Now that the Celtics have won the NBA title I can say something I don't think I've ever been able to say before: The last championship in each of the four major sports was won by a team I hate. Sure, I've watched teams I hate win championships before, but I've always had other sports with champions I liked to cheer me up. No longer is that the case. Over the last eight months there's been a clean sweep of championships won by teams I make a point never to root for.

I knew it was going to happen once the Lakers and Celtics clinched their respective conference titles, as I despise both teams. I had a feeling back in December that David Stern was going to orchestrate a Lakers-Celtics NBA Finals, so I can't say I didn't see it coming. I didn't watch one second of the phony Finals, but I had to hear about the results of each game due to a co-worker who was rooting hard for the Celtics and couldn't stop talking about them. I tried to explain to him that most of the Boston fans you come into contact with on the internet are insufferable jerks who think the world revolves around them, but he cared more about seeing Kevin Garnett get a ring than the sickening idea that those loudmouthed New Englanders (and the bandwagoners they've picked up over the last six years) get to experience the height of success yet again.

At least one good thing came out of this NBA season: I finally got the courage to accept that the NBA was a sham and to stop holding onto it because of the love I had for it in my younger days. David Stern, you can engineer all the Lakers-Celtics Finals you want. I'm not wasting anymore time watching this façade o####enuine competition until you're out as commissioner. Any league where two teams have won half its titles has something wrong with it.

Then there was the NHL. This was my first year following hockey closely, and I think I've found the sport that will replace the NBA in my heart. Hockey has players that are passionate about the game and generally focused on the team first, which is more than I can say for basketball. The only downside to this season was that the Stanley Cup was won by the Detroit Red Wings, a huge rival of my Chicago Blackhawks. Despite the fact that I'm an all-Chicago fan, I don't really mind the Lions, Tigers or Pistons that much. It seems that the Blackhawks-Red Wings rivalry is taken most seriously of all the Chicago-Detroit feuds though, so the Red Wings are on my "always root against" list. Admittedly, I haven't developed a real hatred for them yet, as I'm still new to hockey fandom, but they're about as close as you can get in my situation.

How about that Super Bowl? I heard about the outcome, but like the NBA Finals I didn't watch a nanosecond of it (except to see that play everyone was talking about on YouTube after the fact). I hate both the Giants and the Patriots, so I decided to spare myself the agony of watching one of them win it all.

What? The Boston hater didn't want to see the undefeated Patriots lose and all the smiles wiped off the faces of the arrogant Beantowners? Sorry, but not if it had to be at the hands of the Giants. Not only do they represent New York and have plenty of obnoxious fans of their own, but their quarterback is Eli Manning. The guy whined his way out of playing for the Chargers and has now been rewarded for it. When someone like Eli Manning wins a Super Bowl after four years in the league it only perpetuates the idea that big market teams with lots of historical success are somehow more important and worth playing for than teams that haven't yet reached that level. It makes me sick. John Elway had to pay penance for doing the same thing with three Super Bowl losses and the question of if he'd ever win the big game for over a decade. Eli got off with only a few years of doubt from the New York media and some criticism from his former tailback.

Then, of course, we have the most important sporting event of them all: the World Series. I threw all my support behind three different teams over the course of the Playoffs, but the one that ended up holding the trophy was the Red Sox, the team the evil city loves most. I could try to recapture my feelings about it here, but I think my post from after the Series ended says it better than I could right now.

If we end up with a Cardinals-Red Sox World Series or some such abomination 2008 will officially be the worst year in the history of sports. Of course, I'll probably still watch the World Series even if it features two teams I hate just because I love the game of baseball so much. After the way the past year has gone though, a team I can be happy for winning the World Series would do a lot to keep me from sinking into sports depression.

MLB.com recently published a pair of articles. One talked about how the Red Sox are dominating the AL's All Star voting and the other talked about how the Cubs are dominating the NL's. They each included a list that showed who the current leaders are. Looking at them inspired me to think.

It's a sad but true fact that the most popular teams will put some undeserving representatives on the All Star team as long as the fans elect the starting lineup. I don't take the All Star Game seriously enough to be enraged by it, but I have to laugh at the fact that Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis are dominating the votes at their positions. Youkilis is good, but not "almost twice as many votes as Justin Morneau" good. Jason Varitek, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz are all leading at their positions as well, though those aren't quite as laughable.

I'd like to blame ESPN and their endless hype of all things Boston, but there is a precedent for this type of thing. Back in 1957 the fans in Cincinnati stuffed the ballot box and got seven Reds starters elected to the All Star team. That's right, small-market Cincinnati. Commisioner Ford Frick actually had to void two of the selections in the interest of fairness. After all, I think we'd all agree that Willie Mays and Hank Aaron were better choices than Gus Bell and Wally Post. I have a feeling that these 2008 Red Sox are leading by bigger margins than those 1957 Reds were elected by, but I'll cut Boston some slack since they just won the World Series. When Boston fails to win the Series and still dominates the voting I'll shoot them and ESPN a few dirty looks.

Even though I'm a Cub fan I think it's ridiculous that Mark DeRosa and Ryan Theriot are among the top five vote-getters at their positions. You could argue that both are having pretty good years, but there are plenty of players at their positions doing just as well or better that aren't being recognized. Does it make any sense that Theriot has more votes than last year's MVP, who also happens to be doing better than him this year? How about DeRosa being ahead of Dan Uggla? The only reason so many Cubs are up there is because their team is in first place, they have a national following and it's the hundredth year since their last World Series title. I'm happy for my guys, but it just doesn't look right to see them there.

The biggest mystery to me though, concerns a team that doesn't seem to be getting any special amount of hype. The NL's leader at first base is Lance Berkman of the Astros. No surprise there, as he's having an outstanding year. The second-place vote-getter at shortstop is the Astros' Miguel Tejada. Again, no surprise there. In second place at second base is the Astros' Kaz Matsui. Now there's a head-scratcher. Matsui's never been a star, nor is he having a year that's anything special. Fourth place at third base is Ty Wigginton, also of the Astros. Huh? A guy with two homers and eight RBI? Fifth place at catcher...J.R. Towles? Don't be ashamed if you've never heard of him. He's a second-year catcher with four home runs, 13 RBI...and a .143 batting average. Ouch! The Astros' three outfielders (Carlos Lee, Hunter Pence and Michael Bourn) are all in the top fifteen. Astro fans are obviously doing a lot of voting this year. What's the deal? Do they have more fans than I realized or is there some sort of voting campaign going on?

There's still plenty of time for these rankings to change, but based on these initial showings it looks like we'll have the usual AL lineup dominated by Yankees and Red Sox and a somewhat more honest NL lineup. Like I said before, I don't take the All Star Game that seriously, but you notice some funny things when you watch the vote totals.

As this calendar year winds down I'm starting to reflect on just how much has happened during this year 2007. It seems like such a long time ago now, but I started this blog back in January, and my first post was about how miffed I was that the Chargers were upset by the Patriots in the Playoffs. At that point 2007 was just getting started, and none of us knew what this year held in store for us. Looking back on it all, there were some sports moments in 2007 that I really enjoyed, but just about all of them ended disappointingly.

Let's start with football. I experienced something this year that I never have before: I got to follow my team, the Chicago Bears, from the first game of the season all the way to the Super Bowl. I was surrounded by co-workers who only wanted to talk about the Cowboys and Redskins, but I always stood up for my Bears in football discussions. Once the Playoffs started one of my friends told me that they'd never make it to the Super Bowl with Rex Grossman at quarterback, but the Bears did me proud by proving all the doubters wrong. Unfortunately, the Bears lost to the Colts in the Super Bowl. It wasn't an ideal ending, but the season had been a great ride and there was reason to be hopeful about the future. As it's turned out, the Bears this season have been hurt by injuries and a dismal offense. They're going to finish with a losing record, and it's clear that several changes need to be made if this team is going to return to contention. The best thing you can say about the 2007 Bears was that they beat the Packers twice.

Super Bowl XLI now looks like a missed opportunity that the Bears may not get again for some time, but interestingly enough, it was also the biggest highlight of 2007 for me. I figured if the Bears were going to lose, it might as well be to a team that deserved the title. The Indianapolis Colts were most certainly that. Despite my team's loss, I was happy for the Colts. After having a very good team for so many years they finally got their hands on the Lombardi Trophy, and they did it with class. It was also nice to see the deluded New England fans who liked to say that Peyton Manning would never win the big one and who just couldn't accept the idea that he wasn't a born loser have to eat their words. I'll admit, that part made me feel good too.

In addition to the Bears' struggles, this NFL season has been pretty miserable for me. All five teams I hate (Patriots, Packers, Steelers, Giants and Cowboys) are in the Playoffs. The Patriots are close to going undefeated, but they've had a dark cloud of contempt surrounding them from day one. I'm forced to root for one of those teams I hate in their last game of the season in hopes that the evil Patriots won't pull it off. The Detroit Lions, a true underdog that would've made a great feel-good story, started out the season 6-2 and now could finish with a losing record. The only hope left for lovers of underdog franchises is the Cleveland Browns, who still haven't clinched a Playoff spot. Ultimately though, the only teams that look like they have a realistic shot of winning anything this year are teams whose fanbases have experienced the top of the hill recently enough that they have no underdog appeal. In the end I think it's likely that several of us will be picking a team to root for by figuring out which one we hate the least.

Then there was basketball. As a Bulls fan I was pretty excited when my team swept the defending champion Miami Heat in the first round of the Playoffs. The Heat were treated like a team with some magical formula for stepping up when it counted all season, but the Bulls dispelled that notion in four games. Having followed the Bulls through the post-Jordan years I was proud of those guys. They nearly got swept in the next round by the Pistons, but they hustled their way to two wins before bowing out in Game 6. It would've been nice to see them go farther in the Playoffs, but considering the progress they'd made it was nothing to be ashamed of. Like the Bears, it gave us fans a lot of hope for next season.

We're about two months into "next season" now and things haven't gone as expected. The Bulls have gotten off to slow starts each of the past three seasons, but they've always managed to get it together before too long. This time though, they've stretched out their poor start long enough that Scott Skiles has been fired as head coach and most people already consider this season to be a lost cause. I haven't completely given up on this Bulls team, but I think it's safe to say that even if they do turn things around and make the Playoffs they don't have what it takes to go very far once they get there. It's sad to see a team that started out as a favorite to win the East possibly headed to the draft lottery.

As for the rest of the basketball world, the San Antonio Spurs won their fourth NBA Championship in 2007. The Spurs are one of the most nondescript teams in the NBA. They win championships, but they don't inspire much emotion. The Phoenix Suns, a team that has been on the doorstep of NBA supremacy in recent years, had a chance to beat them in the second round of the Playoffs, but the Spurs ultimately prevailed. It left the Spurs as the only dominant team in the Playoffs and the almost inevitable champion. While I'm not a big LeBron James fan, I was rooting for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, since they'd never been there and the Spurs had. It wasn't even close, as the Spurs swept. When the Spurs won their first NBA Championship in 1999 it was exciting, as several players got their first rings and no former ABA team had ever even made it to the NBA Finals. Every championship they've won since then has been completely anticlimactic. It's like watching a computer win a chess game against a human opponent. This season the Spurs are again looking like the best in the West, while the team that's stepped it up in the East is the Celtics, from the dreaded city of Boston. Out of nowhere they acquired two All Stars in Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, giving their ever-obnoxious fans something else to boast about. The Pistons and Magic right now are looking like our only hopes not to have to see them in the NBA Finals.

Of course, there was still the greatest game in the world, baseball. 2007 brought me higher hopes than usual in baseball, only to end with me watching them get crushed successively. First there were my Cubs. They hadn't won the World Series since 1908, but all season they showed flashes of brilliance that gave the optimist in me hope the it could finally be "the year." They made the Playoffs with a mediocre 85-77 record, but as the Cardinals had proven the year before, just getting into the Playoffs is the important thing. Once you're in, anything can happen. After the Cubs fought their way into the postseason, it was as if someone suddenly cut off their supply of "heart" just before they faced the Diamondbacks in the Divisional Series. They seemed completely uninspired throughout the series, and the Diamondbacks swept. In a matter of days all the optimism among Cub fans had turned to disgust.

With the Cubs out of the picture, I decided to pull for another team that had been waiting a long time for "the year": the Cleveland Indians. They hadn't won the World Series since 1948, and they had beaten the hated New York Yankees in the first round. Unlike the Cubs, the Indians had tied for their league's best record, and they looked like they had a real shot at winning the World Series. They went up against another evil Boston team, the Red Sox. They managed to take a 3-1 lead in the series despite some struggles from their best starters, and it seemed as if destiny was on their side. Then it all came crashing down. The Red Sox destroyed them in the next three games to win the pennant and deprive the baseball world of a potentially great story. It didn't help that many members of the irksome "Red Sox Nation" showed a complete lack of class in victory.

I was pretty upset about the Indians having their title as AL Champs usurped by that evil team from America's Most Annoying City, but there was still a glimmer of hope going into the World Series. The Colorado Rockies had spent most of the season playing at a level just below contention, but they'd finished on a tear that took them all the way to the NL pennant. They'd won 21 of their last 22 games going into the World Series, and they were the only team in the NL that looked like a legitimate threat against the superior American League. I loved watching their run, as I'd considered the Rockies one of my "side" teams for years. Unfortunately, they were just starting to cool down as the Red Sox were hitting their stride. The Red Sox swept, and for the first time in my life three teams I'd really embraced lost in one postseason.

I suppose the best way to sum up 2007 in sports would be a year that teased me with the hope of great things to come and ended up as a morass of Boston egotism and the same old teams winning. I'm just glad I've started to follow hockey, as it's been my only refuge in the midst of the disastrous sports scene we're currently surrounded by. I just hope 2008 is better than 2007 was. I don't know if I can take two consecutive years like this one.

With the New England Patriots sitting at 13-0 and two of their final three opponents among the NFL's worst teams, many people are starting to see an undefeated season as a foregone conclusion (I'm not one of those people, but that's another issue). There is already talk that this Patriots team might be the greatest of all time. It's not hard to understand, given the way they've dominated this season. They've even drawn comparisons to another team that's often in the discussion for the greatest of all time: the 1985 Chicago Bears. I'm a Bears fan who loves that 1985 team, but I'm willing to accept the idea that they may not be the greatest ever to play. Still, even if this year's Patriot team is better than them, I'll take those Bears any day, and not just because I'm a fan of the franchise.

Forget about the ability to win a football game for a minute. The reason I watch sports is because I want to be entertained by a compelling story. When I see a championship I want to be happy for the players and coaches who worked hard to get there and for the fans who supported them along the way. After all, we're not watching robots compete. We're watching people who've dedicated most of their lives to their sport. On a football level the 2007 Patriots might possibly have the edge, but on a human level the 1985 Bears win hands down.

I believe it was on this blog site where I saw someone accuse the city of Chicago of being obsessed with the '85 Bears. It's true that Chicagoans still embrace that team today. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and I remember hearing about the 1985 Bears all the time. When I was in high school kids would talk about that team and wear t-shirts of that team, even though we were all too young to have good memories of them. As Bears fans we were instilled with a sense of reverence for them.

The reason that team means so much is that for a generation of Chicagoans it was the first major sports championship they'd seen one of their teams win. The last one before it had been the Bears' 1963 NFL Championship, which preceded many of their births or memories. With the 1985 team they not only had a long-awaited champion, but a team that could legitimately be in the argument for the greatest of all time. They were the culmination of a building process that started when Mike Ditka took over as head coach, which is the main reason he's still a beloved figure in Chicago sports. Compare that to these Patriots. They've already won three Super Bowls this decade, and New Englanders have also seen two recent Red Sox World Series champions. These Patriots don't mean half as much to the regional fanbase they represent as those Bears did.

There was much more drama to what the Bears did than anything these Patriots have done. Sure, the Bears issued a few blowouts, but for the most part their games were close enough to be interesting, and many of them had special meaning. There was Week 3 where Jim McMahon came off the bench to lead them to victory over the Vikings. There was Week 6 against the 49ers where they avenged their loss in the previous year's NFC Championship Game and William Perry made his debut at fullback. There were two warlike victories over the Packers. There was the Week 11 rout of the Cowboys where the Bears defeated Ditka's mentor Tom Landry. There was also the Week 13 loss where the Dolphins defended their perfect 1972 season and the Bears got a wake-up call that they weren't invincible and needed to stay focused if they were going to win it all. Most Patriot games this year have been blowouts with few dramatic moments. If you were going to read a book about each of these two teams the Bears' story would keep you engrossed much more easily.

Then you have the teams' personalities. The Bears were no doubt a cocky bunch, but you know they were having fun. They were a young team, and after everything they touched seemingly turned to gold you almost couldn't blame them for developing a swagger. That swagger was best exemplified by "The Super Bowl Shuffle," a song and video the players did for charity. "The Super Bowl Shuffle" was recorded during the season, before they'd even won anything. It was an audacious thing to do, but they backed it up by winning the Super Bowl and it showed America that they were a fun-loving group of guys. The personality of the Patriots seems to be best exemplified by their coach, Bill Belichick. He's a dour man who's treating this season as his personal "screw you" to the rest of the league. The first week of the season he thumbed his nose at Roger Goodell by having a guy film his opponent's signals in plain view after all the NFL teams had been warned about that very thing. Since his questionable ethics were made public the Patriots have been accused of running up the score on many of the teams they've faced. Several Patriot players also have reputations for being dirty and classless. They don't seem to get any joy out of the game. They just want to deny every other team the Vince Lombardi Trophy. While the Bears were cocky but lovable, the Patriots are arrogant and offputting.

There's also mystique. Another reason that specific team is so special to Bears fans is because they were a one-time deal. They had the talent to return to the Super Bowl in subsequent years, but for whatever reason it never came together like it did in 1985. It would be 21 years before they made it back to the big game. That 1985 season seems magical, like a perfect few months where the Bears managed to do everything right. The Patriots have already established themselves as this decade's "dynasty" team. If they win the Super Bowl this year it'll just blend together with the others they won. True, if they go undefeated it might stand out a little more, but the fact that they assembled this team with big-name acquisitions and holdovers from past Super Bowl winners takes away that magical feeling.

If the Patriots win the Super Bowl this year they'll rightfully belong in any discussion of the greatest teams ever to play. They might even be a better team than the 1985 Bears. No matter how well the Patriots play football though, I'd rather see a team with the human elements of the Bears. They made an infinitely better story.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays have announced that the awkward nickname they had for their first ten years of existence is gone. From now on they'll be known as simply the Tampa Bay Rays (no relation, I assume, to Dead Kennedys guitarist East Bay Ray). Apparently this news has been around for a few days, but somehow I missed it. Like their expansion predecessors, the Houston Colt .45's, the Rays recognized that baseball nicknames with two words and more than two syllables just don't work (a message the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim still haven't gotten).

It is now certain that the name "Devil Rays" will never be associated with winning. In their 10-year history the Devil Rays never lost fewer than 91 games, and there was even talk of contracting them at one point. Only once did they only avoid last place (2004). They came into the Majors at the same time as the Arizona Diamondbacks, who've made four postseason appearances and even won a World Series during that same span. There's no doubt that the Devil Rays were the poor cousin in the 1998 expansion.

Perhaps this name change represents a new start of sorts for the franchise. If the Rays become a good team someday (which I'm sure will happen eventually), the Devil Ray era will be seen as the "dark days." There might be some fans who affectionately remember those Devil Ray teams and take pride in the fact that they stuck it out during the lean years. There haven't been many highlights, but the diehards will have plenty of memories. They'll remember the attempt to build a team of sluggers in 2000 that looked hopeful at first but didn't quite work out. They'll remember June 2004 when they had a winning record and were one of the hottest teams in baseball before they came back down to earth and settled for what was then a franchise record 70 wins. They'll remember Rocco Baldelli wearing a jersey with his first name on the back. There wasn't much to cheer about, but it will always be a unique chapter in team history.

I wish the Rays the best of luck. I hope they find more success than the Devil Rays ever did. I hope someday they challenge the Yankees and Red Sox for the division title rather than attempting to play spoiler late in the season. I hope they can develop a strong local fanbase who'll appreciate a winning team. Most of all though, I hope the Devil Rays aren't forgotten. They may not have won much, but they represent a decade's worth of growing pains. Hopefully the franchise will have something to show for it in the not-too-distant future.