Sports Fan Paradise

When SportsFanLive's editor asked me to do a decade retrospective on Boston sports I was shocked. Not that he asked me to do it, but that the decade was already over.

It's not that the last 10 years have been uneventful, just that they went by faster than Usain Bolt on steroids Usain Bolt. The 00s were by far my most productive decade ever, but seeing that I could barely read when the '90s began that isn't saying much. A lot happens to a guy from age 15 to 25, and I will always look back at the goose eggs with a certain fondness, because of how I grew and how my favorite teams developed with me.

Still, it seems like just yesterday that the Sox were coming off another disappointing playoff loss to the Yankees, extending the World Series drought to 91 years, the Patriots fell to 7-8 after an overtime loss to the Buffalo Bills in which Adam Vinatieri missed a pair of potential game-winning field goals, and Antoine Walker was shooting 25 percent from beyond the arc and leading the Celtics in scoring.

Oh, how times have changed.

To commemorate the last 3,645 days in Boston sports I have decided to hand out some awards. Naturally, I named them after Robert Parish, the greatest 00 of all time.

First up, Game of the Decade.

The nominees are...

2002 AFC Divisional Playoff Game: Oakland Raiders @ New England Patriots

Super Bowl XXXVI: New England Patriots vs. St. Louis Rams

Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS: Boston Red Sox @ New York Yankees

Game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals: Boston Celtics @ LA Lakers

Narrowing the nominees from 20+ to four was very difficult. The list leaves off two Super Bowls, all the great Red Sox playoff games in 2007, the 2004 World Series and the rest of the epic games of the 2004 ALCS. This job isn't easy, but somebody has to do it.

I'm eliminating the Celtics because I believe they would have won the series with or without that comeback. They were clearly the better team and destined to win the title. I am also knocking off the ALCS, because while it completed the amazing comeback it is impossible to say that it stood out more than any of the other amazing games. The comebacks in Games 4 and 5 were epic, and of course the Bloody Sock Game 6. Plus, if they had gone on to get swept by St. Louis it would have just been an upbeat chapter in Dan Shaughnessy's Curse of the Bambino 2: The Steroid Years.

So that leaves the Patriots. While the Super Bowl victory over the Rams was an epic upset and the first championship for the city since the mid-'80s, it would never have been possible if it weren't for the Tuck Rule Game. This was not only the most exciting game of the decade, but it was the most important. It was the first time in recent memory that a Boston team had been on the receiving end of a lucky break in a huge situation. As soon as the refs ruled that Brady's arm was moving forward everything changed. Adam Vinatieri went from a solid kicker to the most clutch kicker in the history of football, Tom Brady went from a back-up and former sixth-round pick to a Super Bowl MVP, and Bill Belichick went from a coach with a .470 career winning percentage to a certified genius.


If that call goes the other way, the Patriots lose that game and never face the Rams. Maybe Brady would never have gained the confidence necessary to become an MVP quarterback. Maybe Belichick doesn't attract veteran free agents and can't command the same type of respect that he did after he won the big one. Maybe they never win a title, let alone three. And maybe without the positive momentum from that ice-breaking championship the Sox never break the curse and David Ortiz never calls Kevin Garnett and tells him that Boston is the best city to play in.

Maybe, just maybe, that was the most important game a city has ever won, which is why I think it deserves a Parish Award.



Read more of Mike Stiriti at the original "Sports Fan Paradise" blog.