Sadly, my parents were very nice and loving people, and I have lived a life almost totally devoid of salace. For intimacy, I’m afraid you’re going to have to make do with a medical update. I am, possibly even as you read this, lying on a slab in a Boston hospital undergoing an invasive procedure that is recommended as a preventive precaution for folks of a certain age.
I am not a stoic about colds or splinters, and so it has not surprised me—or my wife or anybody else to whom I’ve already kvetched—that this experience has not proved to be an exception. I did try to find some consolation, something beyond the possibility, of course, that it might save my life. About the only comforting notion I could come up with was the certainty that I will not be eating Jell-O again for another five years. After continually asking myself, “How bad can this be?” I concluded that, at least for me, it would pretty much be the equivalent of watching a Super Bowl XLII replay.
Actually, I am more of a stoic about Super Bowl losses, and Sunday’s proved no exception. I brooded a little into Monday, but nothing too serious. It wasn’t remotely as bad as 1976, when the referee Ben Dreith (I remember!) called a ridiculous roughing the passer penalty on “Sugar Bear” Hamilton against the Oakland Raiders on what would have been a game-ending play, costing the Patriots what I am certain would have been their first Super Bowl crown. My friend had to hold me back from kicking in the TV. (It was his TV, so he was motivated.) It certainly wasn’t comparable to the Bucky Dent or Bill Buckner moments of Red Sox infamy, the latter of which cost me my dad’s precious watch (and some plastering expenses) after I smashed a hole in the living room wall with my fist. This time there were no real goats, no horrendous gaffes, no egregious calls. Their guys just kicked our guys’ butts—and made all the plays—in a fashion reminiscent of the Pats’ Super Bowl upset of the Rams six years earlier.
In truth, I’ve found all the Patriots’ Super Bowl losses relatively easy to take—and I’ve been tested three times now—even when my distress is compounded by a squandered shot at immortality and a champion that goes by the name New York (not to mention a quarterback that goes by the name Manning). Super Bowl defeats are, since we have been talking medical matters here, the equivalent of ripping off a Band-Aid—a flash of intense pain and then on with your life. World Series losses, by contrast, can be the equivalent of major surgery, and a bitter end to a seven-game series can scar for life.
Far worse when it comes to football fates is losing in the conference championship game, as the Pats did last year to the Indianapolis Colts. Then you are forced to endure two weeks of ceaseless hype about a bitter rival. After the Super Bowl everybody goes home, win or lose. Sure, New York gets a party, a parade and bragging rights (or, as is the case between our two cities, the reigning insult). But in Boston our heads and hearts are already drifting toward Ft. Myers, where pitchers and catchers report for spring training next week.
There is another factor that, at least for me, limits my distress. The Pats’ Super Bowl opponents are, for the most part, unfamiliar to me—at least as opponents. The Pats have now played in six Super Bowls against, rather remarkably, six different teams, and I felt precious little antipathy toward any of them, let alone a serious grudge. Far better, from a fan’s perspective, to experience what the Patriots went through to reach their first Super Bowl, defeating the three AFC rivals that, at that time, the fans here hated the most: the Jets, the Raiders and the Dolphins. That was sweet, and getting stomped in Super Bowl XX by Da Bears did nothing to diminish my joy.
The Giants might have been a little different, hailing as they do (or don’t, depending on your perspective) from New York. Still, it’s hard to work up too much distaste for a team that, barring Super Bowl encounters, will next play the Pats in 2011. By then, even this monumental Super Bowl victory will be little more than a footnote. Hell, by next week I expect to be complaining far more about my Thursday ordeal than last Sunday’s disappointment.
