Thirteen sports championships. Thirteen . That’s how many titles the compact city of Boston has accumulated in the past two-plus decades, and that’s heads and shoulders over any other city in North America, even those metropoli that have more than two teams in each sport that call that city, or region, their home.
As you may have heard, Boston collected lucky No. 13 last Monday night when the Celtics completed their dominant march to the NBA championship with a resounding five-game series win over the overmatched Dallas Mavericks. Growing up in New York State as I did, you would think that I would be celebrating a championship parade running through the Canyon of Heroes in Manhattan every few years, or even, God forbid, maybe even a celebratory parade through the streets of beautiful downtown Buffalo.
But that was definitely not the case, despite the Empire State hosting the NY Giants, NY Jets, and Buffalo Bills (NFL); the NJ Devils (OK, technically not in NY, but their arena is just 10 miles across the Hudson River from Manhattan), the Buffalo Sabres, the NY Rangers and the NY Islanders (NHL); the NY Yankees and NY Mets (MLB); and the NY Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets (NBA). As a youngster, I did have one magical five-year period when the Jets (1969), Mets (1969), and Knicks (1970 and 1973) all captured league titles, but it has been slim pickings since then, as the Jets and Knicks unbelievably have not won a single title since, while the Mets have won just one lonesome on.