How To Be A New York Sports Fan In Boston

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In light of Darrelle Revis signing with the New York Jets (from the New England Patriots, LOL), I saw this as a perfect opportunity to provide some insight on how to traverse these cold Boston streets as a New York sports fan.

Full disclosure: I love Boston, but I’m a New York Knicks and New York Jets fan.  If baseball wasn’t trash, I’d probably be a New York Yankees fan seeing as how I was born and raised in the Bronx (and the blue Yankee fitted is a-black-dude-in-the-early-mid 2000s fashion staple), but alas, baseball is hot basura.  If you think otherwise and want to have a heated discussion on “tradition,” please go outside and argue with a mailbox. I also first arrived in Boston in 2005 — they’ve won a few championships since then.

Shocker: Boston sports fans are the biggest band of assholes on the planet

“I would tell you how to get to the Pru [Prudential Center building], but you’re wearing a Yankee hat, so I’m not going to”

Heard this my first week in the city when I was lost as fuck.  No surprise, but people are genuinely dicks about their sports teams here. Just plain, unabashed assholes. I know this because I was around when Boston sports were still “cursed” and even with that chip on their shoulder, they took any opportunity to attack you. If you’re thinking, “Hey Dub, you’re black, that dude was probably racist,” I’ll tell you to shut up because, honestly, from my experience, I’ve had zero race-related issues in my 10 years here. VERY tolerant city with a bad history. And asshole sports fans, of course.

Don’t let them trick you into swaying your NYC-sports fan-hood

Since I’ve been here, I’m pretty sure Boston sports teams have won a million championships. TawM Brady this, Pawl Pierce that. It’s been pretty awful from a New York fan perspective, but I’m not going to hate. All of their championship teams were incredible and had exciting runs. But here’s my point — don’t let a Boston fan hear you commending their teams, management, or players and expect them not to make a “you should join us if you want” comment. If you take the high road, they try to recruit you. If you fight back, you’ll probably get beat up.  Stay strong.

No, seriously, stay strong

Good times are upon us, everyone. Okay, that may be a lie, but optimism is the best strategy here.  Aside from hockey, playoffs are a somewhat distant memory for many of the sports teams in New York. Hell, the Knicks’ win percentage is currently 0.190. Glass half-full, it’s really difficult to do worse than that. That’s how you need to view things until Boston fans get humbled. Note: whiskey does in fact help.

Take your wins when you can and enjoy the shit out of them

These don’t happen too much, so grab hold of them tight and talk as much shit as humanly possible before the feeling expires. Yeah, I know I mentioned taking the high road earlier, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I’ve been talking a gang of shit to every New England Patriots fan I know since the Revis signing. Super Bowl? Dude that was WEEKS ago — shit’s not even in my cerebellum anymore, bruh.

Be super petty about everything bad that happens to their teams

As much as I hated the entire process, I basically became a physicist during the whole deflate-gate saga. I knew everything about PSI, how temperature effects the ball, and that Tom Brady started dating Giselle while Bridget Moynihan was pregnant with his baby but WE SUDDENLY STOPPED MENTIONING THAT. See? That was petty as fuck. Downright uncalled for. But that is how you have to be in this environment. People are going to see you on the street wearing your team apparel with pride and come with some verbal heat that could leave you in tears. A good roaster knows that they need to roast before being roasted, especially when the other person has more ammo.

Again, I’ve been here 10 years and love this place. Beautiful city full of great, hard-working people that also happen to be abysmal/insufferable sports fans.

To wrap things up, I’ll leave you with this highly-appropriate quote from the illustrious and ever so hateful Silky Johnson:

Dear Boston sports fans,

“First of all, I wanna thank God for giving everybody so much, and me, so little. I hate you, I hate you, and I don’t even know you and I hate your guts. I hope all the bad things in life happen to you, and nobody else, but you. And as I stand here sippin’ the soda that I’m sure somebody spit in, I just wanna say yall can kiss my ass you rotten motha-fuckas.”