Just when you thought you were about to blow off baseball along comes the Red Sox.


 


The right team.


 


At the right time.


 


Especially around here.


 


Because it's no secret the Patriots have become the biggest thing in New England sports. Bigger than the Celtics. Bigger than the Bruins. And ... drum roll, please ... even bigger than the Red Sox, even though once upon a time that would have [...]

Just when you thought you were about to blow off baseball along comes the Red Sox.

 

The right team.

 

At the right time.

 

Especially around here.

 

Because it's no secret the Patriots have become the biggest thing in New England sports. Bigger than the Celtics. Bigger than the Bruins. And ... drum roll, please ... even bigger than the Red Sox, even though once upon a time that would have been considered a ludicrous statement.

 

But they have Tom Brady, one of the biggest sports stars in the country, they have Bill Belichick, arguably as big a coaching name as there is in the country. And they have the incredible Gronk, someone who often seems as if he's stepped off the pages of adolescent fiction, a tight end to die for. Not to mention a huge fan base that all but genuflects at the sight of a Patriot. All that, and those five Super Bowl banners blowing in the breeze at Gilllette Stadium.

 

The Red Sox?

 

Just the team we used to love.

 

Overstated?

 

No doubt.

 

But it's no secret that there are now more younger Patriots fans around here than Red Sox fans, no secret that TB12 is the most popular athlete around here and it's not even close, no secret that Belichick is an iconic figure around here, while new Sox manager Alex Cora might be able to walk through the Providence Place Mall as if he were in the Witness Protection Program.

 

That's the new landscape, and it has to be a bit unsettling for the Red Sox, who have been in Boston for over a hundred years now, and for most of those years were the biggest fish in the Boston sports pond. Bigger than the Celtics in the late '50s and early '60s, back when they were the best basketball team in the world, complete with the championship banners hanging from the Garden rafters to prove it. Bigger than the Bruins, even though the Bruins were huge in Boston then. Bigger than all of them.

 

No more.

 

And it's more than just the turf war going on between the Red Sox and the Patriots for the fans' hearts and minds. It's the realization that the sports landscape has irrevocably changed. Gone are the days when the world seemed to stop for the World Series. Now it seems to stop for the Super Bowl, the supposed biggest party day of the year.

 

Insignificant?

 

Not really.

 

The Super Bowl has often been called the country's unofficial holiday. The World Series? Too many night games that get over too late. Is it any wonder that too often baseball seems to be a game that's dying right in front of us?

 

So it's important that the Red Sox got off to a great start, the kind that's almost impossible to ignore. Good for them. Because they need to be in the spotlight this summer, playing games we care about.

 

Professional sports are entertainment, and the Red Sox should thank the baseball gods they're off to a great start (despite losing Saturday and Sunday). Because the bar has been raised so high around here, and the expectations have risen with it, even if this season already has so many miles to go.

 

And then there's something else about the Red Sox, maybe the most important part. No longer are they the star-crossed franchise that hadn't won a World Series since 1918. Winning it all in 2004 changed all that, turned the Red Sox into just another major market team that's supposed to win its share. Somehow that seemed to take away some of the luster.

 

But here they are off to the best start in their long history.

 

Think about that for a second.

 

Here is a franchise that's been playing almost as long as this grand old game began, this franchise whose history is so deeply intertwined into the game's long history.

 

The right team at the right time.

 

At least for now.