In Boston, sports championship parades are as commonplace as theories on Curt Schilling’s bloody sock. Just last fall, the city rolled one out for the Red Sox, and certainly had plans for a Patriots’ parade this past February. The Giants foiled that parade, which would have been the fourth for the Patriots this decade.

Since 2002, Boston has celebrated six championships in the three major sports. It truly has become this country’s Titletown.

On the other coast, in a city much closer to us, we have something quite different. It is Seattle, where it is much better to participate than observe.

If Boston is Titletown, Seattle is Disgraceland.

You have to hand it to anyone who is a fan of Seattle sports teams. They are a hardy bunch, if not a bit hard-headed. It’s been nearly 30 years since the city gave its fans a major professional sports championship; who knew that the 1979 NBA champion-Sonics would be the high-water mark for Seattle sports fans under age 50?

The best Seattle has been able to produce since the Sonics’ lone title season was the University of Washington’s 1991 national championship in football. Even at that, the Huskies had to share with Miami.

Supporters of Cubs baseball are the poster fans for lovable losers, but I’m beginning to wonder if Seattle sports fans aren’t ready to shoulder themselves into the picture.

It’s really been an awful three decades, punctuated of late by one of the worst stretches no sports fan should have to endure.

It came to a head this week when on Monday, the Sonics and the city began jousting in court while the Mariners were canning general manager Bill Bavasi.

The Sonics are leaving Seattle. It’s just a matter of whether it’s this summer or two years from now when the team’s lease with KeyArena expires. It would just be Seattle’s luck to beat Clay Bennett and his gang in court and have a lame duck franchise hang around the city for the next two years.

The Mariners are going nowhere, figuratively and literally. They’re the worst team in baseball, with little hope for immediate future. Families are sure going to have a swell time hanging out at Safeco Field this summer watching a lineup that includes Jeremy Reed in center field, Kenji Johjima at first base and Willie Bloomquist playing anywhere.

Sodo Getmeoutofhere!

Seattle fans used to count on Husky football for reliable entertainment, but no more. It’s been years since Washington was relevant in college football. It doesn’t look good for the upcoming season, either; the Huskies open against probable preseason-Top 25s Oregon, Brigham Young and Oklahoma, and are likely to be without two of their few NFL prospects in linebacker E.J. Savannah and center Juan Garcia.

Husky basketball? It teased of promise a few years ago, but now, it’s just a tease.

NASCAR desperately wanted to bring a race to the Puget Sound region, but at every turn, lawmakers and local activists threw up blockades.

Typical Seattle; it wanted no part of an event that guarantees a winner and a raucous post-race celebration.

The Seattle region has gone mad in building upscale golf courses during the past 20 years. Yet Seattle has repeatedly been rebuffed by the PGA Tour for an annual stop; instead, the area plays host to the hit-and-giggle circuit better known as the senior’s Champions Tour.

When there’s talk of the National Hockey League moving to the Northwest, it’s always Portland, not Seattle, at the front of the conversation.

The Seahawks have been the anti-Seattle in recent years. In other words, they’ve won. There was the Super Bowl of 2006, and four consecutive NFC West titles.

But all good things, and especially in Seattle, must come to an end. The Seahawks have issues at wide receiver and offensive line, an upcoming schedule that includes several guaranteed losses (Dallas, New England, New York Giants), and division rivals in Arizona and San Francisco that will surely soon get it together.

Even in victory, Seattle finds a way to come up short.

The 2001 Mariners were the toast of baseball, winning an American League-record 116 games. But when it really mattered, the Mariners failed and couldn’t even get to the World Series.

The Sonics were on the verge of claiming the No. 1 pick in the 2007 NBA draft, one of the most coveted in years because it meant landing center Greg Oden. But they came up second best, and even worse, to their pesky neighbors to the south, Portland.

Some day, maybe the Mariners will get it right. The Seahawks won’t get tripped up by the big bad referees in the Super Bowl. Husky football regains the swagger many of its fans believe is a birthright. Someone in the Puget Sound region opens its doors to NASCAR’s haulers and immense traveling fan base.

Just as soon as Seattle gets the OK from Boston.

Nick Daschel is a sports writer for The Columbian. Reach him by telephone at 360-735-4522 or e-mail at nick.daschel@columbian.com.