There are ticking time bombs scattered in the cities harboring many professional sport franchises.

They sit like a singing elephant on a street corner. No one really wants to acknowledge it. And when they do, they often do so in self-deprecating tones.

These bombs — the pent-up frustration of a metropolis’ insufferable championship drought — have been known to flip over a car or two upon detonation.

And yet, they cannot be defused by simply snipping the red wire. Or is it the blue?

The fallout of the 2004 bomb the Red Sox set off in Boston rained fallout of widespread relief, divine thankfulness and a newfound tidal wave of chowdah-accented arrogance.

Bombs such as these lie just beneath the psyche of a city and fester until a guy — a bayou-born-and-bred boy, really — like New Orleans Saints’ cornerback Tracy Porter sneaks up from behind one of these weapons of mass deprivation and uses all 186-pounds of his 5-foot-11-inch frame to smack it with a ball-peen hammer.

And a city explodes.

(more…)

There are ticking time bombs scattered in the cities harboring many professional sport franchises.

They sit like a singing elephant on a street corner. No one really wants to acknowledge it. And when they do, they often do so in self-deprecating tones.

These bombs — the pent-up frustration of a metropolis’ insufferable championship drought — have been known to flip over a car or two upon detonation.

And yet, they cannot be defused by simply snipping the red wire. Or is it the blue?

The fallout of the 2004 bomb the Red Sox set off in Boston rained fallout of widespread relief, divine thankfulness and a newfound tidal wave of chowdah-accented arrogance.

Bombs such as these lie just beneath the psyche of a city and fester until a guy — a bayou-born-and-bred boy, really — like New Orleans Saints’ cornerback Tracy Porter sneaks up from behind one of these weapons of mass deprivation and uses all 186-pounds of his 5-foot-11-inch frame to smack it with a ball-peen hammer.

And a city explodes.

(more…)