I'm not what you'd call a big sports fan. I had never watched a baseball game on TV until I was 30, after I had moved from New York to New England. Consequently, I was never a fan of any of the New York teams, though some of my high school friends consider this treasonous. What little rooting I have done has all been for the more northerly teams.
Nonetheless, I'm able to see a clear distinction between New York sports fans and fans in New England. Specifically, New York sports fans tend to cheer their teams because those teams win a lot.
In New England, fans seems to endure their teams, the way they endure the climate and the terrain. Red Sox fans grew more passionate with each passing year of championship drought. They finally found a manager who led the team to its first World Series victory in 86 years, and then followed up with another victory 3 years later! And what became of that manager? They fired him.
Now the New England Patriots seem bent on grabbing some of the Red Sox cachet by also snatching defeat from the jaws of victory ... repeatedly.
Perhaps it's because the whole region is so infused with a sense of its own history, but New England sports fans seem to prefer reminiscing about past glories to actually enjoying new ones.
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