BOOMER SOONER

Last Friday, I felt Boston’s collective heart start beating again.

For all the romance about the Red Sox and the hoopla surrounding Bill Belichick’s stealth with a video camera, Boston has bled Celtic green since Red Auerbach paced the sidelines decades ago.

So when Celtics tickets went on sale last Friday, this old city’s heart—broken and embittered after 20 years of pure misery—started pumping the same green blood that fueled a 30-year obsession with arguably the NBA’s best franchise.

And I, the hapless Midwesterner unfamiliar with this city and its inexplicable and eternal obsessions, had a front row seat (albeit not a comfortable one). I descended upon T.D. Banknorth Garden with a friend to buy Celtics tickets, using my class-free Friday to grab some seats to games against the Pistons and the Cavaliers.

It seemed all of Boston had the same idea. Over 600 people were waiting in line, some having arrived as early as 6 am to snag the best seats to the best games. My friend and I went only because our efforts to purchase tickets during the online pre-sale had failed. The pre-sale began at 10 am on Wednesday, September 19; tickets sold out by 10:03.

On Friday, we met people who had taken the commuter rail from far corners of the city. Others were ditching work in the hopes of landing tickets to the first Miami-Boston game. Still more were there just because the Celtics, at worst, won’t be terrible, and, at best, might make a playoff run reminiscent of happier days in the old Garden.

I remained in line for more than three hours, incredulous at the slow-moving line and the fans that still had such faith in a perennial loser.

Finally, I asked the man in front of me the question I’d been dying to ask: when have Celtics tickets been in such high demand?

He was a grizzled working-class guy, worried about having dashed from work to “grab tickets and head back.”

His response? Larry Bird’s rookie year—1980.

Bird was drafted as a junior in 1978 and returned to Indiana State for one more year, but his being taken as No. 1 pick by the Celtics was enough to revive fans accustomed to the annual championships brought home by Boston stars Bill Russell and John Havlicek.

The man in front of me spoke with such obvious nostalgia and enthusiasm. He had stood in the very same line back in 1978, eager to get a good look at the Celtics’ future. The man standing next to him—a stranger until that morning—had been in the same line. Twenty-nine years and a new arena later, they were back in the same place with the very same hope.

The long and eager line on Friday was of similar disposition to the one in 1978, each person abuzz with the excitement of Kevin Garnett’s arrival and the prospect of the Celtics reaching the NBA Finals.

Such is the nature of Boston fans, so quick to complain but equally quick to regain hope. In the same sentence, another middle-aged man in line decried Rick Pitino as the Antichrist and declared Kevin Garnett the savior of the franchise. He called Danny Ainge a “genius,” forgetting, I suppose, that almost all of Boston wanted him tarred and feathered for much of the last few seasons.

Another fan lamented the deaths of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis, both seminal events in the franchise’s decline over the past two decades. Boston fans still mourn the losses, as much for the Celtics’ subsequent 20-year slump as for the death of two greats.

The line was as rife with historical recollection as newfound hope. Few franchises have the historical marquee of the Celtics, and Boston fans— perhaps more than any others—recall every basket and coaching change that have made the Celtics the power they once were and the farce they have been.

Throughout my three hours in line, I felt not unlike like an outsider at a particularly fervent religious gathering. I know very little Celtics history and have no attachment to the team. I’ve never cursed Doc Rivers or Rick Pitino. I never even stepped foot inside the old Garden with its iconic wood floor design.

I was a fraud.

Still, though, I was as caught up in that eternal Celtics spirit as anybody else. We were all stuck outside in the longest line the new Garden has ever seen, buoyed by the possibility of MVP candidates and a playoff run.

Never in my lifetime has a Celtics ticket given rise to such a response. The Big Ticket appears to have delivered on the promise of his nickname —marquee games against Miami, San Antonio and Chicago sold out before we ever reached the counter.

I overheard another fan begging the teller for “whatever you’ve got left.”

And this year, for the first time in a long while, the teller didn’t have much.

—Staff writer Aidan E. Tait can be reached at atait@fas.harvard.edu.