New England sports fans tend to be fickle. That is not news. Local sports fans can be on top of the world one day (New Orleans, February 3, 2002), and be booing the lights out of the home team just eight months later (Foxboro, pick any NFL Sunday this past October). We can have a runaway NHL leader (Boston Bruins, November, 2002), and just two six weeks later find ourselves spewing catcalls at a team that has proceeded to go 2-9-1 in its last dozen games. We can shower our roundball heroes with accolades from here to Springfield, but when they start losing to the Miamis, Chicagos, and Washingtons of the world, their Eastern Conference runner-up spot is long forgotten. And the Red Sox? Well, frankly, they deserve the invectives hurled their way.

Yes, if you listen to a New England sports fan rant long enough, you’d think that we live in a God-forsaken sports town where nothing good ever happens, a place where the players and owners are partners in buffoonery, and that we are the laughingstock of the nationwide sports community.

That, of course, is far from the truth. For the next three weeks, at least, we have the defending Super Bowl champion in our midst; we have second-place teams in both the NBA and NHL, with both off to reasonably solid starts; and we have a 93-win baseball team that again expects to be competitive against the Evil Empire and all other comers in the wild and wacky Eastern Division of the American League. And don’t even forget the MSL soccer league runners-up, the Revolution, and our local collegiate teams, which include hockey and basketball powers BC, BU, Providence, UConn, and UMass.

It’s also very easy to forget the glorious history of some of our regional teams, which include 16 championship banners for the Celtics, consistent upper-echelon play for the Bruins and Red Sox, and three Super Bowl appearances in the last 16 years for the Flying Elvises.

So before we get down on ourselves over the slumps of the B’s and C’s, the mastery that Darth Steinbrenner and his Death Star have over the local hardball franchise, and the failure of the defending Lombardi Trophy holders to advance to the post-season, let’s look at some towns where they really have it bad, particularly today.

Cleveland: The Browns have never been to a Super Bowl, and though they were certainly a long shot this year after losing their star quarterback to a broken leg, they held a bloomin’ 24-7 third-quarter lead at Pittsburgh Sunday. The Browns had a solid championship history (eight NFL titles) before the implementation of the Super Bowl format in 1967, but it’s been constant heartbreak ever since. Let’s not even talk about this football-crazy city losing its team for three years in the ’90s. Including Sunday’s defeat, Browns fans have been treated to four of the most crushing playoff defeats ever, including 1981 (Brian Sipe intercepted in the end zone when a field goal could have won it); 1986 (Elway’s 98-yard "Drive"); and 1988 (Earnest Byner’s fumble at the one-yard line). Sunday’s debacle was no less painful, but at least it didn’t prevent the team from a Super Bowl berth, as the others did. In baseball, the Indians lost two World Series in the ’90s, including a game-seven bottom-of-the-ninther when their ace closer blew the save as the ’97 Tribe proceeded to lose to the Marlins in extra frames. The Indians have not won a World Series since 1948, which is a long time unless you consider the fates of a different cursed franchise. In addition, Indians management has now lost or traded all of its high-priced superstars, and the current team is destined for the basement in the coming year(s). Cleveland’s Cavaliers are currently 7-28 — the NBA’s worst team right now, and holder of a recent 15-game losing streak. Luckily for the city, they don’t have an NHL franchise, because the karma seems to be lacking.

Cincinnati: In the other corner of Ohio resides another pitiful sports town, a city that has no pro basketball, hockey, or football franchise. What’s that? They have a pro football team? Well, it’s in name only, because the woebegone Bengals are the butt of jokes everywhere. Cincinnati played in two of the most exciting Super Bowls ever — losing to the Joe Montana–led 49ers both times in the ’80s — but since then, its record has been: 8-8, 9-7, 3-13, 5-11, 3-13, 3-13, 7-9, 8-8, 7-9, 3-13, 4-12, 4-12, 6-10, 2-14. Just imagine being a fan of a team that generates such seasons on a yearly basis. It seems to get the top pick of the NFL draft each year, and still manages to bungle it and fail to improve. In baseball, the Reds have underachieved for a number of years now, and even the trade that brought hometown hero Ken Griffey Jr. has failed to spark the once-illustrious franchise to greatness.

Green Bay: There were predictions prior to this NFL season that a return to the Super Bowl was possibly in the cards for the Pack, but a dismal finish — capped by a 27-7 home loss to Atlanta over the weekend — sent Green Bay packing for another season. Understand that other than Milwaukee’s mediocre Brewers and Bucks and the University of Wisconsin football (and recently, basketball) programs, there is no other major sports team or franchise to root for in this state. In Green Bay, where the team is actually owned by the residents of the town, it is the Packers, and then there is the off-season. Since Brett Favre came to town the Pack has been competitive, and even won a Super Bowl (over New England) in 1997, but that was their only championship since Super Bowl II, and they endured a long streak from 1972 to 1993 where they didn’t win one division championship, and reached the playoffs only once. When your team gets off to a 12-3 start and has a chance to clinch a bye and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs with one last win, one tends to get one’s hopes up. But then — then — when said team loses that opportunity with a final-game bludgeoning, then blows the opening playoff game, it means nothing more than another long, cold winter in eastern Wisconsin. Brrrr.

Miami: It’ll take a lot to get Patriots fans to feel sorry for their Floridian NFL brethren, but this city’s going through some tough times sports-wise. First you have the Dolphins — another trendy Super Bowl pick this year — crashing and burning in the final two weeks of the regular season and missing out on the playoffs altogether. In addition, the Fins haven’t been to the Super Bowl since 1985, and haven't won it since 1973. The University of Miami football team — winners of 34 straight games and the defending NCAA National Champion — lost a heartbreaker in the BCS title game on Friday. The NBA Heat are in last place in the NBA’s East at 12-20, and the NHL’s Panthers are in fourth place in their division with a 12-12-9 mark. Finally, the area’s pro-baseball team, the Marlins, have not been close to the post-season since their fluke Series title in 1997, and not only are they penny-pinchers, but nobody comes out to see the team that the penny-pinchers put out on the field.

We could go on and on with some of these sad-sack sports cities, including such venues as Buffalo (where the Sabres, the city’s only pro team, are being run by the NHL because of ownership bankruptcy, and a move out of the area is likely); Indianapolis (whose " playoff " team just lost over the weekend, 41-0); Chicago (long-suffering in nearly every sport since Michael Jordan left town); and St. Louis (its football team quickly went in the tank this season when three years ago all signs seemed to point to it becoming an NFL "dynasty"), but let’s not.

Finally, there are probably no fans sadder today than those of the New York football Giants, who bounced back from an inexplicable loss to the expansion Texans to rally late in the season and capture four straight wins and a playoff berth. They went cross-country to meet a struggling 49ers team in the wild-card playoffs, where New York streaked out to a 38-14 lead. From that point on, in the game’s final 19 minutes, the Giants offense — the NFC’s second-ranked offense — proceeded to get shut out, and the NFL’s ninth-ranked defense allowed the 49ers to score 25 unanswered points to escape with a thrilling 39-38 victory. Throw in some New York special-teams miscues, inane penalties, and questionable late-game play-calling, and you have a mother of a defeat.

No reason ever to feel sorry for New York sports fans, but from a town that knows heartbreak on a first-name basis, you’ve got to feel for some of the most loyal fans in all of sports when defeat is so rudely snatched from the jaws of victory.

Final note: Construction has begun on Lansdowne Street outside of Fenway Park to begin the creation of fan seating atop the Green Monster, and with this turn of events, nothing will ever be the same again.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com