boston put us on its back. I don't think a won-loss record sums up how much we care."

And this team cared because they knew what it meant for the city of Boston. The Red Sox are most closely associated with Marathon Monday, having played an 11:00am game on each Patriots' Day since 1968. Boston was desperately grabbing at something to hold on to, and every step along the way, the Red Sox were there. Daniel Nava's three-run homer to seal a come-from-behind victory in the first home game since the Marathon bombings. A historic number of walkoff victories. An emergence of a group of baseball players that let the city know that everything would be okay. Bill Simmons wonderfully writes about this in a recent article for Grantland. The key takeaway from that article, and something I've believed all season long, is this:

"You always hear that tragedies put sports in perspective, that they prove we shouldn't care this much about the successes and failures of a bunch of wealthy strangers. I'm going the other way - sometimes, sports put everything else in perspective. Our favorite teams bring people together...some of the happiest moments of my life involve something that happened with one of my teams. Some of the best relationships I ever had were with Boston athlete I never even met. That's a bad thing?"

Nothing more true could have been written. In a time where the city needed the Red Sox, the Red Sox were there. For some time, it was Boston Strong. Then the beards came along, and everything started happening at once. Throughout the playoffs, the Red Sox needed Boston, and Boston was there. A home record of 6-2 in the postseason for the Red Sox. Everything came together one final time for a glorious October night, where the last game of the baseball season was to be played at Fenway Park, and the last team to have won a game in the 2013 season was to be the Boston Red Sox. This season became a marriage of city and team, a marriage that had faced serious problems in the past few years. But when the firework smoke-ridden dust had settled, after everything was said and done, the Red Sox would stand tall, not just as a baseball team, but in their rightful place at the heart of Boston.