John Riordan: In its darkest hour, Boston proved it was a city apart
STRONG: Carlos Arredondo, a 2013 Boston Marathon first-responder, holds a 'Boston Strong' banner in the grandstand near the 2015 Boston Marathon finish line. Pic: AP Photo/Elise Amendola
Ten years ago this weekend, when the Tampa Bay Rays didn’t matter and the Boston Red Sox were on the verge of a season that mattered more than most, the two baseball teams played out a Patriots’ Day game at Fenway Park.
The Red Sox won, as expected. They were still riding the wave of when they shattered the so-called "Curse of the Bambino" in 2004 and 2007, winning their first and second World Series since trading Babe Ruth to their hated rivals, the New York Yankees almost a century prior.
Roles have reversed today and, as of going to print, the Rays are on the verge of breaking an all-time Major League Baseball record that has stood for much longer than even that Babe Ruth hex: if they have beaten the Red Sox by the time you read this and if they then win again Friday, they’ll equal a milestone and then set a new and unimaginable 14-game win streak.
The Rays are the greatest show in baseball today but they were a sideshow for Patriots’ Day, 2013, a public holiday that would become tragically infamous.
The third Monday of every April celebrates the opening salvoes of the American Revolutionary War during which the then British colony of Massachusetts witnessed battles at Lexington, Concord, and Menotomy.
Just five other modern states mark the moments that launched an ultimately successful bid for independence but Boston is most synonymous with it.
As is tradition, the Red Sox play an early afternoon game of baseball while the Boston Marathon makes its way past the ballpark to its iconic finish line on Boylston Street near Copley Square.
Ten years ago, two extremely disillusioned young brothers detonated a pair of homemade bombs, seconds and blocks apart, right by the finish line of the marathon and just as the slower runners enjoying the experience of a lifetime were about to achieve a dream accomplishment in front of an unsuspecting crowd.
Timed perfectly to create maximum confusion and fear, the nightmare that unfurled cost the lives of three spectators, including Martin Richard, an eight-year-old from the Irish-American stronghold of Dorchester.
His older brother Henry ran the marathon in his honour last year and you have to imagine that Monday’s landmark anniversary run will be one of the more poignant ones that have taken place in the intervening decade.
Boston set itself apart that week. The most hated sports city in America has learned to enjoy its myriad major sports successes over the past quarter century in a way that tells the rest of North America what it can do with its envy.
But that was a week when the country rallied around all facets of Boston life and traditions.
I was sent there by the Examiner for the aftermath and I witnessed firsthand the way the city came together. When the second of the two killers was apprehended hours after a brief experience of lockdown living, the street celebrations outmatched anything their sports teams could ever dream of.
The day before, at an interfaith prayer service in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, then President Barack Obama deployed the sporting greatness of Boston and the rivalry every other major city feels while eulogising the deceased.
“It should be pretty clear by now that they picked the wrong city to do it. Not here in Boston,” he told the congregation before repeating for emphasis, “Not here in Boston.” Later, he played even more to the crowd as well as a former resident of the city like him would know how to: “When the Sox and Celtics and Patriots or Bruins are champions again - to the chagrin of New York and Chicago fans - the crowds will gather and watch a parade go down Boylston Street. And this time next year, on the third Monday in April, the world will return to this great American city to run harder than ever, and to cheer even louder, for the 118th Boston Marathon. Bet on it.”Â
His oratory instincts urged him to repeat “bet on it” as 2,000 mourners rose to their feet.
When the Red Sox finally got to play a home game again, their most popular player, “Big Papi” David Ortiz, was lined up to deliver a unifying pre-game speech. It was brief and to the point and contained the immortal line: "This is our fucking city, and nobody gonna dictate our freedom".
Just over six months later, the Red Sox won the World Series.
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PANEL - BREAKOUTÂ
For many reasons, I didn’t want to lead off yet another page on New York’s unforgettable triumph over Leitrim last Saturday evening in the Bronx.
There isn’t a thesaurus large enough to find another way to describe the end result. And after all, there is a whole raft of championship games this weekend to move on with. I’m sure readers in their right mind are keen to move on too.
I did want to humbly voice some appreciation that the gaffer of these pages texted me just over a week ago to tell me I had first refusal on covering the game.
I stared at that text for a while. It had been basically a year since I had written under the nervy conditions of an on-the-whistle report. That was more like on-the-final-bell for the Katie Taylor win at the Garden.
Both of these occasions were complete privileges to witness and they moved their own sections of the ground beneath us. But because there is someone on the other end of the line waiting for your paragraphs, you have to scramble together some sort of way of summing it all up in a timely manner.
Last Saturday, Brendan O’Brien was a patient and unbelievably good natured ally, staying up well past midnight, joking that it was a personal affront to him that both extra time and penalties was required to decide the contest.
I stared at that text dreading the prospect of piecing together a GAA game where every score, wide, mark, tackle, save, and dispossession is worthy of a note. Way out of practice, there were bits of paper being blown around by the chilly April breeze and I think my biggest regret was that, while I called out Shane Carthy’s normal time equalising point forcing extra time, I did not fully acknowledge the tight angle of the score, from the left, off his left.
In my defence, my mind was subsequently scrambled by two periods of extra time, more missed Leitrim goal chances and a Hollywood-ending winning penalty scored by locally born and bred, Mikey Brosnan.
I stared at that text for a while. I had tickets for Ezra Collective at Blue Note in the West Village, an endless downtown subway away from Gaelic Park. If the game threw in on time - which never used to happen in the pre-GAA GO days - and if the game ended on time, I’d maybe make the start of the set. Sorry, Josh, I never made it, but I’ll see you this weekend to double celebrate your new fiancée, Orlaith.
So after staring at that text for a while and thinking back on a conversation from the previous Sunday morning with my Shamrocks Legends team mate Johnny McGeeney (before he scored the winner in a 1-0 win over Central Park Rangers), I decided I couldn’t miss it. They have a chance, I told myself.
It’s rare you see McGeeney relaxed and smiling, no matter if he’s lining out with us old soccer lads or if he’s hiding out by the water bottles behind the New York dugout during a nail biting penalty shootout.
“I would have stuck one, no bother,” he laughed to me afterwards, possibly explaining the inability to watch. He was looking forward to getting back to action again with the Rocks but it’ll be a miracle if we see him Sunday and he’s certainly busy in Sligo next weekend.
We’re all very proud of him, though, and I’m glad I texted back the other gaffer to say I’d take the marking.
@JohnWRiordan
