I got to cover, and travel with, two of the most exciting teams in the history of our town. Every day. The 1985-86 world champion Boston Celtics, a.k.a. the greatest NBA team of all time; and the 1986 Red Sox, the team that came closer than any team in baseball history to winning a World Series without actually winning the World Series.

Those were heady days here in the Globe sports department. And in the Shaughnessy household.

I’m the dope who quit the Celtics beat and opted to follow the Red Sox instead. And I owe it all to Hall of Famers Peter Gammons and Bob Ryan, the two greatest baseball and basketball writers, respectively, who ever lived.


OK, a lot of hyperbole here. But what do you expect? Those ’86 Celtics had Bill Walton, Mr. Exaggeration, and the Red Sox had Wade Boggs, who told us he was able to escape from a knife fight by willing himself invisible.

It all started in the summer of 1985 when I wrote about Larry Bird’s bar fight in the Faneuil Hall district. The infamous Chelsea’s brawl took place during the 1985 conference finals and I believe the damage to Bird’s shooting hand contributed to the Celtics losing to the Lakers in the Finals.

More than a month after the Finals, I found the guy Larry hit and the Globe ran a Page 1 story. Larry Legend was not happy with me. He made it clear he would not be talking to me during the upcoming season — a season that looked pretty promising given the returning cast and Red Auerbach’s acquisitions of Walton and Jerry Sichting.

The promise was fulfilled. Right from the jump, you could see how great these Celtics were. Two nights before the opening game, I made a run at Larry to see if maybe he’d softened regarding his feelings toward the Globe beat guy. It did not go well.


“Get the [expletive] away from me and stay the [expletive] away from me all year,’’ Bird said as he rode a stationary bike at the Celtics’ Hellenic College practice site. “We’re thinking of suing the paper.’’

Two nights later, the Celtics opened at New Jersey and lost, 113-109. After his Celtics debut, Walton declared, “I was a disgrace to the game of basketball.’’

Whoa. This was going to be fun.

And it was. They rolled. Even in the early months, it was clear that this team was on its way to a championship season, one in which it would finish 67-15 overall and 40-1 at home. The ’85-86 Celtics were a Dream Team for a beat guy. The head coach was the affable K.C. Jones. You could interview K.C. at the airport, on the team bus, or in the hotel bar. Almost all of his players were talkers — even the guys on the end of the bench, Rick Carlisle and Greg Kite.

It was a blast. But in February of 1986, just after the Patriots played in their first Super Bowl (like I told you, this was the first Boston Sports Renaissance), the legendary Gammons told us he was leaving the Globe for Sports Illustrated.

Globe sports editor Vince Doria (he later went to ESPN) asked me if I was interested in switching from Celtics to Red Sox. Only an idiot would have done this. The Red Sox had been a boring 81-81 in 1985. They had a clubhouse peppered with self-centered churls and a front office with an institutional history of cronyism and racism. The ’86 Sox were managed by scowling John McNamara, who hated young players and young writers (that was me in ’86).


Still, it was baseball. In my world, succeeding Gammons as the Globe baseball writer was like following Ted Williams in left field at Fenway.

I raised my hand for the baseball job. This made commissioner Bob Ryan a happy man. After establishing himself as the best newspaper hoop writer ever (back in the 1970s, the Celtics didn’t start games until Ryan had measured both baskets), Ryan left the Globe for a TV gig in 1982. It was short-lived. By 1986, Ryan was back at the Globe and more than anxious to resume day-to-day coverage of his beloved Celtics. There was a bonus for the Globe: We were pretty sure Larry Bird would talk to Ryan.

The transfer of beat responsibilities did not come until the NBA All-Star break, which coincided with the longest Celtics road trip of the season. While boss Doria was still deciding who would succeed Gammons, I hit the road for Dallas, Sacramento, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Denver.

In Dallas, Bird won the first-ever 3-point contest on All-Star Saturday. When he walked into the post-event news conference, Bird announced, “I’m the 3-point king. Put that in your paper, Dan Shaughnessy!’’


Three days later, the Celtics lost to the Sacramento Kings (“another disgrace to the sport of basketball,’’ said the ever-understated Walton) on the first game of their seven-city trip. On Wednesday morning, Feb. 12, I was with the team traveling party (the Celtics flew commercial in those days and the writers were part of the small entourage) at the Sacramento airport, waiting for a flight to Seattle, when I went to one of the airport pay phones to call the boss.

“We’re putting you on baseball,’’ said Doria. “Finish this trip, then come home and pack for Winter Haven.’’

Finish the trip? I was a lame-duck hoop reporter and there were still six games to be played in Western Conference cities.

Happy, and a little stunned, I went back to the group of long-legged athletes sitting outside the boarding gate. Scott Wedman, Robert Parish, Danny Ainge, Bird, and the rest were waiting to board our flight to Seattle.

“Well boys, this is it,’’ I announced. “When this trip is over, you won’t see me anymore. I’m switching to the Red Sox.’’

Bird stood up, took out his wallet (this was rare), and said, “I’ll pay your way if you go now.’’

On Feb. 21, after the final game of the trip in Denver (the Celtics went 4-3 on the trip), I returned to Boston, met with Ryan, and turned over my game sheets and notebooks from the first half of the season. You never saw a happier guy than Bob Ryan that day. We both knew where the 1986 Celtics were headed.


But they were not my story anymore. I was a baseball guy, following the great Gammons.

No one knew where the ’86 Red Sox were going. Fortunately, they had this kid Clemens (he would win the MVP in a 24-4 season), and All-Star hitters named Jim Rice, Dwight Evans, Boggs, and Bill Buckner.

On Sunday, June 8, when the Celtics beat the Houston Rockets at the old Garden in Game 6 to win the championship, I was covering the Red Sox vs. the Brewers in Milwaukee. I caught a couple of glimpses of the NBA game on the press lunch room TV, but my focus that day was on the diamond at County Stadium, where the Red Sox were losing to the Brewers, 7-3. While Bird was being named MVP of the Finals, I calculated that Boggs had hit exactly .400 in his last 162 games.

Baseball seemed almost boring in that moment, but the ’86 Red Sox ultimately delivered and gave us one of the great thrill rides of 20th-century Boston sports. It was the first Boston Sports Renaissance and it was a privilege to be have a front-row seat to watch the history unfold.

Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Shaughnessy.