Being Darth Vader is a whole lot cooler than being Luke Skywalker.
Since the time I started following sports, my Boston teams have been seen as the underdog, the lovable loser or the Cinderella story. We've been labeled with adjectives like "scrappy" and "underrated."
But suddenly, columnists like ESPN's Gregg Easterbrook are calling the Patriots the "scoundrels" of the NFL, and the Red Sox are favored to win their second World Series in four years, causing a number of writers to compare them to the Yankees of the 1990s.
Some Sox and Pats fans may wrinkle their brows at such comparisons and name-calling, wondering if their hometown teams are losing the lovable identity that made them appealing in the first place.
Me? I'm beyond elated.
The Pats are annihilating their opponents. They aren't just winning - they're trying to make the other team look bad. And the Sox? They seem primed to take their place as baseball's new royalty, with the Yankee dynasty clearly in decline in the wake of Joe Torre's resignation. I haven't even mentioned the Celtics, who could very well be the favorites to win the Eastern Conference this year.
When I was a little kid watching "Star Wars" for the first time, I rooted for the Rebels just like everyone else. But I couldn't help but notice how much nicer the Empire had it. While Luke Skywalker was freezing his ass off in some snow cave on Hoth, Darth Vader was living it up in his own personal Star Destroyer. That's kind of what it's been like for Bostonians for the past 20 years. We've been in the snow cave, and we finally blew up the Death Star ... shouldn't we be able to enjoy it a little bit?
Regardless of how this series with the Rockies turns out, it's tough to argue that the Sox aren't positioned to be legitimate World Series contenders for the foreseeable future. Red Sox management has gone about building a juggernaut in exactly the right way - investment in the farm system, development of young power pitching, locking up invaluable assets like Josh Beckett with long-term contracts and filling immediate needs through free-agent spending.
Sure, some of these investments have backfired, but the Sox have the money and the talent core to make sure that those investments don't cripple the franchise in the long term. And just because ownership is spending a lot of money doesn't mean the Sox are the new Yankees. Unlike the Bombers, they have stable ownership that doesn't interfere with the baseball operations staff, a manager secure in his job, and they live up to the expectations that come with their payroll.
As far as the Pats are concerned ... don't even get me started. They're so far ahead of the rest of the NFL that I don't see them losing a game unless Tom Brady is in some type of tragic accident (I'm knocking on wood, don't worry).
To all of the critics out there: yes, Boston is ready to take on all of the expectations and pressures of winning. We're ready to not be satisfied when our teams bring home anything less than a world championship. We're done with being the object of your pity, and we're ready - even excited - for the rest of the country to hate us. After all, nobody hates a loser until they start winning.
Will Herberich is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at William.Herberich@tufts.edu.
