Sentiment of ‘Beat LA’ back in Boston, baby
Rivalry shifts from parquet to Fenway
The phrase usually is retrieved from storage once a winter when tall men are dribbling on Causeway Street. But with the Dodgers arriving from Hollywood to play the role of Red Sox foil in this World Series, the utterance will be everywhere.
For certain, you’ll hear it at Fenway, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if a chorus of “Beat L.A.” breaks out among the caffeine challenged crew in line at Dunk’s.
The chant is a local craft brew and a toast to the better Bostonian angels. It gives lie to the stereotype of fans in these parts -- which only serves to remind us how a loud and nitwit few (see: treatment of Jones, Adam) can become the narrative for an overwhelming majority of properly raucous rooters.
So it was that the latter took over the stage on May 23, 1982. The Celtics had come back from a 3-1 deficit against Philadelphia but were in the final throes of a Game 7 defeat when the chant emanated from the too-small seats in the old Garden.
The locals wouldn’t get the much desired meeting of Larry Bird against Magic Johnson’s Lakers. The 76ers would, and Celtic fans had a request of Julius Erving and Andrew Toney and Mo Cheeks and Darryl Dawkins. “Beat L.A. Beat L.A.”
The message as originally authored was to the Sixers, not a Boston team. And Erving was deeply moved by the sportsmanship.
Twenty-six years later as the Celtics and Lakers met in the NBA Finals, Dr. J was in the new Garden trading war stories from days of yore. With “Beat L.A.” T-shirts filling the arena, he smiled at the slogan’s birth.
“In life, there is history and there is his story,” he said with a laugh. “So a lot of people have a different story about where it came from. But there’s only one piece of actual history, and you know and I know it.”
The Doctah noted the circumstances, how the crowds in each city had been intense. Then he expressed appreciation for the moment.
“Actually it was pretty touching,” Erving said.
Not so much to Kevin McHale, who had 20 points that game.
“I was too pissed off at the time,” he said in a phone conversation yesterday. “Hey, we’d lost Game 7 at home. But when I had a chance to look back, it was pretty cool. And ‘Beat L.A.’ ended up being a chant that everybody started using -- anybody that was any good.”
And it just so happens the Red Sox fit that description. So while McHale may have some unpleasant flashbacks to ’82 when he hears the shout through his TV as he watches the Series, his heart will be singing along with the sentiment.
“It’s going to be fun,” he said as he prepared for some NBA broadcast work that evening. “I was actually hoping for Milwaukee just because they’re a small market team, but when it became L.A., I was like, hey, ghost of the past.
“And those people in L.A. just hate the Baw-stin people, those lobstah fishermen,” he said, imper- sonating the West Coast disdain for everything from Eastport to Block Island. “So it’ll be good, a good healthy dislike. It’ll be a fun series. I still follow the Sox. If you ask me who’s going to win, I’d say the Sox. That’s my pick, and I’m sticking with it.”
There are some (OK, me) who believe the Stockings’ mojo began to change during their loss in Game 2 of the AL Division Series to the Yankees when reliever Ryan Brasier barked at dawdling New York catcher Gary Sanchez to “Get in the (expletive) box.”
There is overwhelming evidence of the Sox’ resiliency to suggest they would have survived the 1-1 series tie with the next two games in New York anyway, but the Yankees were feeling confident enough for Aaron Judge to troll the locals by playing “New York, New York” as he walked by the Red Sox clubhouse that night.
Where some Sox outfits had faded in such previous situations, this group had a Brasier’s edge to it and took the next two to close out the series.
Bringing L.A. back into the picture, might there be some small parallel to Game 4 of the 1984 NBA Finals when McHale clotheslined Kurt Rambis on a fast break to, as the Lakers have admitted, alter the course of that series? The Celtics were trailing 2-1, and down by six in the third quarter of that game in The Forum when McHale essentially told Rambis to get the (expletive) on the free throw line.
“That was such a bang-bang thing,” McHale said yesterday. “KC (Jones) had said, ‘No more layups, and if a guy gets a layup, you’re going to sit down.’ It was nothing more than me wanting to play and the fact we were tired of seeing them run. I just wish it was Kareem, Worthy or Magic. Knocking down Kurt Rambis doesn’t do any good. Kurt Rambis liked to get knocked down.
“But everything changed after that. It became more or a grind-itout series. The game changed. Everything got slowed down, and things kind of went in our favor after that.”
The Lakers were the more talented team that year, but the Celtics went on to Beat L.A. in seven games.
Decades later, the most direct line is traced by Magic Johnson, now the Lakers president of basketball operations and also a coowner of the Dodgers. Boston and Los Angeles are meeting again, but in a different sport. And, truth be told, the cities have changed, too. Both have seen high-end building booms to the point where any contrast beyond the weather is negligible.
Tying it all together is a spur of the moment “Beat L.A.” chant born of respect for an opponent on a Sunday in 1982.
It is hoped that Dr. J and Philly won’t mind if Boston borrows it back for the next four to seven games. Twitter - @SteveBHoop