Boston - Trans Sport of Delights - Per Ride Before the Fall

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We’ve been here in Boston a week now. Time to put a few thoughts together. This is a great city. Like all places, it’s even better when you have great weather. With blue skies every day and record temperatures (it hit 87F in the city) over the Columbus Day holiday weekend, we’ve been so lucky. It may all end in tears in a day or two, as the rain which flooded parts of Florida last weekend moves up the east coast. Part of the attraction of New England in the fall is the ‘riot of colour’ as the trees change. The word on the street (and in the Boston Globe) is that this is not the best year for foliage viewing. Yet. The fall and the colour gradually moves south during October but things are about three weeks behind schedule. Up in Vermont, where we may well be next week, the traditional Columbus Day weekend has had more people taking photos of the flood damage caused by Hurricane Irene than of the trees. So far, in two weeks we have not had a drop of rain fall on us. It’s been perfect golfing weather, but so far I’ve resisted the temptation - call that a veto - to tick off a few courses.


But golf or no golf, Boston is a sports city. Baseball, ice hockey, American football and basketball are not my sports, but I can relate to the loyalty, the passion and the pain shared by all true sports fans. The Redsox’ baseball season ended in tears, as they failed to make the end of season play-offs. They threw away their chance though a disastrous run of 20 losses in their final 27 games in September. The only consolation is that their arch-enemies, the New York Yankees (think Liverpool and Man U ) lost their play-off series 3-2 to the Detroit Tigers. Maybe the city of Detroit needs a lift more than Boston or New York.

The city trolley tour guide drove us past the Redsox’ home, Fenway Park (see above), the Lord’s or Lourdes of baseball, and was almost in tears as he gave us his state of the nation account. It emerges that there’s trouble at t’ mill at Fenway Park. Just as John Henry (owner of both Redsox and Liverpool) seems to have stabilised Liverpool, thanks to re-hiring King Kenny, the Redsox have been beset with all kinds of disaffection amongst management and players, just as they need to ‘stick together’. The money keeps rolling in, though. According to our bus guide, the Redsox have had ‘more than 700 straight sell-outs’. That’s more than Doncaster Rovers. At least 699 more, to be honest.

Our house is close to the Garden, (think Wembley Arena sitting on top of Waterloo Station) home of the league champion hockey team, the Boston Bruins. We happened to be walking home past the door on ‘opening night’ - first game of the new season.




The emotional night for fans, seeing the Stanley Cup being presented, was spoiled by the Philadelphia Flyers, who beat them 2-1. I was offered a ticket by a tout for 250. ‘Two dollars 50 sounds fair’, says I’. ‘No’, says he. ‘It’s two hundred and fifty’ . I didn’t tell him that I could have about eight evenings asleep at the New York Ballet for that money.

Football (US kind) is with the New England Patriots. They seem to be doing OK, but as they all have permanent concussion, they are probably unaware of whether they're winning or losing. The basketball season won't start on Nov 1st as planned, contractual mayhem abounds, so the Boston Celtics will probably extend their hols in Dunkin’ Donuts. Never sure whether the apostrophe is needed here. Maybe they don’t realise they need one. Maybe I’ll be an apostrophe salesman, offering a big discount to the DD chain, in exchange for cash and the occasional D’ohnut.....

One of the best things a visitor can do in Boston is a trolley tour. Although I like to think I can find out stuff for myself, sitting on a bus in the sunshine, being driven by a walking wikipedia is highly recommended. This is one of the hop-on, hop-off arrangements offered by a number of competing companies in Boston, including the famous ‘Duck Tours’ who transport on land and water. We opted for the most reputable and not the cheapest non-amphibian option, which turned out to be good value. For $34 for a wrinklie ticket, over two days we were treated to a feast of Bostonian trivia, by three skilled and knowledgeable people. And one hopeless case. The majority of drivers knew their stuff, loved their city and loved communicating their passion, staying endlessly patient in dense traffic. Unlike their hopeless colleague whose English was incomprehensible and who managed to communicate more rudeness than information. “Here you knour Harvard, it’s you knou very NobelPrize and best expensif and MIT 27 billion students and hi tech mush research you knou at 10 million dollar ver expensif what’s he doin can’t parking there yes soon get off leave window.” He said all the right words, but not necessarily in the right order. Bill, the Redsox fan, however, knew everything and tried to unload it all before he had to turn right again.
Seven things we learnt from Bill:
1. The Great Boston Molasses Disaster. In 1919, a large molasses storage tank burst, sending a 35mph tsunami of molasses through the streets of North End, killing 21 and injuring 150. Paul Revere was not involved.
2. March 17 is a public holiday in Boston. It commemorates the day in 1776 when British troops left Boston. The holiday is called Evacuation Day. The proposal for ‘Brown Trouser Day’ did not find favour.
3. In a bar on Tremont St, you can drink Sam Adams beer whilst looking across to Samuel Adams’ grave in the Granary Burying Ground
4. In 1797 Sam Adams was succeeded as Governor of Massachusetts by a man named Increase Sumner, after whom the tunnel from Logan Airport to the city is named. Did his mum know about the Big Dig in Boston, the cost of which, when finally paid off, will have increased (geddit?) by a factor of about 10?
5. You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can’t tell him much.
6. Harvard graduates include Matt Damon, Tom Lehrer, Jack Lemmon and Tommy Lee Jones. But not Pamela Anderson. Jeffrey Skilling (Enron) and Timothy Leary. Barack Obama and his dad, JFK, Bobby K, and George Dubya Bush.
7. In June 2011, Sarah Palin, on a visit to Boston, referred to Paul Revere as the man who rode to Lexington to warn British troops.

Getting around Boston is easy. Feet are cheap and get you to the middle of Boston in half an hour. Our walk in takes us through the Paul Revere Park (what else could you call it?), across the locks, through the Boston Police car and boat park, to North Station/The Garden. From the police car park, there’s a great view of the traffic on Interstate 93 as it climbs up onto the Leonard P. Hakim Bunker Hill Bridge (see pic below) or dives into the tunnel under the city known as the Big Dig. (see above).
We have a bus service, too, which drops us at Downtown Crossing near Boston Common in about 10 minutes. Best of all is the ferry across the harbour to the city from the Charlestown Navy Yard. For $1.70 a trip, it’s a bargain and a half. Boston has the oldest subway system in the USA, run as part of a vast transport network by the Massachusetts Bay Transport Authority, the MTBA or ‘T’ as it’s known and logoed. When buying our first top-up Charliecard (think London Oystercard) I asked a T man “Whats the difference between a Charlie Ticket and a Charliecard?” (not having read it properly). “Thirty cents” he replied, accurately and crushingly. You load up the free card with cash (cash not card) to the value of x trips at $1.70 a trip. Beep your card at the barrier or on the bus and you’re good to go. Got a mate with you? Beep it twice. Waiting for the inevitable moment - it’ll be dark, cold and raining,when the friendly beep turns into a ‘No deal’ noise and the driver kicks us off the bus in a dodgy part of town.
At North Station, getting a Charliecard, I was in snap-happy mood and gleefully took the above picture. I then realised that the word that caught my eye was not Doncaster. Must clean those specs.

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