Let Boston have the Duck Boat parades, the crowded trophy shelves, the relentless conveyor belts of championship teams and championship contenders. Forget for a moment that since 2001, New England has won at least one title in all four major sports, has won 10 in all (compared to three for New York).
We have something else.
We have something better.
We have the moral high ground!
(See? Don’t you feel better?)
Here, we will allot a few seconds for our friends and neighbors in Massachusetts and Connecticut and Rhode Island to roll their eyes while taking great care not to stain their Tom Brady jersey. Here, we will allow our cousins and former roommates from New Hampshire and Maine and Vermont to wave us off while adjusting their vintage Celtics painters’ cap.
We know what you’re saying friends, cousins, neighbors: if you can’t keep up with us on a diamond, a rink, a gridiron or a court, then the only thing you have left is to try to muddy us up, dirty us down, and that’s really all this sign-stealing business is about.
(Dave Dombrowski, the man who runs the Red Sox, actually laughed out loud on Monday when asked about the Sox’ sign-stealing caper — seriously, it was an honest-to-goodness, live-action LOL [maybe even an ROFL] visible in front of God and everyone. No, really, he did.)
Look, no matter how egregious this thing turns out to be — and there is clearly something afoul here, even if the good news is somebody finally found a useful purpose for the Apple Watch — this will only be fighting for second place, all-time, on the list of baseball heists.
Number one always and forever will be whatever chicanery the New York Giants performed in 1951 during their epic climb up the National League standings with the Dodgers. Sixteen years ago it was revealed publicly what players on both sides privately knew for decades: the Giants had stolen Brooklyn’s signs, and had done so in a far more elaborate manner than merely cracking their code.
There were no Apple Watches involved — in 1951, baseball stadiums were considered palaces if they had hot and cold running water — but it was enough for many Dodgers to hold eternal grudges. Interestingly, Ralph Branca — quite possibly the most adversely affected by the escapade — was not one of them. Bobby Thomson always joked it was because the home run Branca allowed also paid for his children’s children’s children’s children to go to college thanks to 60 years of banquets and after-dinner talks. But he also had a reasonable point:
“I don’t know if he knew something but even if he did, you can’t always hit it,” Branca said not long after the ploy was exposed. “At home-run hitting contests they know what’s coming and they’ll still pop it up.”
Surely, that will calm the always-percolating outrage of New York when it comes to Boston’s nefarious ways and the always-simmering fury of Boston when it comes to New York exposing Beantown for running the occasional — shall we say — ethical end around.
After all, we are still not that far removed from Spygate, which continues to haunt the Patriots’ legacy — outside the 617 and 508 area codes, anyway — and was, of course, launched by the Jets on pretty good authority because they were coached at the time by Eric Mangini, who’d come from the Pats and therefore knew pretty thoroughly every aspect of their pregame preparation.
Including the stuff you might want to confess to your priest after the final gun.
(Which is why Spygate cannot be challenged no matter how bad this turns out to be. That one was Michael Corleone spying for the Tattaglia family. This one … well, just seems like nerds trying hard to show the cool kids on the playground how to spell “BOOBIES” with their calculators …)
Really, it makes sense that when They try to get away with stuff, We catch them. New York City is home to Andy Sipowicz and Lenny Briscoe, to Popeye Doyle and Jhn McClaine and Francis Reagan — and to Frank Serpico, who wouldn’t only have busted the Red Sox but sham-shame-shamed them, too.
You think Spenser can match up with that roster?
You think he’d even want to? He’s waiting for the next Duck Boat parade, along with everyone else in New England. What’s a bent rule or three compared to that?
