The Patriots and Red Sox combined to put New England into exclusive title club

The New England Patriots captured their sixth Super Bowl win on Sunday, and in doing so gave Boston consecutive championships in the World Series and Super Bowl.

The Patriots beating the Rams followed suit from the World Series, with another Boston team (the Red Sox) beating a team from Los Angeles (the Dodgers). This is the seventh time a major metropolitan area has paired World Series and Super Bowl wins.

City is a term some might have used here, but there is a reason I didn’t. After all, the Patriots play their home games in Foxborough, and identify as New England rather than Boston. Gillette Stadium is closer to Providence, Rhode Island (20 miles) than it is to downtown Boston (28 miles).

There are similar concerns on the list above for the 1986 New York Giants, who played in New Jersey despite their name, and for the 1989 Oakland A’s, who get the “Bay Area” share with the San Francisco 49ers, who won the Super Bowls played in both 1989 and 1990.

There is some distance between the football and baseball teams in these examples:

• Gillette Stadium is 32 miles from Fenway Park
• The Meadowlands was 8 miles from New York City, but 23 miles from Shea Stadium
• Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum is 21 miles from Candlestick Park

From a national perspective, I can see how it would be easy to dismiss these chasms. As someone who has never been to Massachusetts, when I think of the Patriots, for instance, I think of Boston. But as someone who has lived in southern California for my entire life, the idea that the Angels, who play in Anaheim, 31 miles from Dodger Stadium, identify themselves as a Los Angeles team is sickening, and just plain wrong.

The Patriots and Red Sox were also the last combo to pull this off, with the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004 coupled with the Patriots winning the Super Bowls played in both 2004 and 2005.

This year’s Red Sox-Patriots duo was the second from this group to both beat the same city to claim their championships. The year 1969 started off with Joe Namath delivering on his guarantee that the Jets would beat the Baltimore Colts in the Super Bowl. Nine months later, the Mets — who like the Jets played in Shea Stadium then — beat the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.