What is a Legend?

An introduction like "Welcome to Boston Legends, read on to find the passionate, yet irreverent ramblings of two legends from the greatest city on the planet," aside from being incredibly played out, would be dishonest to the spirit of what we're trying to do here. It starts with the first word: "Welcome." We're from Boston, not LA; we don't feel the need to welcome you to our postulations, and we won't apologize for them. In addition, calling our ramblings "passionate, yet irreverent" is an obvious euphemism for us being "usually drunk, and at times wildly inaccurate," and we're not trying to bullshit you like that. Calling ourselves "legends" from the "greatest city on the planet" doesn't give you any information you couldn't glean from the blog's title, and finally, a self-proclaimed legend isn't a legend at all; true legends would never tout themselves as such.

So what is a true legend? It's a slippery topic. Being legendary transcends any kind of one-sentence definition. Legends can be real (Teddy Ballgame) or fictional characters (think Eastwood in Gran Torino), but the best legends are a mix of actual exploits and mystique. Legendary is Wade Boggs gassing 55 (ish) Bud Lites on a single cross-country flight, and it's also Tom Brady winning the Super Bowl while battling a 103 degree fever. It's Dennis Eckersley's mullet and John Kruk's beer gut. It's Eric Clapton's Rainbow Concert, but also the crippling heroin addiction he overcame to play it. The meaning of legend has been diluted over the years, being thrown out to describe everything from deals at Burger King to episodes of Two and a Half Men. Rather than further this trend, we seek to restore the term to the luster it used to have.

A little background: Boston Legends was formed out of necessity in Stanford, California in late 2005, when two displaced Boston sports fans were thrust into the doldrums of sports fanaticism that is Northern California. Through our four years in college out West, we gained a unique perspective on our beloved city, finding out for ourselves that the entire country doesn't worship Tom Brady, Ted Kennedy, and Carl Yastrzemski like us. Our goal is to entertain, but at the same time, hopefully drop some knowledge and dispel popular myths (for instance, some people still think Daisuke Matsuzaka can be a top-of-the-rotation starter). Ideally, we'll rise above the myriad blogs with the same drunk Bostonian schtick and create our own legend.