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The country’s top-10 sports towns
BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Last spring was the first time we did this type of column, and it seems apropos to make it an annual thing, since each year a city’s teams get better or worse, thus changing the shape of its sports being. As in the past, rankings are based on a city’ sports franchises' strength and level of fan support; whether their teams are on the ups or the downs; and, consequently, whose squads have the best hopes for post-season play and glittering trophies.

Last year we concluded that our own fair city of Boston — based on the post-season appearances by the Bruins, Celtics, and Patriots (who won it all in 2002), along with the 40-19 start by the '02 Red Sox — topped the list. Months later, even The Sporting News agreed. Where does the Hub rank this year? Let’s take a look.

10. St. Louis, unquestionably a great sports town, takes a bit of a hit because it has no pro-basketball team. Otherwise, it has some decent things going for it. Its hockey team made the playoffs for the 24th straight season, but the Blues haven’t made the Stanley Cup finals since 1970, when Bobby Orr and the Big Bad Bruins swept ’em. The team’s always pretty good, but never quite good enough to reach any lofty heights. The baseball team, picked by many to win the NL pennant, is only two games above .500 and is tied for second in the now-mediocre NL Central. The Cardinals are blessed to have arguably the most passionate fans in the game, but it’s been 16 years since their last World Series appearance, and they’ve had a knack for underachieving lately. The Rams played were NFC champs just 15 months ago, but last year’s 7-9 meltdown was a huge disappointment. Nearly all vestiges of the potential Rams dynasty are now pretty much gone, and the team that played in two of the last four Super Bowls is now in rebuilding mode.

9. Another city that is one pro team short is Seattle, but its three other teams are decent enough to warrant inclusion here. Granted, the football Seahawks were only 7-9 last season, and they haven’t been in the playoffs for a good long time, but head coach Mike Holmgren has shed his GM duties and can now concentrate on simply running the team, which won its last three contests to finish out the 2002 season. The SuperSonics finished just 40-42 and missed the playoffs, but they’re in great salary-cap shape — and any team without Vin Baker and Kenny Anderson on the books would bound to be — and they have the 12th and 14th picks in the NBA draft next month. Finally, what put the Emerald City on this list at all is the super-duper performance out of the box of the Seattle Mariners, who have the American League’s best record at 34-18, and despite playing in baseball’s toughest division, seem to be playing at nearly the same level as the team that won 114 regular-season games two years ago.

8. Phoenix. Out there in the desert — the new home of former Sox third baseman Shea Hillenbrand — there has been little to cheer about since the Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series. After all, the hoop team finished as only the eighth seed in the NBA playoffs (though they gave the Finals-bound Spurs a scare and boasted the league’s top rookie in Amaré Stoudemire), and the Suns have a lot of work to do to return to the league’s elite. The hockey team was 31-35-11-5, finishing 11th in the Western Conference and missing out on the playoffs despite prognostications that had them pegged as a team destined for great things. The football team has been putrid for as long as anyone can remember, and the team that just went 5-11 lost its supposed best player — QB Jake Plummer — to free agency by way of Denver. Finally, the D-Backs have seen their pitching staff decimated by injury, and the team picked by many to perhaps return to the World Series is just 24-29 and seeing its post-season hopes fading fast.

7. Not too much good news has come out of Denver, either, in the past few months, but that doesn’t mean that its fortunes are not on the up-and-up. First, the bad news: the NBA Nuggets tied with Cleveland for the league’s worst record (17-65); the NHL Avalanche — picked by many to win their third Cup this year — lost in the second round of the playoffs despite defending champ Detroit being knocked off in the opening round; and the NFL Broncos didn’t even make the playoffs. Now, the good news: the Nuggets have the third overall pick in the NBA draft (presumably Syracuse phenom Carmelo Anthony) and plenty of cap room; the Avalanche are still loaded with talent despite the retirement of goaltender extraordinaire Patrick Roy; and the Broncos now have two top-flight QBs in Plummer and Brian Griese on a team that finished 9-7 in the AFC’s toughest division. By the way, there is a baseball team here in the Mile-High city, but at 27-27 it is the definition of mediocre, and has been throughout its 11-year existence.

6. Bet you didn’t think that the New York entry would be this low. There is no lacking for passionate fans and quality teams here, but the good teams are too often cancelled out by the lousy teams, and, let's face it: the best teams are the ones playing across the river in East Rutherford, NJ. Nonetheless, territorially we have to include the Jerseyites in this metropolitan sports ranking (and northern Jersey by itself would probably top the rankings if not for their lack of a hardball team and the "New York" moniker which precedes its two football teams), and they make up four of the region’s eight teams. Let’s zoom through this: in hoops, the New Jersey Nets are headed to the NBA Finals for the second straight year, but the Manhattan-based Knicks flat-out stink. In hockey, the New Jersey Devils head into the weekend with a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Finals over surprising Anaheim, but the payroll-heavy NY Rangers missed the playoffs for the sixth straight season. The Long Island–based NY Islanders continue to improve, but they were only a game over .500 this season and barely made the playoffs. In baseball: Yankees good but not great, Mets bad and getting worse, despite the top two payrolls in all of baseball. And finally, in football, both residents of Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands Complex were impressive, with the Jets (9-7) reaching the second round of the playoffs (but enduring a dismal off-season roster-wise) and the tough-luck Giants (10-6) getting screwed over by an official’s call in the wild-card round against the Niners. Old news? Not to Giants fans, who continue to stew nearly five months later.

5. Here in the late springtime, with the Tigers as baseball’s undisputed worst team at 13-38, I’m sure you’re saying, "How in the sam hill can Detroit be the fifth-best sports town?" Well, Sparky, the fact is that in spite of the town’s baseball woes, Motown has two of professional sports’ most successful franchises in recent years in the Red Wings and Pistons. The Wings, despite surprisingly getting ousted by the Mighty Ducks in the NHL playoffs’ opening round, collected 110 points in the regular season, and have won three Cups in the past seven years. The Pistons had their second straight disappointing playoff appearance, but they’ve won two straight Central Division crowns, and were the East’s top seed in the playoffs before getting swept in the conference finals by the Nets. Finally, the NFL Lions — while going just 3-13 after a 2-14 2001 season — can’t get much worse, can they? Plus, with the recent addition of #2 overall draft pick Charles Rogers, now last year’s top pick Joey Harrington will have someone decent to throw to.

4. For football-crazy Dallas, the Big D in town was the disappointment associated with the Cowboys’ dismal season. Nonetheless, last year’s 5-11 performance spurred the Cowpokes on to hire coaching legend Bill Parcells to run the show, and aging running back Emmitt Smith was let go to open up spots for a more youthful scamperer in the backfield. So there’s hope there (unfortunately for Cowboy-haters), but the real reason Dallas has the fourth spot on the list is, like Detroit, its hockey and hoops teams. The Stars followed the Red Wings’ lead and were dispatched by the Ducks in the NHL playoffs, but leading up to that they had earned the league’s second-best record at 46-17-15-4. Even better, the hoops team got all the way to the Conference Finals, and if not for forward Dirk Nowitzki getting hurt in Game 4 against San Antonio, the talented Mavs may have had a shot at the NBA Finals. And lest we forget, while the Texas Rangers are currently in last place in the AL West, they are only 25-27 in baseball’s toughest division and have one of the most explosive offenses in the game. Too bad about that pitching, though.

3. Another huge geographic area grounds the #3-rated sports metropolis, as the San Francisco entry must also include neighboring Oakland and San Jose. The basketball fans in the Bay Area continue to suffer, as their Warriors collected only 38 wins, but that was still a 17-game improvement over the previous season. Nonetheless, this steadily improving team has had just five winning seasons in its last 21, and none in its last nine. The hockey team, down the way in San Jose, went from Pacific Division champ in 2001-2002 to last place, as the Sharks tumbled all the way down to 14th-best in the 15-team conference. Changes in store? You think? Brighter horizons exist for the baseball teams, with the defending league champion Giants in first place in the NL West and the A’s in second place in the AL West. The revamped Giants seem even better than the team that lost to Anaheim in the seventh game of the World Series last October, and the A’s will likely fight the Sox or Yanks for the wild-card berth this September. Finally, the 49ers got all the way to the NFC Conference semifinals before losing to eventual champion Tampa Bay, and the aging Raiders actually reached the Super Bowl before getting annihilated by the Bucs (sniffle!).

2. The defending champs have been dethroned, as Boston has fallen to the runner-up spot. Why? Well, there’s no defending Super Bowl champ in our midst, and the Patriots didn’t even make the playoffs (although they had the same record as the playoff-bound Jets). Nonetheless, New England has made some nice off-season improvements, but will face tough challenges in the always-tough AFC East. The Bruins and Celtics both made the playoffs, although the seventh-seeded B’s got steamrolled by the Finals-bound Devils in the first round and the Celtics got blanked in four by the Finals-bound Nets (who have won 10 straight playoff games to get to this point). Boston’s hold on this second spot is a marginal one, and it hinges solely on the fortunes of the first-place Red Sox, who are 31-21 heading into the weekend. Sure, it’s not a 40-19 start like last year, but the Sox have taken advantage of the Yankees’ struggles, and on a nightly basis trot out baseball’s second-best offensive line-up. The return of Pedro Martinez from the DL and the injection of Byung-Hyun Kim into the rotation should bolster the team’s fortunes, but with the pinstripers playing at woeful Detroit and the Sox visiting red-hot Toronto, Boston’s stay atop the AL East could be brief.

1. And finally, a new champion. Even the never-satisfied Philadelphia fans should take some measure of contentment from the fact that all four of their city’s teams are among the premier teams in their respective sports. Sure, the Flyers continued their underachieving ways, getting knocked out by Ottawa in the second round of the playoffs, but at least they got to the second round. The 76ers, meanwhile, also got to the second round of the playoffs before losing out to the top-seeded Pistons. The Sixers are in the market for a new coach, but they’ve still got Allen Iverson, and his presence continues to lead this team beyond its means. The Phillies revamped their roster this past off-season and after a long hiatus are back in contention, although their 28-25 record — third in the NL East — is probably less sparkling than the long-suffering Philly fans would have hoped for, given the wads of cash that Phillies management handed out to its free-agent signees. And if those three successful teams aren’t enough for one fan base, don’t forget about the football Eagles, who got to the NFC title game for the second straight year before falling at home to the eventual champs. The Eagles, who many feel will be right in the hunt again this season, are also moving into a new stadium, so the NFL’s most critical fans — they even booed Santa Claus a few years back — will have some fancy new digs in which to hoot and holler.

There you have it, sports fans. One man’s opinion, certainly due to raise some hackles in some circles. Nonetheless, that’s the way I see ’em, and you folks in LA had better not complain that your city isn’t listed.

For as long as the nation’s second-largest city doesn’t have an NFL team — or put forth the reasonable effort it would take to re-secure one — then you can hardly call yourself a sports town at all, Ducks and Angels be damned.

Another half-caf latte espresso grande here! And a bratwurst!

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

 

Issue Date: May 30, 2003
"Sporting Eye" archives: 2003 |2002

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