Where did the mojo go? Instead of waxing poetic about our teams, suddenly our teams are getting waxed.
We were kings of the world, universally hated by sports fans across the land. Life was a nonstop sequence of banner hoistings and ring celebrations. We grew arrogant, cocky, entitled.
Now the Patriots are an ordinary team with a no-name quarterback, getting pummeled, 30-10, much to the titillation of a national television audience hungry for New England blood.
And the Red Sox, winners of two of the last four World Series and favorites to repeat in the fall of 2008, find themselves trailing the once-laughable Tampa Bay Rays, two games to one, in the American League Championship Series. The Rays, deemed not ready for prime time playoffs by David Ortiz just a couple of days ago, routed the indomitable Jon Lester, 9-1, at Fenway Park yesterday. Who's the scaredy cat now?
I hereby suggest the Celtics place Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce in a hermetically sealed room until the start of the 2009 NBA playoffs. We can only take so much. Tom Brady is gone for the year, and the vaunted Sox might actually lose to the Rays. It would be simply too much to take if one of the Celtic kingpins goes down before the Green have a chance to repeat.
This is not to overreact to the Red Sox' plight. The Sox last year trailed the Indians, 3-1, in the ALCS, then roared back to win the next three and sweep the Rockies in the World Series.
But yesterday's lopsided loss to the Rays stunned a Nation still reeling from the Patriots' Sunday night debacle in San Diego. Suddenly Big Papi is Big Popup. Boy Wonder Jacoby Ellsbury is 0 for his last 20 and has fans begging for Coco Crisp. Josh Beckett, Mr. October of this century, is serving more meatballs than Bertucci's. Jason Varitek looks as though he might calcify in mid-swing. Terry Francona has forfeited his hardball Mensa membership and is hearing words he never heard in the Bible.
Two days ago, the Sox looked like a lock for the World Series (some nitwit actually wrote that). They blanked the pie-eyed Rays in Game 1 and had Messrs. Beckett and Lester coming back on full rest for Games 2 and 3. Ortiz spoke openly about the Rays having a "different look" on their faces in the playoffs.
Tampa recovered nicely in the 11-inning, 5 1/2-hour marathon Saturday night/Sunday morning, bleeding a run off 42-year-old Mike Timlin at 1:35 a.m.
Back home in Boston, the Sox awoke to a new tone Sunday. Francona was accused of taking stupid pills. Fans, talk jocks, and cynical scribes wondered about lineup possibilities and dubious bullpen deployment. Every Tito news conference became another chapter in "Defending Your Life."
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