These Championships Are All My Children

Over the past few days, the call banks on sports talk radio here in Boston have lit up with a new topic -- which Boston team's championship run was the greatest.

Some say the Bruins' Stanley Cup victory over Vancouver this past week  trumps them all. Others point to the 2004 Red Sox or the 2001-02 Patriots or the 2007-08 Celtics. Then the callers argue with each other and swap insults.

This truly is a thought-provoking question, and I have the definitive answer:

Who the fuck cares?

We've been incredibly blessed the past decade here in Boston. Since February 2005, each of Boston's four major pro sports teams -- Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins -- have won a championship. No other city has won titles in all four sports in such a short period of time. In the 9 1/2 years since February 2002, the four teams have combined for seven championships.

Why pick? They were all great.

Why should I have to choose between the Patriots run to Super Bowl 36, when an unknown sixth-round pick named Tom Brady took over at quarterback when Drew Bledsoe suffered what could have been a life-threatening injury, Bill Belichick had to suspend his best wide receiver, and coached a 19th-ranked offense and 24th-ranked defense to victory in three playoff games over prohibitive favorites; or a team that won Super Bowl 38 despite leading the league in man-games lost to injury and an anemic running game; or a team that won Super Bowl 39 despite being so banged up defensively that for a couple of games they started wide receiver Troy Brown and a guy named Earthwind Moreland at cornerback, and played the playoffs without Ty Law and Richard Seymour.

Why should I have to choose between the 2004 Red Sox, who traded Nomar in July and went on a tear, rallying from three games to none against the hated Yankees in the 2004 ALCS, to break an 86-year title drought; and a 2007 Red Sox team that was in first place in the AL East wire-to-wire, and rallied from three games to one against Cleveland before beating Colorado in the World Series?

Why should I have to choose between any of those teams and a Celtics team that went from 24 wins (the second-worst record in the league) and got screwed in the draft lottery to a 67-win team that beat the Lakers in the 2008 NBA Finals; or a Bruins team that broke a 39-year Stanley Cup drought, rallying twice from two-game-to-none deficits against Montreal and Vancouver and in the process becoming the first team in NHL history to win three Game 7s in the playoffs?

Any time a Boston team wins a championship, it's a happy day in my life. I refuse to choose between any of them. They were all great, and these championships are all my children.