{"id":1992895,"date":"2026-06-16T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T06:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1992895"},"modified":"2026-06-16T09:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T06:00:12","slug":"for-sports-fans-looking-for-a-piece-of-peace-june-is-busting-out-all-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1992895","title":{"rendered":"For sports fans looking for a piece of peace, June is busting out all over"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BOSTON \u2014 Here are three ways to watch all the fantastical sporting events \u2014 World Cup! Team USA! The NBA Finals! The Stanley Cup final! \u2014 that have been going on throughout North America this month:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

1. You can sit in a darkened room, alone, as in no family, no friends, no pets. The shades are pulled all the way down lest the lights of a passing car creep in through the bottom of the window. Snacks \u2014 that is, peanut butter sandwiches on white bread, along with a box of Captain Crunch, its contents to be consumed by the handful \u2014 are placed between you and your flat screen. You don\u2019t cheer and you don\u2019t boo, because, well, you\u2019d basically be talking to yourself.<\/p>\n

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OR \u2026 2) You can head to these all-the-rage 21st-century watch parties in which thousands of people stand outside and watch and cheer and, um, drink, and, OK, in a few cases, tear everything up, as happened here and there in Manhattan as the New York Knicks were taking out the San Antonio Spurs en route to their first NBA championship since 1973. I won\u2019t insult your intelligence by suggesting the Knicks have become America\u2019s Team, but I\u2019m comfortable saying that a lot of people really, really fell in \u201clike\u201d with this year\u2019s team. C\u2019mon: Who\u2019s not digging Jalen Brunson these days?<\/p>\n

OR \u2026 3) You can climb into your favorite team jersey and head over to one of those clanky, misshapen neighborhood sports bars with lots of flat screens hovering over too small a space. The beer is cold and the patrons are hot, and not in that Sydney Sweeney\/Connor Storrie kind of way. That\u2019s hot as in everybody all packed tightly together, which is OK because everybody is one, gathered for the common goodness of putting aside all the grousing and complaining that\u2019s been going on in the real world for too much of this century.<\/p>\n

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\n Knicks fans celebrate a 3-pointer during the watch party outside of Madison Square Garden on Plaza 33 during Game 5 of the NBA Finals. (Brenden Willsch \/ Imagn Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Admittedly, I\u2019m cooking the books a little here. OK, a lot.<\/em> It is, after all, perfectly fine to watch sports from what the Madison Avenue people like to call the comfort of your home. And you can do so while holding hands with your partner or high-fiving your old college buddy. Plus, there\u2019s never a line to use the bathroom.<\/p>\n

But something special is happening across North America. More than ever before, we\u2019re stepping outside to join up with other fans to partly root, root, root for the home team, but also to achieve something that\u2019s as miraculous as what Jesus pulled off with the fishes and the loaves. The miracle is that we\u2019re finding peace, or a piece of peace, perhaps only as a respite, but so what. (Again, I\u2019m going to dismiss the setting-school-buses-on-fire<\/a> stuff as an outlier. You know, a few bad apples in the Big Apple, and so on.)<\/p>\n

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When the Boston Red Sox were playing the Texas Rangers in a nationally televised game Sunday night at Fenway Park, the packed house included thousands of Scottish fans in town for the World Cup. Fresh off Scotland\u2019s 1-0 victory over Haiti on Saturday night at \u201cBoston Stadium,\u201d the Tartan Army showed up at Boston Ballpark (Fenway) on Sunday night not just to watch big-league baseball, but also to sing their songs, cheer their cheers and more or less hug everybody in sight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n The Tartan Army marches to Fenway Park on Sunday in full kilt-and-bagpipe regalia. (Bob Dechiara \/ Imagn Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Something along those lines has been happening at all the sports bars. If this is where you want to jump in and point out that that\u2019s been going on for years, I say: No doubt about that. But I also say: It\u2019s never been like this<\/em> before.<\/p>\n

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Now I\u2019m no expert. But Garvey Salomon, 47, the manager of Parlor Sports, a hole-in-the-wall on Beacon Street in Somerville, Mass., absolutely is an expert.<\/p>\n

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{“endpoint”:”https:\/\/api-prd-nyt.theathletic.com\/graphql”}<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are<\/em> more people than before, and it\u2019s because people are opening up to the idea of going out into the community,\u201d Salomon told me Monday afternoon. \u201cThey want to go to their local bar, their local restaurant \u2026 and with the Winter Olympics a few months ago, and now with the World Cup, I think there\u2019s this sense of feeling where, (people) want to remember where I was when I watched Spain tie Cape Verde or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salomon was asked if today\u2019s combustible political divide has played a role in people getting outside and seeking common ground through sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good distraction from all the chaos that\u2019s maybe going on \u2014 no, is <\/em>going on,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it depends on what part of the world you\u2019re in. If we were in a place where people were watching the Africa Cup of Nations, well, I\u2019m sure there are some conversations that can take place about some of the things that are going on there.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut normally, people come here and this is their release, this is their escape,\u201d Salomon said. \u201cI think sports offers that to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salomon points out that sports bars will naturally be packed in cities hosting World Cup matches, as is the case in Boston. So you take that, add in the ever-growing post-pandemic urge to get outside and socialize, and consider that watching a soccer match is more fun than talking politics, and it\u2019s no wonder <\/span>bars and watch parties are so appealing.<\/p>\n

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\n United States fans watch the World Cup match against Paraguay on giant screens at the FIFA Fan Festival at LA Memorial Coliseum. (Mario Tama \/ Getty Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Parlor Sports probably can\u2019t hold more than 100 people, though my own bar-hopping days lead me to conclude that a heck of a lot more folks than that have piled in here to drink the beer and talk the talk while keeping an eye on one of the 15 flat screens. The place is smack-dab on the Cambridge-Somerville line; step outside and you\u2019re in Somerville, but if you trip, you\u2019re in Cambridge. It\u2019s all part of what the cool kids now call \u201cCamberville,\u201d and Salomon knows it well. Raised nearby on Somerville\u2019s Prospect Hill, he was such a big sports fan growing up that as far back as grade school, he\u2019d begin each day by buying the Herald and Globe, after which he\u2019d pop into Dunkin Donuts for a chocolate milk and a glazed doughnut to read the sports sections before heading to St. Anthony\u2019s School.<\/p>\n

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He was going to be a sportswriter. Instead, he went to culinary school. Now he\u2019s the manager of a funky little sports bar. He\u2019s Sam \u201cMay Day\u201d Malone from \u201cCheers,\u201d except he never pitched for the Red Sox.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis past week has been a tidal wave, with the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup, the World Cup,\u201d Salomon said during a quiet moment. \u201cWe\u2019ve had people come in and watch one game, and then close their tab and leave. We\u2019ve had people who will stay for two matches, hang out, buy each other drinks, order food and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n \u201cThis past week has been a tidal wave,\u201d Parlor Sports manager Garvey Salomon said Monday during a quiet moment. (Steve Buckley \/ The Athletic)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ever hear the story about two Scotsmen who walked into a bar? Salomon has a <\/em>story about two Scotsmen who walked into Parlor Sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a father and son,\u201d Salomon said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s their first time in America, but it\u2019s their first time in Boston. They\u2019d been staying at an Airbnb near here. They\u2019ve been coming in, and they\u2019re nice and cordial and talking to people, and they met this Englishman who was here, and they ended up sitting with him. And they got offered tickets for the Scotland match against Haiti, and they said, \u2018There\u2019s a bar down the street where we can watch it.\u2019 They\u2019ve been here every day since they came to town. They sit at the bar. They order two lagers. The dad will start talking to the guy next to him, and they wind up talking for the next 45 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that Parlor Sports parades its diversity. This being Pride Month, there are little rainbow flags hanging everywhere. There\u2019s a scarf hanging on the wall that, in so many words, says immigrants are welcome. And there\u2019s sports. Lots and lots of sports.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are places, Salomon said, \u201cwhere people don\u2019t feel safe. But you take the World Cup, and people are saying, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re going to that watch party. Or we\u2019re going to that local bar.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

At the corporate level, sports are big business, big egos, big controversies.<\/p>\n

At the grassroots level, sports still have the power to inspire people to buy a beer for a total stranger without feeling the need to ask who they voted for in this or that election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOSTON \u2014 Here are three ways to watch all the fantastical sporting events \u2014 World Cup! Team USA! The NBA Finals! The Stanley Cup final! \u2014 that have been going on throughout North America this month:\u00a0 1. You can sit in a darkened room, alone, as in no family, no friends, no pets. The shades […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1992895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1992895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1992895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1992895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1992895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}