Results tagged “Red Sox” from The Sports Desk

I blame the Boston Red Sox. When they won the 2004 World Series, it was their first championship in 86 supposedly cursed seasons, and writers and broadcasters correctly jumped all over the story of the long-disappointed baseball town's relief.

But that story sold too well, and now it seems like the "first title in X years" angle has to be the one anybody writes and talks about when a team wins a World Series or other sports championship.

The Philadelphia Phillies' World Series victory is their first in 28 years (and their second ever). Yeah, OK, but is that really such news?

Since baseball returned from the 1994-95 strike with a new playoff format, the World Series winners have included the Red Sox as well as the White Sox (first title in 88 years), Braves (81 years), Cardinals (24 years), Yankees (18 years), Angels (first title ever), Marlins (first title ever) and Diamondbacks (first title ever).

World Series winners ending long droughts are the rule rather than the exception. In the same recent span, the Red Sox won twice in four years, the Marlins won twice in seven years, and the Yankees won three years in a row.

I can only compare it to what happens in the NCAA basketball tournament every year, when journalists react with gleeful surprise that a Cinderella story develops. Hey, you put 64 teams in a single-elimination tournament, and one of them is bound to go a couple of rounds farther than expected.

A team that hadn't won since the Carter Administration has won it all. What else is new?

There seems to be no time period so short that sportscasters and writers can't turn it into a "Not since ..." angle.

On ESPN this morning, an anchorman led off coverage of the Lakers' series victory over San Antonio with something to the effect of: "The Lakers haven't been to the NBA Finals since 2004 ..."

Wow, 2004! So it's the first time since George W. Bush was president!

Maybe four seasons feels like a long time to some people -- for example, 7-year-olds. For the rest of us, four years seems like an incredibly short time between Lakers Finals appearances (and six years would seem like a blink of an eye between Lakers championships), given that the breakup with Shaquille O'Neal and the first departure of Phil Jackson was supposed to cast the franchise into the wilderness for decades.

Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Downey is part of the growing chorus against ESPN's New York-Boston bias, one of our favorite topics.

Chipper Jones is hitting .410, Downey writes in a notes column. If this guy played for the Red Sox or the Yankees instead of the Braves, ESPN would give you hourly Chipper updates and plan a made-for-TV movie of his life.

I didn't see any sportswriters in the L.A. area calling Jon Lester a "hero" after the one-time cancer patient pitched a no-hitter. But writers elsewhere must have. Because somebody is objecting.