2015 was the year of the absurd in Boston sports
People cast shadows on a video display before a news conference explaining Boston’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics in Boston. (Reuters Photo)
COMMENTARY
There were points during 2015 when we wondered if there was a hidden camera somewhere.
It was a sports year both ludicrous and bizarre, often leaving us asking when the running gag was going to run its course. So much ventured away from the norm in New England, which, you know, managed to celebrate a fourth Super Bowl trophy in the midst of all the percolating absurdity.
Boston won — and lost — the United States Olympic Committee’s hearts, while the NFL went full bore — and what a bore it became— into allegations that the New England Patriots won the AFC with the use of deflated footballs. It was a pair of seemingly-never-ending sagas that ultimately defined the year that was. For better or worse, by which we mean, “worse.’’
Parts fascinating and foolish, “Deflategate’’ and “Boston 2024’’ both dominated the discussion in 2015, partly bred on each headline’s unpredictable beginning in the early stages of the year, snowballing through one of this region’s most powerful winters on record, and finally dying like a summer romance with only periodic whispers of a revival in 2016.
Well, for one at least. Boston’s foolhardy pursuit of the 2024 Summer Games perished in a blaze of the city’s rush to sanity back in July, ending months of speculation, half-truths, and poor planning.
If we needed any reminder, Boston knows when it’s being swindled and lied to, a fact made known by the public’s indifference or outright disbelief of the numbers and promises that the Boston Olympic Committee insisted were possible. In actuality, the whole farce was thrown together with less discretion than what to serve a hungry frat house for dinner.
But if Boston 2024 could highlight its biggest mistake, it probably would have been its errant assumption that the sports-thirsty region would react with an “all-in’’ mentality of showcasing Boston on a world stage, which…well, doesn’t really speak to the general personality of a city that doesn’t give a damn what others think or feel about it. The word “Olympics’’ was supposed to be a Pavlovian bell that rang, which only begins to underscore the underestimation that Boston 2024 had for the tax-paying population it insisted that it wouldn’t have to lean on in order to win over the International Olympic Committee.
(Globe Staff/Jim Davis)
It never got there. Boston 2024’s incompetency was ultimately its undoing. In a way, so was Deflategate’s, and yet the Dumbest Controversy of 2015 has managed to still find a way to breathe, promising a return to the courtroom next spring.
In his pursuit of the “truth’’ for the “integrity’’ of a game littered with scandals stemming from the silencing of CTE allegations, domestic abuse situations, and the tiny matter that its product has become such a watered-down fantasy paradise that the game we once knew is hardly visible these days, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell morphed himself into a national punchline. His no holds barred pursuit of Tom Brady and the New England Patriots may have played well in certain NFL circles where other team owners are suspicious of the continued sting of excellence on Route 1. But by the time things got to Judge Richard Berman, even the biggest Goodell brownnoser had to wonder what the end game for the commissioner was going to be.
All Brady has done since team owner Bob Kraft kowtowed to his fellow owners and gave in to Goodell’s punishment demands is help lead his team to a 12-2 record, a first-round playoff bye, with more to come, hopefully, including, an uncomfortable week with Mr. Goodell in Santa Clara, Calif., home of Super Bowl 50.
Rendering of Widett Circle after the Olympic Games. (Boston 2024)
How else to convey the sheer absurdity of Deflategate than to argue it was the biggest story in Boston sports for 2015?
Bigger than Malcolm Butler’s interception. Bigger than John Farrell’s health. Bigger than replacing Peter Chiarelli, the emergence of the young Celtics, and the record dollars given to David Price.
Yup.
Instead, we debated the veracity of PSI tests in different weather conditions, and argued the pros and cons of the Ideal Gas Law. The Wells Report became must-read material, even if 75 percent of it was unreadable. We wondered aloud how long it might take to deflate a bag of footballs in a bathroom.
In fact, according to the Washington Post, it was the story that had the most impact across the country in 2015, leaving the unanswered question, “What’s wrong with us?’’
“It’s hard to know what is more remarkable,’’ Des Bieler wrote, “that DeflateGate became such a dominant story line, or that the saga isn’t even over yet. The NFL is currently appealing a federal judge’s decision in September to overturn Tom Brady’s four-game suspension for his alleged role in a scheme to deflate footballs before January’s AFC Championship game, and that decision, by yet another federal court, won’t be made until March.’’
Neat.
It was that kind of year.
It was absurd.
Contact Eric Wilbur at: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @GlobeEricWilbur and Facebook www.facebook.com/GlobeEricWilbur
How newspaper front pages covered Boston’s Olympic end
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