2007: An amazing year in Boston sports

The year 2007 is just about over, and now we can look back on another amazing time in Boston sports. It’s still hard to fathom that at the start of the decade, we were mired in “Loserville,” and the talk about which local franchise would win a championship first seemed to be nothing but wishful thinking.

Red Sox Win World Series
Ho-hum. After an exhaustively documented 86-year drought, the Sox have now won two World Series Championships in four years. For the second time in four years, it required a first-round sweep of the Angels, a comeback in the ALCS and a four-game sweep of an overmatched National League opponent in the World Series. Much of the early season talk revolved around Daisuke Matsuzaka, as the Japanese pitcher drew international attention in his first few starts with the Red Sox, where fans in both Boston and Japan eagerly watched to see how he would do in his new challenge. The Red Sox built up a huge lead in the standings and hung on to win their first division title since 1995, withstanding a huge Yankees charge over the second-half of the season. Josh Beckett won 20 games in his second season with the Red Sox and was simply amazing in the postseason, as he went 4-0 with a 1.20 ERA. The power numbers for both David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez tailed off a bit this season, but both came up big in the postseason.

Patriots In Pursuit of Perfect Season
The Patriots were coming off a shocking loss in the AFC Championship game in January when they clearly decided to shake up the makeup of their roster, adding free agent linebacker Adalius Thomas, and wide receivers Randy Moss, Donte Stallworth and Wes Welker in a combination of free agency and trades. The moves had the desired impact, as the team has roared to a 15-0 start and looks to finish off a perfect season this Saturday night in the Meadowlands against the Giants. Tom Brady is in a position to have the greatest season of all time for a quarterback in terms of touchdown passes, and Moss could break Jerry Rice’s single season record for touchdowns by a wide receiver. The “SpyGate” scandal after the opening week blowout of the Jets seems to have only served as further motivation for a franchise that didn’t need it. The Patriots now stand four victories away from making history as the only undefeated NFL team in the 16-game regular season era. They would join the 1972 Dolphins as teams with a perfect season. (The Dolphins played in the 14-game regular season era.)

Celtics acquire Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen
It has been over 20 years since the last Celtics NBA championship. To put that in perspective, in the years between 1957 and 1986, the longest drought between NBA titles for the Celtics was four seasons (between the 1968-69 and 1973-74 champions and the 1975-76 and 1980-81 champions). Any Celtics fans who even caught the tail-end of the glory days were likely reaching the end of their patience with the constant rebuilding process since the end of the Bird era. This past season was particularly hard to take, as the team lost a franchise-record 18 straight — and then couldn’t even come up with the top pick in the NBA draft lottery to land center Greg Oden, who many had proclaimed the next great franchise center. Instead, Danny Ainge dealt off his first round pick (No. 5 overall) along with two players to Seattle for All-Star guard Ray Allen. This move was followed the next month by a seven-for-one swap for former league MVP Kevin Garnett. These two players, teamed with All Star Paul Piece have led the Celtics to a 22-3 record at press time. More than that, they have restored relevance to a franchise that is the most storied in basketball history. A return to glory for the Celtics is just another reason why 2007 has been so great.

The Boston College football team was briefly ranked as high as No. 2 in the country this season, and quarterback Matt Ryan at least had his name mentioned among the Heisman candidates. The Revolution played in the MLS Cup Final for the fourth time time in six years — coming up short once again. The Bruins ... well, they have shown improvement this season (18-14 as of this writing) but still have a ways to go to catch up with the rest of the Boston sports world. Who knows — maybe 2008 is the year that the Bruins get the pieces to return to the ranks of NHL contenders.

Bruce Allen is the creator of Boston Sports Media Watch, which has recently been recognized by SI.com as one of the best non-corporate sports web site's on the Internet.