About me and the site

TOBRAsports.com is my personal take on Boston and Providence sports — written from the perspective of someone who grew up in the 1980s. It's hard for me to accept the reality that I've been watching sports in Southern New England for more than four decades.

I grew up watching a short, feisty Boston College quarterback wearing No. 22 complete a miracle Hail Mary against Miami in 1984. I watched a young Rick Pitino take Providence College to the Final Four in 1987. I remember Vinny Pazienza packing the Providence Civic Center and turning boxing matches into rock shows.

That history matters to the way I write.

I didn’t create TOBRAsports to compete with sites built around instant reaction, hot takes, outrage, and declaring a season over after one bad game. You can listen to sports radio for that.

I am not monetizing off this site (although feel free to subscribe). I do it for my own enjoyment. I do it as an outlet for my fandom.

My goals are different.

I want to provide context.

A coaching decision, roster move, contract, losing streak, or breakout season usually makes more sense when you understand what came before it.

Sometimes the most useful way to understand what is happening with the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, or Providence College today is to remember what happened five, ten, twenty, or forty years ago.

Being older gives me a different frame of reference. I might as well take advantage of it.

I remember Boston sports before the championships became routine. I remember when the Patriots were the laughing stock of the NFL, when the "Curse of the Bambino" felt like a real thing with the Red Sox, when the old Boston Garden was a sauna, and when Providence College basketball could make an entire state take pride.

I also remember when players spent their entire careers with one team, owners felt more part of their communities, and athletes were known primarily for what they did on the field rather than for their personal brands.

Sports have changed.

They don’t have quite the same hold on me that they did when I was a kid. Professional sports are more openly a business now. Free agency, massive television contracts, social media, gambling, analytics, and constant player movement have changed the relationship between fans and teams. We often find ourselves rooting for uniforms as much as individual players. Even Tom Brady didn’t finish his career in New England.

Few regions are tied to their teams quite like New England. We check the schedule before making plans. You don’t casually schedule something on a Sunday afternoon between September and February without first checking what time the Patriots play.

And there is a shared history among us.

We remember Bill Buckner. We remember David Tyree. We remember Carlton Fisk waving the ball fair in 1975, Larry Bird in the old Garden, six Patriots Super Bowl victories, four Red Sox championships in fifteen years, Celtics banners, Bruins celebrations, and more championship parades than an earlier generation of New England fans ever imagined possible.

Those memories create context for everything happening now.

That is what I want TOBRAsports to be about — not simply telling you what happened last night, but helping explain where it fits in the larger picture.

I want to bring perspective.

Sometimes that means analysis. Sometimes history. Sometimes criticism. Sometimes nostalgia.

And sometimes it means reminding myself that the kid who fell in love with sports all those years ago is still in there somewhere.

I write partly to keep that little kid around.