Red Sox to Face Tough Tampa Bay Rays in ALDS
By TERRY LYONS
BOSTON – When it comes to postseason baseball, when they go low – WE GO HIGH!
Before the Boston Red Sox eliminated the New York Yankees in the American League Wild Card game, you might’ve heard about the New York Post rattling their once mighty sabres to taunt all things Boston with a column listing dozens of suggestions why “Boston Sucks.”
The reasons included gems like:
- Incapable of making a good pizza.
- Use the word “wicked” to describe everything other than witches.
- The accent.
- The people with the accent.
- Bill de Blasio roots for you.
Besides the fact we’ll put the North End’s Regina Pizzeria up against Patsy’s any day of the week, the focus today is more a call-out of the ill-fated column’s sophomoric content and the old-as-time, typical New York trash-talking before any major league playoff series. One might harken back to 1994 when the Houston Rockets met the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals and the New York Post and the Houston Chronicle got into a trash-talking match which was led by then-NYP columnist Wallace Matthews going so far as to describe America’s fourth most populous city as “a steamy, bug-infested nondescript prairie town.” Matthews’ editors and headline writers took it from there with the memorable “This place is a hellhole” banner.
When the Houston Rockets took Game 1 of the NBA Finals, the Chronicle shot back with: HELLHOLE 1, N.Y. 0.
That brief history lesson brings us to the present day and the upcoming ALDS series pitting the Boston Red Sox against the Tampa Bay Rays which starts tonight in Florida.
The so-called New England elite might begin to compare the two cities by citing the differences between Harvard, MIT, Tufts and Boston College against Tampa’s University of South Florida (which is not even in South Florida), but let’s not go there. As it says, New York went low, so we’ll go HIGH.
How can you rip Tampa in 2021 when the Tampa Bay Bucs are the reigning NFL Super Bowl champions? The Buccaneers maneuvered their way to acquire New England treasure and greatest NFL quarterback of all-time Tom Brady, along with our favorite knucklehead tight end Rob Gronkowski to build a football team than might even repeat as NFL champions.
On the skating rink, you’d think the Northerners would have the advantage, but … No … the Tampa Bay Lightning are the class of the National Hockey League and have three Stanley Cup titles to prove it. Since 2003, they’ve made more trips to the Stanley Cup Playoffs than Patriots’ team owner Robert Kraft has made to the Orchids of Asia spa. The Lightning are the defending Cup champions as the new NHL season begins and there’s nothing on paper to think they won’t be standing in front of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman for another presentation in 2022.
Thank goodness, Tampa-St. Pete doesn’t field a franchise in the NBA or the vaunted Boston Celtics might be in big trouble.
The subject of SPORTS is not the only distinguished merits of the City of Tampa, although you might note Mets fireballer Doc Gooden and LA Dodgers great Steve Garvey are both from Tampa, along with scores of major leaguers and even a few pro wrestling greats (Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, to name two).
Let’s discuss music, starting with the fact both the great Ray Charles and sax-man extraordinaire Cannonball Adderley hail from Tampa.
If you want to get real serious, the charming and amazing actress and model Lauren Hutton spent her formative years in Tampa and graduated from Chamberlain High School before attending UCF and later Tulane University.
Back on the music scene, you can’t overlook that alto saxophone superstar David Sanborn was born in Tampa and Ray Charles’ band played a huge influence on his life as one of the purest sax players in history. Do you like Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young? If you want to *teach your children well, Stephen Stills – the genius songwriter, musician and voice of the ’60s – grew up in Tampa and Gainesville, Florida.
Tampa has enough history and success stories to continue, but we’ll conclude with the fact that the orchestrator of the “Evil Empire,” the late New York Yankees team owner George Steinbrenner was born in Ohio and bounced around until settling down in Tampa in 2006 until his death there at age 80 (2010). ‘Nuff said about that, right?
Remember, we’re going HIGH except for one last “Big Dig.” New York, you can have Bill de Blasio.
The prediction: Sadly, Tampa in four games.
Note: *Teach Your Children was written by Stills’ CSN sidekick Graham Nash.