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Red Sox

Fans thrown, kicked for a loss



These New England Patriots fans, bundled against the cold Denver temperatures, didn't have much to smile about at the end of Sunday's game against the Broncos. (Staff photo by Keith Nordstrom)




What began as a win-win situation for New England sports fans ended as a total loss.

Game 3 of the Angels-Red Sox American League Division Series started at 12:07 p.m., followed by the Patriots-Broncos regular-season game at 4:15 p.m.

However, both local teams lost heartbreakers: the Sox, 7-6, on an Angels rally in the ninth off closer Jonathan Papelbon, eliminating them from the Major League Baseball playoffs; and the Patriots, 20-17, on Matt Prater's 41-yard field goal in overtime.

"It only makes for a great Sunday if they (the Sox and the Pats) both win," Attleboro resident Mike Hall said while watching the Sox at the bar at Morin's in downtown Attleboro.

Cindy Mitchell began her Sunday with breakfast at 8 a.m., followed by checking out the Scituate Art Festival, and then two feasts.
"We're going to go home and have ribs and watch the football game," Mitchell, of Lincoln, R.I., said while she and her husband Barry watched the Sox game from the 99 Restaurant bar in North Attleboro.

"It's all about time management."

On paper, Sunday was the day local sports fans yearn for time and time again.

For a change, the schedule aligned so that fans could park themselves on a barstool or their couch around noon and stay there past dinner - without once clicking the remote back and forth between games.

"It's great having two games, two important games, in one day," Rich Rodriguez, also of Lincoln, said at the bar at Box Seats in North Attleboro.

"I wish the Red Sox game was on at a different time, but that conflicts with the football game."

Hall, friend Adam Turner and the rest of Red Sox Nation hoped Boston's nine would see today, which meant beating Los Angeles in Game 3 of their best-of-five series.

"I already know the Sox are going to be going to Game 5, because that's how we do it in Boston: we sweat it out in Game 5," Turner said.

However, Turner questioned how far the Sox would get in this post-season.

"We don't have the magic we did in the past three years, the eagerness. You could always feel it when these guys took the field, the confidence," he said.
Instead, Sunday, the Angels scored three runs - all with two outs - in the ninth off Papelbon to sweep the series and advance to the American League Championship Series, where they will play the New York Yankees.

And disappointing fans such as Hall.

And then the Patriots turned a 17-7 halftime lead into a 20-17 overtime loss.

Pawtucket resident Steve Thibert said he recorded the game on DVR. He watched the Sox game at the 99, and planned to catch the tail end of the Pats game at home.

"I told all my friends, 'Don't tell me the score. I haven't watched it yet,'" Thibert said.

 


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