NFL Celtics

FanHouse is posting the top five current athletes for America's top 25 cities with the following criteria: 1) Who would a Boston sports fan say is his/her favorite athlete? 2) Would the player's name (or face) be familiar to locals who don't follow sports?

Find your city's top five: ATL | BOS | CHA | CHI | CIN | CLE | DAL | DC | DEN | DET | HOU | IND | LA | MIA | MIL | MIN | NO | NY | SF | PHI | PHO | PIT | SD | SEA | STL

In years past, picking only five of the most popular athletes in Boston would have been like trying to pick out the five hottest women treading the red carpet to the Oscars: you just couldn't do it. Sadly, times have changed in Boston and it's really a two-sport town. The winter sports, glorious in long-ago times, are now rendered insignificant. But I digress, on with the winners...

5. Daisuke Matsuzaka, Boston Red Sox: A new guy new to the city but already a huge fan-favorite. The off-season hype surrounding the 103-million-dollar-man set the bar unrealistically high, but Dice-K has delivered. The mystique of coming to America from Japan combined with the mystery of the so-called "gyro-ball" has made Matsuzaka an instant legend. There is no doubt he will be a very successful major league pitcher, but his international success in Japan and in the World Baseball Classic have catapulted him into an Ichiro-like stature. The media frenzy that surrounds him is like the following Rocky Balboa had running through the streets of Philly, it's almost surreal.

4. Curt Schilling, Boston Red Sox: Nothing will ever take away the magic Schill brought to Boston in 2004 with "the bloody sock" and the post-season dramatics that ensued. At times, however, Schilling seems to do everything he can with his mouth to make people forget his ankle and his arm. If not for his weekly interviews on WEEI in Boston where he is constantly spewing unwanted political views, homophobic ideas and other stupidity, he could have been a number-one candidate for this list. But his love of blogging, online gaming, and in particular talking to the media, seemed to distract him from the game of baseball. He has done it all on the field for the Red Sox, risking not only his career but his long term health to bring the city a World Series. For that, he will always be remembered.
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With Randy Moss headed to the Patriots, the city of New England is (hopefully) excited about what he'll do for their offense. Ironically, this isn't the first Boston-ish franchise to look to Moss for a shot of adrenaline. According to The Herald, the Celtics once tried to add Moss to their summer league team:

"We had a couple of conversations with his agent at the time," [former GM Chris] Wallace said yesterday of Moss. "I think there was even some interest from his agent, but it never went anywhere. I just remember that he had been considered a very good player in high school, and he was always talking about his desire to play."

Although Wallace admits that this would've most been done to "spice things up," it wouldn't have been so outlandish. Tony Gonzalez, Julius Peppers, Donavon McNabb, and Antonio Gates all held their own on their college squads, and dudes like Terrell Owens and Daunte Culpepper have been known to let loose in charity games.