For the last week of 2025, we unveil our Quarter-Century Teams for the Patriots, Bruins, Red Sox and Celtics and then rank the 25 individuals most likely to be most impactful on the next 25 years of Boston sports.
There’s a good chance that we’d have created some sort of quarter-century list no matter what happened in the first 25 years of this century in Boston sports.
It’s one of those milestone years that makes for a perfect opportunity to reflect a little bit and look ahead a little bit.
But it was especially notable after these 25 years, probably the greatest quarter-century of sports any region has ever experienced.
Obviously, nobody on our staff had been alive for a Red Sox World Series title and the Patriots had never won a Super Bowl.
Only five of us were alive for a Celtics title and and just two for the Bruins. And suddenly, in a short period, they all won. It made for an amazing era that changed our expectations and even our worldview a little bit.
MassLive was in its infancy and digital journalism was just gaining a foothold during the early days of this century, too. The way we chronicled the early days of Tom Brady and the 2004 World Series looks different than our extensive coverage of the 2018 Red Sox or the 2024 Celtics. It’s been fun for our current staff to carry a baton for part of that evolution.
During a conversation about who’d be on the Quarter-Century Team of MassLive’s sports beat writers, inspiration struck.
To determine our quarter-century teams, we’d invite everybody who covered the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins for MassLive or the Springfield Republican from 2000 to the present to vote on the rosters. Our current thriving staff is built on the backs of what they accomplished.
Other than the late Garry Brown and Carlo Imelio, who were both legends for their coverage of the Red Sox and Patriots at the Springfield Republican, we were able to track down everyone and invited them.
Some declined. Some people were too busy or had moved beyond the journalism stage of their lives. But many others sent ballots and hopefully had fun participating.
Here’s the schedule of what’s to come:
Sunday, December 28
Monday, December 29
- Red Sox Quarter-Century Team
- Bruins Quarter-Century Team
Tuesday, December 30
- Celtics Quarter-Century Team
- Our toughest calls when choosing the Quarter-Century Teams
Our look-ahead was a little more adventurous.
The goal was to take what we’ve learned and what we know and try to project who will be the most impactful people in the world of Boston sports for the next 25 years.
Wednesday, December 31
- 25 for the Next 25
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Category: General Sports
