Mike Celizic

It wasn’t that long ago when Boston was the warm and fuzzy heart of the sports world, the city where hope sank eternal, a city that deserved a break more than any other.

But winning cures everything, including all those feelings of sympathy and good will the rest of America felt for poor Boston, where people understood better than anyone the bitterness of the cliché, always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

The change in attitude toward Boston is palpable. Five years ago, if the news had broken that Curt Schilling had shoulder problems and could miss the season, there would have been joy in New York, the schadenfreude capital of the world. But elsewhere in the country, fans would have felt sorry for the Red Sox and Boston.

But this spring, with Schilling nursing a bum shoulder, you can feel the undisguised glee at Boston’s misfortune. And in the city, where success has sandblasted away every last bit of the layers of humility that have built up on fans over the years, there is a thick plating of 24-karat arrogance. Instead of going into a season desperately hoping to win, they expect to win.

And in the process, the axis of sporting evil in America has shifted three or four hours east on I-95.

These are unfamiliar emotions for everyone. I don’t know when the last time was that Boston fans would have considered a season that didn’t end with a championship a failure, or the last time that America wanted somebody other than Boston to win. Maybe 1918, when the Sox finished their last run of dominance in baseball. The next year Babe Ruth was sold to New York and expectations stopped being what they had been — until now.

Winning five championships — three in the NFL and two in baseball — in seven years will do that for a city. We keep saying we love dynastic teams, but as soon as we get one, we start complaining that it’s boring to see the same teams win all the time.

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Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that the Red Sox and not the Yankees came to spring training with the “team-to-beat” target around their necks. And before the first pitch was thrown in practice, there was grousing and recriminations in Beantown.

Back before all this unaccustomed success hit town, Theo Epstein, the Red Sox G.M., was the boy genius who build the 2004 miracle Sox who overcame that 0-3 deficit to the Yankees in the ALCS and ended 86 years of baseball heartbreak.

Now, with Schilling showing up in camp with an $8-million contract and a nonfunctioning right shoulder, Epstein has suddenly gotten an attack of the dumbs. How could he sign a pitcher who can’t pitch? Where were the doctors? And while we’re at it, how could he have ever thought Coco Crisp was going to replace Johnny Damon in the outfield?

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Before success took root in Boston, Schilling’s shoulder would have been seen as just another example of the futility of a Red Sox fan entertaining hope. Now, it’s seen as a potential catastrophe to a season that is supposed to end in back-to-back championships.

And elsewhere in the country, it’s cause for undisguised glee.

Blame the Patriots for a lot of this. It was bad enough that they beat the snot out of the NFL all season long after winning three of the previous six Super Bowls. But that would have been merely boring. It took Spygate to transform winning into a high crime and misdemeanor. And subsequent revelations that the Patriots may have been spying on opponents since Bill Belichick’s first day on the sideline has only added to the animosity felt toward Boston.

The true measure of how much things have changed came in the Super Bowl, when a New York Giants victory was one for the cuddly underdog over the big, nasty dynastic machine.

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Until that Super Bowl, these were the best times Boston had ever experienced in sports. And now it could all be coming apart. David Tyree caught that pass, Eli Manning and not Tom Brady led the winning drive. Schilling is hurt. And even the Boston Celtics, who started the year playing as if they weren’t going to lose 10 games all season, have been limping along, hobbled by injuries and exposed as a great starting unit that probably doesn’t have the depth behind it to be true title contenders.

We haven’t even had the first exhibition game, yet, and realistically, it’s way too early to panic over the Red Sox. But this is sports, and that sort of sober observation doesn’t cut it. When fans become spoiled, it’s never too early to panic, never too early to get ticked at the G.M., never too early to demand that something be done to make it all better.

One month ago, things had never been better in Boston. Today, you can smell the fear that it’s all going to come apart.

Welcome, Boston, to the agony of victory.

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