Will Mookie Betts, following his M.V.P. season for the World Series champion Boston Red Sox last year, have a career similar to the one Tom Brady has had since his performance for the 2002 Super Bowl champion New England Patriots?
Betts and Brady come into some confluence because of the coincidental developments in Major League Baseball and the National Football League in the last four months. In October the Red Sox played and beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. On Sunday the Patriots will play the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl.
Betts played his part for the Red Sox by sparking them to their fourth World Series title in a 15-year span after they had failed to finish on top of M.L.B. for 86 years. Betts led the American League with a .346 batting average and a .640 slugging percentage and had a second-best .438 on-base percentage and 1.048 slugging-plus-on-base.
Post-season, he received 28 of 30 first-place votes in the balloting for most valuable player, easily outdistancing Mike Trout, 410 points to 265. Betts also easily eclipsed his $110 million free agent teammate, J.D. Martinez, who received one first-place vote and 198 points.
At 41, Brady is 15 years older than Betts but has remained a remarkable quarterback, seemingly setting records every time he steps onto the field. In his younger years he was also a baseball player, a catcher, but football was his passion and he didn’t go wrong opting for throwing over receiving.
Although he was only a sixth-round choice out of the University of Michigan in the 2000 N.F.L. draft, Brady quickly established himself as a pro quarterback and made his presence felt.
The league had a rule known as the Tuck Rule, which governed the distinction between a fumble by the quarterback and an incomplete pass. It was a Brady play in a division-round playoff game in 2001 that prompted the league to change the rule.
The Oakland Raiders led that snow-covered game, 13-10, with less than two minutes to play, and Brady appeared to lose the ball on a fumble as he attempted to pass. The officials ruled the play an incomplete pass, but replays subsequently showed it was a fumble, and the league eliminated the rule to avoid future confusion.
The immediate result of the call was the Patriots retained possession of the ball, some of the players, during a timeout, removed snow from a patch of grass and Adam Vinatieri kicked a 45-yard field goal, tying the game, which the Patriots went on to win in overtime.
The Patriots had lost two Super Bowls, to Chicago and Green Bay, but they played those games B.B. – before Brady. They were expected to lose this one, No. 36 (or Super Bowl XXXVI for those who prefer the NFL’s silly numbering system), too, even after Brady had arrived. He had been injured in the conference title game, and there was speculation that Drew Bledsoe would start against the Rams, who on that particular day were the St. Louis Rams. Bledsoe had been the starter before getting hurt in the second week of the season.
The Patriots, though, shut down the Rams’ offense for the first three quarters, leading 17-3 going into the fourth. The Rams scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, the second with 1:30 left. There would be no overtime, though. Vinatieri kicked a game-winning 48-yard field goal as time expired. It was the first Super Bowl conquest for Brady and the Patriots, but there would be more.
The names of Brady and Coach Bill Belichick are written all over Super Bowl history, though not all of the references are complimentary. Deflategate comes to mind.
Belichick represents a major difference between the Patriots and the Red Sox. He has coached all five New England Super Bowl titles. Three different managers guided the Red Sox to their four World Series titles in the last 15 years. Terry Francona got the first two, John Farrell the next and Alex Cora last year’s.
I thought Francona and Farrell got raw deals, but in each instance the Red Sox won with their new managers. The Yankees changed managers a year ago for no apparent good reason and made little headway with Joe Girardi’s successor, Aaron Boone.
By showing up so often in the M.L.B. and N.F.L. post-seasons, the Patriots and the Red Sox have created an intriguing development. They have won wraparound geographical championships.
The Patriots won the Super Bowls following the 2004 and 2005 seasons, beating Carolina on Feb. 1, 2004, and Philadelphia on Feb. 6, 2005. The Red Sox won the World Series in October 2004.
The New York Jets and Mets won titles in 1969 but not in the same season. The Jets beat the Baltimore Colts in the third Super Bowl Jan. 12, 1969, and the Mets defeated the Orioles in the World Series the following October, though in a different season.
The Orioles concluded the 1970 baseball season by beating Cincinnati in the World Series, and four months the then Baltimore Colts edged Dallas in the Super Bowl. It was Pittsburgh’s turn to have wraparound champions in 1979. The Pirates won the World Series that October, fitting their conquest of the Orioles between the Steelers’ Super Bowl victories over the Cowboys Jan. 21, 1979, and the Rams Jan. 20, 1980.
In October 1986 the New York Mets knocked off the Red Sox in the World Series, and the following Jan. 25 the New York Giants defeated Denver for the N.F.L. championship. The 1989 season produced a variation on the geographical scheme. Oakland won the World Series in between a Super Bowl sweep in January ’89 and ’90 by the San Francisco 49ers, the team on the other side of the Bay Bridge.
(Reporting on Patriots contributed by Jake Kram)