5 Of The Worst Boston Sports Championship Hangovers
BOSTON (CBS) - We know how you're feeling this morning after the long Fourth of July weekend.
Cookouts, beach days, heavy drinking and fun in the sun -- you're probably feeling pretty hungover to start your work week.
The Red Sox are pretty hungover themselves. After winning the 2013 World Series, the defending champions are dead last in the American League East and nine games back from the second Wild Card.
This got us thinking about sports hangovers, and in particular Boston sports championship hangovers.
Here are 5 of the worst:
5. 2002 Patriots
The 2001 Patriots were the darlings of the National Football League. Tom Brady was the Comeback Kid, Adam Vinatieri was Mr. Clutch, and the Pats seemed destined for greatness with all their come-from-behind wins. The dream season was capped off with the franchise's first Super Bowl victory over the St. Louis Rams, otherwise known as the Greatest Show On Turf.
2002 was a different story.
The team finished 9-7 and missed the playoffs. It remains the only year in which the Patriots failed to qualify for the postseason with Tom Brady as the starting quarterback.
However, the season was not a complete failure. The thrill of victory in 2001 and the agony of defeat in 2002 helped fuel a dynasty, as the team went on to win the next two Super Bowls in '03 and '04.
4. 2011-12 Bruins
The 2011 Bruins did the unthinkable and ended a 39-year Stanley Cup drought after defeating the Vancouver Canucks in seven games.
Then Tim Thomas skipped out on the team trip to the White House and it was all downhill from there. The B's earned the second overall seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs but were bounced by the seventh seeded Washington Capitals in the first round.
3. 2014 Red Sox
Similar to the two aforementioned championship teams, the 2013 Boston Red Sox defied all odds.
After hitting rock bottom in Bobby Valentine's lone year at the managerial helm and ridding themselves of Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett the previous year, fans of the team were prepping for a long organizational rebuild and a bridge year in 2013.
However, nobody told the Red Sox that. The Sox were far and away the best team in the bigs, never lost more than three games in a row all year and things just seemed to bounced their way en route to their third World Series title in a decade.
2014 has been the total opposite -- everything that can go wrong has gone wrong.
The '14 Sox are currently fighting for relevancy and possess one of the worst records in Major League Baseball.
2. 1966-67 Celtics
The 1967-68 Boston Celtics were coming off their eighth NBA title in a row but failed to advance out of the Eastern Division after losing 4-1 to Wilt Chamberlain and the Philadelphia 76ers in the team's first season without Red Auerbach behind the bench.
However, they must have found a great cure for the hangover because the Celtics would go on to win the next two championships, capping off an amazing 13-year run of 11 NBA titles.
1. 1919 - 2003 Red Sox
HA! Get it? Because it took 86 years . . . nevermind.
Read more from Andrew Celani by clicking here, or find him on Twitter @ACE_Worldwide.
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