F.B. Zinckle once said "Boston is often called the 'hub of the world,' since it has been the source and fountain of the ideas that have reared and made America."
Today, looking back, it can be argued that Boston is also the “hub of the sports world” as well.

In 1903 the Boston Pilgrims defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates five games to three in the inaugural World Series.  Over a century later the Boston Red Sox swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2004 edition.  

From Russell to Bird, Bobby Orr to Bourque, Flutie to Brady, and Teddy Baseball to Manny, the characters change but the story remains the same. Sports remain as much a part of the persona of Boston as its rich political history.  

The parquet floor, the green monster, Red Auerbach's victory cigar, these are synonymous with the trailblazing city which spearheaded the very foundation of this country.
 
This is Boston, America's greatest sports city.

Boston is a city that's stubborn, tough, and hopelessly devoted to its teams, sometimes to a fault.  It's a city founded by a people who crossed an ocean because of their religious convictions. Sports in Boston are a religion, and its gods are clad in kelly green, red, and black.

Where do you begin?  How can one truly put into words the passion of a city?  Picture this and maybe some of the city’s love and devotion for its sports heroes can be conveyed.  2001, a parade makes its way down a Boston street, there are thousands of people crowding the sidewalk, they are here for one reason, one man.  Former Bruin Ray Bourque is the guest of honor.  Riding along he displays Lord Stanley's Cup to the adoring fans.  In his tenure in Boston, the Bruins reached the playoffs in 17 straight seasons and made two Finals appearances, coming up short in both.  Two seasons prior to this day of joy, Bourque was traded to the Colorado Avalanche, and they had just defeated the New Jersey Devils to win the Cup.  Bourque has already taken a ride in Denver, displaying the Cup with Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg, but in some ways this is more satisfying.  This is a chance for him to show that Boston is always in his heart, and a chance for Boston to do the same.  Its stories like this one that illustrate Boston's love for its sports figures; the players and the city become synonymous.  Ray Bourque will always feel at home in Boston.

Ray Bourque may never have had the chance to parade around with the Cup as a Bruin, but Boston certainly has no shortage of championships, 31 in the four major sports to be exact.  But the four most recent championships have somewhat defined the city.  Most of the New England Patriots look like they could have grown up in South Boston.  Guys like Tedy Bruschi, Mike Vrabel, Ted Johnson, and Rodney Harrison are about as tough as they come.  Under the stone-cold demeanor of Bill Belichek, they have displayed true excellence over this four year run.  Boston is not a flashy city, the Pats are about as dry as a funeral drum.  It almost seems like they'd rather run through someone than around them.  They are blunt, and make no apologies if they smack you in the mouth.  Joining them at the summit were the 2004 Red Sox.  These "cowboys" and "idiots" captured their first championship in 86 years.  "86 years," it has become a staple of the sports jargon.  Couldn't you just see Johnny Damon and Kevin Millar at the Boston Tea Party, spitting in the face of authority?  This collection of characters were the polar opposite of their rivals the Yankees and with a little help from Jack Daniel's, (Millar and company took sips before Game 4 of the ALCS) made a miraculous comeback to defeat them on their way to the championship.
 
Excellence.  As the Patriots display excellence every Sunday in autumn, it was the Celtics who wrote the book.  From "Havlicek steals the ball" to "Bird with the steal, underneath to D.J." Celtic Pride has stood for excellence on and off the court, and no one summed it up more than Bill Russell.  Russell wasn't a big time scorer; he never averaged more than 19 points per game in his career.  Russell couldn't dazzle you with remarkable talent.  He did the dirty work, rebounds, blocked shots, oh yea and he won, a hell of a lot more than Wilt. From 1960 to 1969, Russell and his mates won nine titles.  Nine.  Jim Murray once described Russell like this, "Bill Russell is like Wellington to Waterloo.  Like Grant to Richmond.  Like the Russians to Stalingrad.  He is where the war ends."  The Garden was where team’s seasons went to die, and Russell was the general.  

But when we talk about guys like Russell, it's understood, this is Boston.  But there is a whole lot more to the equation.  Just as Indiana has high school basketball, Boston has its college hockey.  It is theirs.  It is a definitive part of the city.  Every year, college hockey's best annual tournament, the Beanpot takes place. Featuring the city's top hockey teams- Boston College, Boston University, Harvard, and Northeastern, it has become a city staple since 1952.  In the last 25 years three Harvard players and two Boston College players have won the Hobey Baker Award, given to the nation's top player.  Ten coaches from the big four have won the NCAA's coach of the year award since 1950.  They have won seven titles since the NCAA Hockey tournaments inception in 1948.
 
    
The Boston Marathon falls into the "great event but often overlooked" category.  It is an American tradition.  Since 1897, runners have competed in the marathon on Patriots Day.  On April 20, 1925, the Marathon became the first National Amateur Athletic Union Marathon Championship, acknowledging the prestige of the Boston race and the popularity of the distance. It has remained a staple of Patriots Day and of the American Spirit.

But of all of these overlooked events, none is more prevalent than Harvard and Yale football.  "Gentlemen, you are now about to play Harvard.  Never in your life will you do something so important," Yale coach Tad Jones once told his team.  It is the first rivalry in American sports.  In 1875, Harvard defeated Yale in what is commonly regarded as the first true game of American football.  In the first 40 years of collegiate play, Yale captured 11 championships, most of them coming at the expense of their rivals in crimson.  Of course, both teams have fallen from the national picture, but the spirit and passion still remain.  Beano Cook said every college football fan should attend at least one Harvard/Yale game.  "There is nothing like it."  

And oh by the way, there's the Boston Red Sox.  No team in any city is more beloved by its fans.  How can you really sum up this relationship between team and city?  Well, remember that kid?  The one in the home white Sox jersey and the navy Sox hat?  As Pedro and Manny, Millar and Shill celebrated on the field that October night last fall, FOX cut to Boston's Great American Bar.  Our friend was right there, center stage, national television.  He couldn't have been more than 22 or 23.  He grabs his hat with both hands, and then raises his hands up toward the ceiling.  No words could do justice to the expression on his face, but it seemed to represent the whole city of Boston.  You could see it, all the frustrations, all the years, all the tears were erased.  His father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather, our friend seemed to be speaking for them.  He was expressing the joy that so many Bostonians had longed for.  He was probably too young to remember Buckner, and wasn't alive when Fisk willed the ball to stay fair, but you know he had heard the stories over and over, the stories transcend people, and they become part of them.  Aaron Boone and Bucky Dent, Teddy Baseball and Shill's bloody sock, the tears and the joy, they are the people of Boston.  They carry these moments with them, and now they can carry the moment when Keith Foulke nabbed that chopper and tossed it to first for the final out of the 2005 World Series.  86 years.  Red Sox fans had waited 86 years to celebrate.  People were born, and people died.  The Yankees won 26 titles.  So many great players had come and gone.  Dean Smith, after winning his first NCAA title, questioned, "Am I a better coach now than I was two hours ago?"  One title doesn't exemplify the passion and love these people have for their Sox, they will have been the greatest fans in the world if they didn't win the Series for 186 years.  But last year was pretty special, and they deserved it.

    
The teams, the fans, the passion, they are at the highest level in Beantown, but the atmosphere is something special too.  The Fours, local Boston watering hole was voted best sports bar in America.  The taverns and pubs' walls are lined with jerseys and balls.  "You walk into the bars and you feel like you're walking into a friends house, and we're sitting down to watch the Sox game together, like a family sits down to eat dinner or something," as one Bostonian describes it.  Like Norm Peterson at Cheers, everyone knows you're name, and if not literally, everyone there knows, "he's my buddy, he's like me, and he loves our Sox."

Boston has given every sports fan so many immortal images, which have become part of what Boston is, and what it stands for.  Here are a few of those quintessential Boston moments.
 
    
On a muggy Florida evening, Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie solidified his place in history.  With about ten seconds, Flutie transformed from overachieving underdog to a legend.  Against mighty Miami, Flutie chucked the ball down the field in a last gasp attempt to topple the giants from the U.  And almost as if straight out of a fairy tale Gerald Phelan plucked Flutie's Hail Mary out of the air and the Eagles won the shootout in the Orange Bowl.  

May 10, 1970.  "Bobby ORR!!!!!!!!!!! Scores and the Boston Bruins have won the Stanley Cup!!!!!!!!!"  The greatest goal in NHL history.  One of the game's greats and Boston's greatest heroes flew parallel to the ground in one of the most memorable images in sports history.  The image hung in Boston Garden as a memory of the great Bruin defensemen.
 
The Garden turned into a mob scene in the 1962 Finals as Bob Cousey dribbled out the clock on the Lakers season and another Celtic championship run.  He tossed the ball up and was embraced from all sides.  He looked like a magician, and the play became part of Boston legend.  Speaking of legends, maybe no play was more memorable than Larry Legend's basket in Game One of the 1981 NBA Finals.  Bird grabbed the rebound on the run, and as he approached the out of bounds line switches the ball into his left hand and lays it in.  Red Auerbach called it, "the greatest play I've ever seen.”

    
Boston’s rich sports history cannot be defined by one article or one performance.  It is all of these stories, threaded together which make it America’s greatest sports city.  From tragedy to triumph, dynasties, tears, joy, heartbreak, the good, the bad, and the bizarre, no other city in America can match the passion of Boston and its fans.  The characters and stories change, but the passion will always be there.