2:49 p.m. April 15, 2013: Two bombs explode on Bolyston Street in Boston, near the finish line of the famed Boston Marathon. The blasts killed three people and injured over 200 others.
It’s been a long, heartbreaking year in New England. Within the year superstorm Sandy caused millions in damages and a mentally disturbed shooter killed 20 first graders and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school.
For all of its vices, sports have a unique way of bringing together a community following a tragedy. The New Yorker summed it up pretty well with a cartoon of a daughter and her father, both wearing matching Yankee hats and Red Sox shirts.
“Yes we like the Yankees, but today we’re all rooting for Boston.”
The celebration stretched from sea to shining sea when the Red Sox beat Detroit at Fenway to seal their trip to the World Series two weeks ago. The city, the region that has seen so much hardship over the past year finally had a reason to smile.
Champagne showers in the Fenway clubhouse taste all the sweeter for the Red Sox considering the path they’ve taken to get to this point.
The 2012 Red Sox, who were firmly planted at the bottom of the American League East at the conclusion of the season, posted their worst record in almost 50 years. It wasn’t pretty.
The wheels of the 2013 MLB season were already turning when the first of the two bombs exploded near the finish line on that fateful day. The Red Sox were 8-4, the product of some savvy offseason planning and a firm dose of organizational disappointment. The groundwork for a championship season was being laid as Superstorm Sandy.
Manager Bobby Valentine was promptly fired after the 2012 season, making way for John Farrell.
These bombers didn’t choose a sporting event randomly.
Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to compete in the iconic Boston Marathon, had to sneak onto the starting line by wearing a baggy shirt and sweatpants. When a race director tried to remove her forcibly from the course mid-race, the men running alongside her knocked him down.
These men didn’t care about equality. None of them were defending the statement she was trying to make. To those men, and the many who have taken on the fateful 26.2 miles in the years since that day, marathons are about the human spirit. They are about fighting, pounding, enduring. Switzer deserved to run for one reason: She had met those criteria many miles ago.
For the vast majority of competitors this race isn’t about winning, it’s not about speed and it surely isn’t about the money or fame associated with elite athletics.
“If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon,” Switzer wrote later.
This spirit is what the bombers were trying to destroy. This is also the one thing that Boston will never be willing to concede.
