Columnists Shoot, Miss on Celtics

As has been well documented in the past month, we’ve got some issues with the columnists in this town. After John Gonzalez took them to task for their schmaltzy pieces, Kevin Cullen showed some signs of life when he fought back, which we applauded.

Apparently, Cullen didn’t hear our praise, probably because he doesn’t quite understand the internet. But that’s just the beginning of the ways in which our city’s columnists don’t comprehend what the Celtics victory means to Boston.

In his column today, Cullen writes from Ireland.

So I get off the big green bird early Wednesday and I ask the first person I see, a little guy selling newspapers in Dublin Airport, who won the Celtics game and he goes, “Celtic? You mean the football team?

 

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, says I.

So I walk out of the terminal and I go to the place to get the bus to take me to South County Dublin where the girls have posh accents and I ask the bus driver did he know who won the Celtics game and your man was Polish and didn’t speak much English but that’s Ireland these days.

We haven’t been there in a while, but we’re pretty sure they have the internet in Ireland. You could have loaded up Boston.com and had the score as soon as you could find an internet cafe. Or, you know, stayed in the city, if you cared so much.

Things aren’t much better over at the Herald. Indentured radio servant and all-around miserable human being Howie Carr makes like Keith Foulke and calls sports fans fast-food working homers.

I love the idiots who throng into Boston for these parades. Duh, they say, I’m takin’ da day off. The day off from what? The methadone clinic? If you were wondering why it took so long to get an order of fries at McDonald’s, I have two words for you. Sweet Seventeen.

It’s the usual Howie tripe, but with one twist—he doesn’t rhetorically ask if WRKO is hiring.

Adrian Walker comes closest to getting the point.

To watch yesterday was to be reminded that so much of the appeal of sports is communal. However superficially, or contrived, the fun of sports is in sharing it with friends, neighbors, even strangers. The reason the parades never seem old is that people never tire of having an excuse to come together.

Aside from the enthusiasm of the players, perhaps the most striking thing about yesterday’s parade was the crowd’s diversity. There were black kids from Dorchester and white kids from Wellesley. Red-haired kids with thick Southie accents and Kangol hats cheered alongside office workers who were on long lunches. Yes, Howie, even some people from the methadone clinic probably came out.

Even more than the Patriots and Red Sox celebrations, the Celtics celebration brought all the disparate groups that live in Boston for one day, and that deserves to be celebrated. It’s too bad the city’s columnists missed the party, not to mention the story.