This Is Our City

Massarotti Tony Massarotti

Description

A celebration of the last two decades of sports success in Boston from the co-host of the #1 sports radio show in New England Boston is a unique sports city. Unlike New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago, New Englanders' loyalties are not divided among competing franchises; in the four major American sports, the city has one team each: the Red Sox, the Celtics, the Bruins, and the Patriots. And, as any Boston fan will tell you, that loyalty runs deep. Sports just seem to mean more in New England. Over the last 20 years, those fans have been blessed with an extraordinary run of success, including 12 championships, six runners-up, and many more years of heated contention. In the 21st century, Boston became Titletown. According to Tony Massarotti, longtime Boston sports columnist and host of the #1 sports radio show in New England for the past ten years, this is not a coincidence. Massarotti's This Is Our City paints a portrait of the last 20 years in Boston sports, showing how one team's success has led to the next-how they have fed off each other, tried to one-up one another, and have supported each other. This is an account of an era where successes and failures stitched together the region, all playing out against major events such as 9/11 and the devastating Boston Marathon-which led to a memorably profane speech by David Ortiz, who declared, "This is our f@#king city!" Massarotti's This Is Our City is a valentine to Boston sports and will be loved by those fans, wherever they now live.

Informations

• Publié par: ABRAMS BOOKS
• Date de parution: 18 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781647002541
• Langue: English

Extrait

Also by Tony Massarotti
A Tale of Two Cities: The 2004 Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry and the War for the Pennant (with John Harper)
Big Papi: My Story of Big Dreams and Big Hits (with David Ortiz)
Dynasty: The Inside Story of How the Red Sox Became a Baseball Powerhouse
Knuckler: My Life with Baseball s Most Confounding Pitch (with Tim Wakefield)

Copyright 2022 Tony Massarotti
Cover 2022 Abrams
Published in 2022 by Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022933717
ISBN: 978-1-4197-5358-9
eISBN: 978-1-64700-254-1
Abrams books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact [e-mail] or the address below.
Abrams Press is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
ABRAMS The Art of Books 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007 abramsbooks.com
For Boston
CONTENTS

PROLOGUE
Chapter 1
THE SEEDS OF A DYNASTY
Chapter 2
BURYING THE PAST
Chapter 3
A CHANGING OF THE GUARD
Chapter 4
HIGHER STANDARDS
Chapter 5
THE PERFECT NIGHTMARE
Chapter 6
GREEN DAYS
Chapter 7
THE PUCK STOPS HERE
Chapter 8
BROKEN WINDOWS
Chapter 9
MARATHON MONDAY
Chapter 10
BOSTON RISES
Chapter 11
DARKNESS AND DEFEAT
Chapter 12
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
Chapter 13
THE C S RISE . . . THEN FALL
Chapter 14
SAME OLD BRUINS
Chapter 15
COSTLY MISTAKES
Chapter 16
OUT WITH A BANG
Chapter 17
STARTING OVER

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INDEX OF SEARCHABLE TERMS
PROLOGUE
To me, Boston always has felt like a neighborhood . . . It s one of the things I love most about playing there. . . . I ve invested in Boston during my time there, and I feel like Boston has invested in me.
-longtime Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield in his memoir, Knuckler: My Life with Baseball s Most Confounding Pitch
In the middle of it all, in the heart of Boston and amid a crisis that shook the city and the country to its heels, David Americo Ortiz spoke. He spoke for himself. He spoke for his teammates. And he spoke for fans, neighbors, public servants, and city officials during a time Boston boomed with pride, trembled with fear, celebrated its considerable history, and pondered its suddenly uncertain future.
These jerseys that we re wearing today, it doesn t say Red Sox. It says Boston , Ortiz noted just beyond the first baseline at Fenway Park, Boston s kitchen, its core. We want to thank you-Mayor [Tom] Menino, Governor [Deval] Patrick, the whole police department-for the great job that they did this past week.
And then he said this:
This is our fucking city-and nobody is going to dictate our freedom.
David Ortiz raised his fist.
Stay strong, he said.
And then, as if both stunned by Ortiz s unexpected vulgarity and in completely unabashed agreement, a capacity crowd at Fenway Park roared to a crescendo, nodding in approval, clapping furiously. Did Papi just say what I think he said? Indeed he did. Well, amen to that. Just five days after the Marathon bombings of April 15, 2013, which took three lives, wounded nearly three hundred people, and left sixteen others without limbs, Bostonians were also psychologically scarred, significantly wounded. They were unsure. They were frightened. They were also mad as hell and looking for something-or, perhaps, someone-to rally around, and they found him in Ortiz, nicknamed Big Papi, the titanic teddy bear around whom the Red Sox had been built for the better part of the twenty-first century.
In all, Ortiz addressed Bostonians for less than forty seconds on that brilliant sun-splashed afternoon of Saturday, April 20, 2013, though his words continue to resonate as if he had delivered the Gettysburg Address. At the start of what would become yet another championship during Boston s dynastic beginning to the new millennium, Ortiz was as qualified as anyone-more so, really-to lead Boston back from tragedy, to preach unity and resolve, to commence the healing. As the designated hitter of the Red Sox, Ortiz was a giant, someone more identifiable to Americans than the mayor or the governor. Born under the red, white, and blue flag of the Dominican Republic, Ortiz had come to Boston from the Minnesota Twins and resurrected his baseball career, put an end to the mythical Curse of the Bambino, and led Boston to two championships (and had the Red Sox on the way to a third).
In the process, Boston had become his home. By 2013, Ortiz was in his eleventh season of a Red Sox career during which he had initially struggled for a foothold, eventually endured, and ultimately succeeded. Boston has never been the kind of place to storm in and sweep people off their feet, after all, and the list of those rejected-particularly athletes-was long and distinguished.
Who are you? Where are you from? What do you want here?
But now? Ortiz was not merely welcomed. He had the right to preach, to rage, to lead. His uniform alone spoke volumes. For home games at Fenway Park, the Red Sox customarily wore their traditional white jerseys and pants trimmed in red piping, with button-up tops, black leather belts, red numbers and letters outlined in blue, the words RED SOX emblazoned on their chests in a familiar, unique font. But on April 20, 2013, as Ortiz succinctly pointed out, the jerseys this time featured BOSTON in all-red letters, with no piping and no trim, an understated style designed to issue the simplest of reminders: that the Red Sox were not merely representatives of their city and its values nor solely ambassadors for those from all six New England states-they were neighbors and fellow taxpayers, too, shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm.
Our city.
This is our city.
This is our fucking city .
Beyond the acceptance by Bostonians, Ortiz was, of course, the perfect man to cross all barriers. He was bilingual, fiercely competitive, wonderfully engaging, genuinely good-hearted, talented and gritty, relentless but patient, and also imperfect. Along with New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick during the city s astonishing run of sports championships to start the millennium, Ortiz had become as synonymous with Boston as Paul Revere and the Old North Church. Brady and Belichick had won three championships by then, Ortiz two. The Celtics and Bruins had won one each. Boston had become, in the arena, the Athens or Rome of American sports, the center of the sports universe, the Hub . Boston had defeated Los Angeles. Boston had defeated New York. Boston had defeated Philadelphia and Boston had defeated St. Louis. The Boston Marathon bombings were something altogether different, of course, but Boston believed in David Ortiz. Boston trusted him.
And if Boston believed in him, the country did, too. Nearly twelve years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Boston had become the primary target this time, the victim. When Ortiz spoke on this occasion, all of America was listening.
You get goose bumps [listening to the speech], Boston mayor Marty Walsh would say years later. At that point, Mayor Tom Menino was sick and we were all in a state of shock, fear-and Big Papi made a statement about our city. He basically put a stake in the ground, and that helped in the healing process. He was speaking for a lot of people. I don t advocate that athletes use that language, but he certainly drove his point home.
Said Tom Manchester, vice president of field marketing for Dunkin Donuts, the Boston-based coffee empire for whom Ortiz was a spokesperson: For me personally when he gave that speech, he could have dropped the F-bomb 10 times and it really wouldn t have mattered to me because I was feeling that way and I think he articulated what all of New England was feeling.
Indeed, for all that transpired in Boston and New England in the years to come, Ortiz s words became a rallying cry for the region, a refrain every bit as familiar as Boston Strong. Ortiz, for however much it matters, claimed he had no recollection of using profanity and insisted it was never part of his plan, which ultimately made the words all that much more meaningful. Somewhere along the line in American sports, after all, athletes became pitchmen and corporations more than they were people, and they had learned to measure their words carefully. NBA icon and Nike merchandising superstar Michael Jordan, for instance, was often criticized for failing to take a stand on social and racial issues, famously remarking once, Republicans buy sneakers, too. Longtime Baltimore Orioles shortstop, baseball Hall of Famer, and historic ironman Cal Ripken was so wholesome, he was a spokesman for milk. Players like Brady and all-time great New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter generally mastered the art of talking and saying nothing, steering clear of all controversy and political lines, from brushfires to full-blown infernos.
Ortiz, meanwhile, was far more authentic, often speaking from his heart and showing his emotions without the slightest bit of reluctance, shame, or regret, frequently to his own detriment. Once, he burst in on then manager Terry Francona s postgame press conference to complain about an official scoring decision, coming off as selfish and childish. Another time, during a game, a frustrated Ortiz took his bat to the phone in the visitors dugout at Baltimore s Camden Yards, smashing it to pieces. He sometimes jousted with the media. And years before he became teammates with eventual Red Sox left-hander David Price, he publicly engaged the then Tampa Bay Rays pitcher in a verbal jousting competition during which he called the overly sens