BlueBlog

The Love Affair with Fall

2011-10-07T18:54:00.004-04:00

Most (almost all) people seem to have a love affair with fall and the end of summer. Doesn't matter where you are, warm climate, cold climate, people always say "I love this time of year" as soon as the temp drops a bit sometime usually in September.

I hate it. Passionately. Never have liked Fall. To me it is the sign of death. Summer is when people are alive. Baseball is alive in the summer. Grass, trees, plants of all kinds are alive in the summer. Fall kills all of that. Yeah yeah, football. Football has never been my favorite sport. Never will be. Cool weather. Yep, something to root for for sure. Enjoy throwing on layers of clothes, nothing like a layered top to make you feel comfortable, not.

Leaves turn color! Yeah! Makes me think of the scene in the Steve Martin movie The Jerk - "The new phone book's here, the new phone book's here!" The leaves are dieing actually.

Everybody generally hates winter, unless you ski or play hockey or something but doesn't Fall signal that winter is coming sooner rather than later?

I always thought it was weird how people love fall. If they had said spring I would understand. Spring is the rebirth of things that died in fall. I just don't get it.

The Weirdness of the 2011 Baseball Season

2011-10-01T09:09:00.009-04:00

Weird. Not because the Sox and Braves, both teams I root for, failed miserably down the stretch.

Weird. Not because Tito Francona, the most successful RedSox manager of them all, was not talked out of leaving the dysfunctional clubhouse for good yesterday.

Weird. Not because I'm now rooting for the Brewers to win it all.

Weird because of numbers.

I didn't get the mlb package on cable this year. Not sure why, just didn't or never got around to it. Saved me from screaming at the tv in April for sure. Saved me again in September. No matter. To keep up with the Braves and the Sox I often would check their scores on the internet while reading, posting, whatever. I use ESPN's scoreboard. Both teams are listed in my profile as favorites so their scores show up at the top of their respective leagues.

I'm guessing at least 10 times, probably more this season I found myself looking at the same score for both the Sox and Braves. If the Sox were up 3-1, the Braves were too at the same time. Once or twice is cool, interesting. This summer I swear it was often. Not just once in a game. Using that same example, the Sox might score a couple more and be up 5-1. A few minutes later I'd notice the Braves up by the same score. Weird. Wednesday night's games reminded me a bit of that. I had both the Braves and the RedSox games on the tv, flipping hundreds of times between them. Yankee game running on espn3 on-line live feed. Sox up 3-2, Braves up 3-2. Even the Yankees and Cardinals got in on the action for a while when both were up 7-0 in their respective games. Odd. Weird. Of course none of those scores held, only the Cardinals actually won their game.

Weird how Carl Crawford apologized a week or so ago for his season (before it was over). Was exchanging thoughts with some co-workers and spurred me on to look up some numbers during lunch. Check this out:

Here is a fun fact on Carl Crawford:

If he hit .250 in April instead of the .155 he put up his season total batting average would have been .273 - not so bad, not up to the $$$ spent but not terrible.

That difference? 9 lousy hits, in 24 games, one hit every 2.6 games more than he had.

Another fact- Crawford hit .296 with an .821 OPS in games Sox won and .201 / .526 in games they lost.

Me thinks Tito ain’t to blame.

Know what the difference between hitting .250 and .300 is? It's 25 hits. 25 hits in 500 at bats is 50 points, okay? There's 6 months in a season, that's about 25 weeks. That means if you get just one extra flare a week - just one - a gorp... you get a groundball, you get a groundball with eyes... you get a dying quail, just one more dying quail a week... and you're in Yankee Stadium.
-- Crash Davis

I looked and looked for some split stats to give hope on John Lackey…still looking.

Here is a stat that will amaze you : first batter in the game against lackey in his 28 starts hit .423 this year. In all - leadoff batters for all innings – they hit .318. He was always in trouble.
Lackey was 11-1 if the Sox scored 6+ runs for him, 1-11 if they did not.

Weird. Just plain weird.
Have a good weekend.

WIW : What-if-Wednesday

2011-09-21T17:30:00.014-04:00

What-if the 1978 Sox win the one game playoff with the Yankees?

Contrary to most Sox fans, I don't have nightmares about Bucky "Bleepn" Dent hitting the homer that broke the 1978 Sox collective backs on October 2nd, 1978 to propel the Yankees into the playoffs and the RedSox home as losers. My initial memories are of Yaz popping out to Nettles at third to end the game. I can vividly see the pitch, the swing and the jump for joy by Nettles after the catch as his teammates congregate around him.

The game was every bit as critical to the RedSox Yankee rivalry as the Pedro throw'n down of Don Zimmer and Aaron Boone's 12th inning bomb. 1978 was the first Sox team in my world of following baseball that could hit with anybody. The team was "built" to play in Fenway and it showed in the lineup and the stats.

Burleson, Remy, Rice, Yaz, Fisk, Lynn, Hobson, Scott and Evans (except Dewey didn't start this day but was used as a pinch hitter). Four guys over 20 homers (pre steroids) with a couple more in the high teens. This lineup had power, grit, experience, youth, it had all you would want.

To go with that lineup the Sox had decent pitching, led by 23 year old Dennis Eckersley who emerged as an ace, going 20-8 with a 2.99 ERA and 16 complete games. Luis Tiant was now 37 and contributed a 13-8 season with a 3.31 ERA. Free agent signee Mike Torrez was 16-13 with a 3.96. Unfortunately Tiant and Eckersley had pitched the prior two days and the rotation down the stretch didn't go much further than those three. Bob Stanley made a rare (at that point) start a few days prior but they were working off a three and a half man rotation down the stretch. Torrez was that only one able to go that fateful day against Cy Young winner (soon to be) Ron Guidry.

The game was rather quiet early, with the Sox capturing the lead on a first pitch homer to lead off the second inning by Yaz. The Sox added a second run in the 6th inning when Jim Rice singled in Burleson who had doubled to lead off the inning and moved to third on a sacrifice bunt by Remy. With a 2-0 lead through 6 the Sox looked great. The Yankees had only managed two hits against Torrez, a double by Rivers in the third and a single by Piniella in the 4th.

The top of the 7th changed history for Mike Torrez and Bucky Dent. A one out single by Chris Chambliss followed by a single by Roy White put the Yankees in their first real threat inning. Jim Spencer flew out to left for the second out and it appeared the Sox would get out of the inning with the weak hitting shortstop Bucky Dent coming to the plate. Dent hit .247 with 40 homers in his career. None more important than the one he hit in the 7th inning that day. His shot, a true Fenway wall shot, gave the Yankees a 3-2 lead. The bleeding wouldn't stop there. Torrez followed that with a walk to Mickey Rivers ending the pitcher's day. Mike Stanley came on in relief. Rivers promptly stole 2nd base and scored on a double by Yankee captain Thurman Munson. The Yankees led 4-2.

In the top of the 8th, the Yankees added to their lead with a solo homerun by Reggie Jackson off of Bob Stanley. Going to the bottom half of the 8th, the Yankees held a 5-2 lead and coming in to pitch the last two innings, closer Goose Gossage. Jerry Remy welcomed Gossage with a double to right before getting Jim Rice to fly out for the first out. Yaz came up and singled up the middle scoring Remy to make it 5-3. Back to back singles by Fisk and Lynn produced another run making it 5-4 through 8.

With one out in the bottom of the 9th, Rick Burleson drew a walk from Gossage. Remy followed with a single advancing Burleson to second. Rice flew out to right, Burleson took third on the out. Runners at the corners with Carl Yastrzemski coming up to bat with two outs. Flash back to my memories. Yikes, still painful.

But what if Yaz hadn't popped out, what if he delivered a game winning double driving in both Burleson and Remy? What if it wasn't necessary? What if Bucky Dent never gained the notoriety with that homer? What if Bucky had remained an anonymous and unimpressive shortstop with no great claim to fame over his career?

However it could have been different, imagine that it had been...the Sox advance to play the Royals in the ALCS. Their 100 wins is the first time they achieved that total since 1946. The Royals were the winners of the AL West with 92 wins for the year and not a single regular player hitting over .300 and led by pitchers Paul Splittorff, Dennis Leonard, Larry Gura and Rich Gale. The Mad Hungarian, Al Hrabosky was their off-center closer.

I envision, in this alternate world, the Sox beating the Royal much like the Yankees did. After disposing of the Yankees, they would have had Eckersley and Tiant ready to pitch the first two games and come back later in the series if necessary. The Sox would have gone into the World Series to face the Dodgers just three years removed from their epic loss to the Big Red Machine in '75.

It would have been great to have the Dodgers in Fenway for the Series. The Dodgers opened with Tommy John (yes, there is an ex-player named Tommy John, imagine that), Burt Hooten, Don Sutton and Bob Welch. The Dodgers were known for their starters as well as a lineup consisting of Davey Lopes, Bill Russell, Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Reggie Smith, Dusty Baker, Lee Lacy, Rick Monday and Steve Yeager. They were a well balanced team and would have provided a good matchup for the RedSox. I believe it would have gone 7 (didn't all Sox series in the 1900's go 7?) with the Sox finally breaking the curse of 60 years (not yet named the curse of the bambino).

The excitement, accolades and revenue brought about with the championship would have spurred team management to do whatever it takes to keep the nucleus together.

They would have signed Fisk and Lynn instead of letting them go as free agents. There could have been more winning seasons and chases for the championship into the early 1980's. That's my what-if and I'm sticking to it.

9-9 weekend ; visit from two old friends

2011-09-11T19:33:00.009-04:00

I've planned for and anticipated this weekend for a long time. Two old colleagues and friends were arriving at the lake for a weekend to relax and hang out.

Both arrived by 6:30 or so Friday night after long drives from opposite directions. John from North Carolina and Dave from the panhandle in Florida (John's brother from the Atlanta area also joined us on Saturday). The first night we feasted on lobster rolls! We didn't catch them in the lake nor did they arrive after a long flight from New England but these crustaceans were found at the local Publix. Sam and I picked them out, had the nice staff at Publix cook them for us (saving that hard to remove smell from the lakehouse). I shelled the meat from them and let it chill during the afternoon before their arrival. We got uncut hot dog buns from the Publix bakery (good advice from my mother recently) and center cut them the way a lobster roll should be (see the image in the banner above). Buttered sides were nicely toasted before adding the mix of celery, lemon juice, mayonnaise, salt and pepper served on shredded lettuce.

I am quite particular about lobster rolls. We discussed it while we ate. There is a bar/restaurant near work that a group of us occasionally go to that is a seafood place. I get the lobster roll. Disappointment follows every time. They serve the meat in a bun...no mayo, no nothing except a cup of melted butter off on the side. Waste. Legal seafoods opened in Atlanta a few years ago. For a $20 lobster roll (with fries) it is ok. Good amount of meat but they tend to go WAY overboard on dill seed. Kinda ruins it. Otherwise good roll but nothing like the way it needs to be done. Some great John-cooked meals were included. Breakfast on Saturday was awesome led by great hashbrowns and a terrific omelet. Saturday night Dave and John prepared rib-eyes for everybody. To say they were flame broiled is an understatement. I was told that it was the coating of butter on the steaks and that it would burn off :)

The time on the water was documented with cameras (will post in media section and waterblogged blog later). Time spent around the fire pit rehashing old stories and remembering co-workers was great. Throw in (pun intended) some horseshoe games and killer rock band jam and the weekend seemed to go by too quickly.

Some new memories were made for sure. John's aggressiveness on the jet ski, both John and Dave trying the hydrofoil, the cooking, and the singing and guitar play in rockband.

Thanks to John and Dave for making the trip! Great times and I look forward to the next time.

Oops, forgot to tell John NOT to pull rope to chest in moment of panic

...because bad things can happen. I like to call this: "John's one hand handstand"

I believe the song was "Eye of the Tiger"

to quote Bruce Springsteen - "C'Mon Rise UP!"

Time on the water can be so relaxing, look at Dave just about to lay down and take it easy for a while

WIW : What-if Wednesday

2011-09-07T19:14:00.003-04:00

I'd like to start a weekly feature, "what-if Wednesday" where I post about a situation that would have created some significantly different results if something happened differently. My version of Quantum Leap (ok, so I dated myself :) )

Today's WIW :
What if Len Bias, All American hoops player from the University of Maryland, didn't die from cocaine overdose shortly after getting drafted by the World Champion Celtics in the summer of 1986.

I can place myself in time when I first heard Bias had died in June of 1986. I was working my way through school and at the time was a manager at a McDonalds (yep) and remember some kid that worked there came in and told me that he heard on the car radio that Bias had died. Sort of a moment frozen in time, not unlike the Shuttle Challenger explosion five months before.

Bias was drafted 2nd overall by the then Champion Celtics. The '85/86 Celtic team was regarded then and still as one of the top All-Time teams...EVER. Led by Hall of Famers Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish and Dennis Johnson this team had everything needed to win and continue winning. Bird was at his peak, having won his third straight MVP award. McHale had settled into the starting rotation and was a dominant power forward with insane low-post moves in his arsenal. Parish, the quiet Chief, was one of the most consistent and durable centers in league history. DJ had evolved from a scorer earlier in his career to be a non traditional point guard with many options to go to. Also on this team and key contributors were Danny Ainge, HOF Bill Walton (not for his time with the Celtics though), Scott Wedman and Jerry Sichting.

These Celtics had beaten the Houston Rockets in the finals 4-2. Houston robbed the world of a Celtic vs. Laker matchup by beating the Lakers in the conference finals. The Celtics had won in '81, '84 and now in '86 while Magic Johnson's Lakers had won titles in '80, '82 and '85 setting the stage for the back half of the decade to decide which team would reign supreme. Adding Bias to the historically great Celtic team was an improbable dream.

At the time of the draft, Bird was 29, McHale 28, Parish about to turn 33, DJ soon to turn 32. The team was going to be good for the next few years but having Len Bias would grant them a luxury to extend all of Bird, McHale and Parish's careers by eating up minutes as he entered the rotation.

In the 1986, 87 season, the Celtics won 59 games but leaned on their core more than ever before. Walton was lost for all but 10 games so Bird and McHale averaged 40 minutes each while Parish over 37 himself. A healthy rookie named Len Bias, with his evolving skills would have reduced each of the big 3's minutes per game at least 5 minutes (Assuming Bias would play around 25 minutes or more per game as a rookie). With a less stressed frontcourt and the explosive Bias coming off the bench the Celtics would have fared better than they did in the 1987 playoffs. They lost to the Lakers in the finals 4-2. McHale had broken a bone in his foot and limped his way through the playoffs. Certainly having Bias would have allowed coach KC Jones to utilize more than basically a five man rotation. Only one Boston bench player (Greg Kite) averaged more than 10 minutes per game in the finals.

Following the 1986-87 season the Celtics big three began to decline and succumb to injuries. In 1987-88 McHale missed close to 20 games while Bird and Parish missed some too when they had been historically dependable for most if not all their team's games. In the games they all did play, their minutes remained elevated, Bird at 39 per game, McHale at 37.3 per game and Parish at 31.2. The workload, without proper subs due to the loss of Bias back in June of '86, was causing the team to continue to burden their big 3 in the regular season. In the playoffs, the Celtics beat the Knicks and Hawks to get to the conference finals against the younger, hungry Detroit Pistons. The Pistons disposed of the aging Celtics in six games and ultimately lost to the Lakers. In the playoffs, the big 3 logged 45, 42 and 37 minutes per game.

In 1988-89 the Celtics saw the future and it didn't look good. Larry Bird played in only six games. McHale and Parish continued to suit it up and play big minutes but the dream was beginning to end.

Who knows what injuries may have happened or not happened if Len Bias started picking up minutes beginning in '86-'87? Maybe the big 4 would have won a couple more titles along the way. Certainly possible. I believe it would have extended the careers of Bird and McHale, both retired due to nagging injuries sustained from all the minutes and pounding they incurred over the years. Having Bias play an integral part of a rotation would have spared the big 3 some minutes along the way and add a dimension to the Celtics that they had never had, a player that routinely played above the rim.

I believe they would have won in '86-87, they were coming off their best season ever and were on a high having drafted Bias. The energy and relief he would have provided would have given them a weapon and kept them on top of the NBA world.

In '87-88, losing to the Pistons in the conference finals might have been a different outcome as well. The Pistons were younger and having a 2nd year Len Bias progressing into a potential all-star would have given the Celtics a counter punch to the youth of Isiah, Rodman, and Salley.

When you get out to '88-89, perhaps some injuries still happen, perhaps having a 3rd year budding superstar makes it easier. I think things still would have been good for the Celtics as they shift more responsibility towards Bias at this point. Detroit swept the Celtics in the first round this year, with a healthier lineup and Bird intact perhaps they advance over the eventual Champions or more likely would not have faced them in the first round.

In the 80's, the Celtics were one of two dominant basketball teams along with the Lakers. In 1980-89 either (or both) the Celtics or Lakers were in the finals each year with the Lakers winning 5 titles to the Celtics 3. By my estimation the Celtics would have won again in '86-87 and possibly in 87-88 giving them 4.5 titles in the decade. Both of those years the Lakers won so it would have knocked them down to 3.5 titles in the decade. Both teams were impressive but with a living Len Bias I believe the Celtics would have had the upper hand as the most dominant team of the decade.

As it was, the Celtics didn't win a championship after '85-86 until Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen brought the title home in 2008, twenty two long years. Many Celtics fans and historians point to Len Bias' death as the main reason why.

Some links:

Len Bias wiki
espn - The Day the Innocence Died
Bill Simmons - still haunted
Bias highlights

photo and video snobbery

2011-09-01T12:38:00.002-04:00

I admit, I'm a snob when it comes to pictures and videos. Like everybody else, youtube has become a part of life along with vimeo and the slew of picture sharing sites out there.

My snobbery? With the advent of cameras in phones the quality of viewing pictures or video went down 50% very quickly. Every hack can take pictures or video of anything (often interesting subjects) and post it up to youtube or wherever.

There is a reason phones are called phones. That is their primary function. Pictures and video taken with a phone is great...if in an emergency or as a last resort. However, lots of people treat it as their sole entry into photography or video taking. Watch something shot with an iphone (other than a quick clip on someone's cut kid), something you are sincerely interested in viewing - tell me at the end that you didn't feel betrayed at the end. Betrayed that you were robbed of the experience. Video shot with a phone sucks for a reason. 95% of the cost of the phone is to make the phone work as best it can.

Rant over, gotta figure out how to call someone on my camera...

Rock Block weekends

2011-08-21T20:52:00.003-04:00

I like classic rock, actually prefer it. Call me old, call me names, whatever. One of the stations I flip between in the car does rock block weekends every weekend. Their promo states: "2, 3 or even 4 in a row from your favorite artists".

Ok, so sometimes it isn't my favorite artist and I flip. There are a few groups/artists I flip before the first song is 3 seconds in. Two of them were played today while I was on the way to the lake:

ZZ Top - never ever have understood the appeal. The sound is chalkboard scratching at best. Didn't find out if it was 2,3 or 4 in a row.

Bob Seger - Incredibly irritating songs. True story - at our wedding we skimped a little bit on the DJ, he seemed like a good enough guy. When asked about special songs, you know first dance etc. we gave him that. I also told him under no circumstances was Bob Seger to be played. It was a given that DJ's at weddings would play either Turn the Page for a slow song, Night Moves to speed things a little bit, or gasp, Old time rock and roll to get the 80's loving crowd going. What did I hear during the reception? Old Time Rock and Roll. Took a little bit out of the tip envelope. Serves him right.

Anyway, both zz and Seger were played on rock block weekend? Certainly not two groups/artists on my favorites list.

Rant over, go back to your lives.

RedSox - World Series bound? I dunno...

2011-08-17T17:27:00.003-04:00

The RedSox were rolling. They came back from the well documented failure in April and have been in-out of first place for a couple months. They appeared to have begun to reach their potential and things were great.

This week, David Ortiz develops a heel/foot issue. He has been out of the lineup for the doubleheader yesterday with Tampa and the game this afternoon too. One man doesn't make a lineup, Kevin Youkilis also has missed the games. The issue? In the three games in two days against division rival Tampa the Sox have put a total of 15 runners on base (or HR). Nine hits in three games, five walks and a HBP.

The team went comatose all together. For the season, these RedSox have averaged 13.79 baserunners per contest. 9.8 hits, 3.7 walks and .3 HBP. Amazing that they won a game this week so far.

They will get hot again, maybe when Ortiz and Youk get back in the lineup, maybe before then. If and when they head into the playoffs they need to be ready to hit. While this team has good pitching, it isn't their strength, their ability to hit in spots 1-9 is.

So...we are supposed to be sad, right?

2011-08-12T19:15:00.002-04:00

Having a hard time with the overwhelming sentiment that Tiger Woods missing the cut today at the PGA is a bad thing. Really? I'm hoping the timing of this picture of Tiger was when a bug of some sort flew into him and caused that pained look on his face. Maybe he was taking an eye exam during his round, you know, "cover your right eye and read the bottom row".

I like superstars, I think superstars can transcend sports and be role models if careful. Tiger wasn't exactly careful was he? I don't really wish ill will on people and don't with Tiger either but him playing horribly and missing the cut isn't something I'll spend any more time than this blog post worrying about. The media is waiting for, praying for, the return of dominant Tiger. I don't get it. Why? The game was predictable and boring. Yeah, he still has plenty of time to catch Jack's record for Major Championships. Will it be as satisfying? I don't know.

Lets look at some great records broken and the participants:

Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's all time hit record; Pete Rose and Ty Cobb (reportedly) are both slim balls.

Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's all time HR record; Hank Aaron is revered and went through troubling and racist times to break Babe Ruth's previous mark. Bonds...yeah.

Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak; Both are/were considered relatively squeaky clean, one for the good guys

Tiger Woods one day breaking Jack's record; quite possible, far from squeaky for Tiger.

Truth is, Tiger is also aging, might not have the time to overcome the injuries and the damage done to his reputation. Maybe that is what everybody is sad about?

cool

2011-08-04T07:58:00.001-04:00

Somebody posted this picture on the hydrofoiling site I frequent.

Love this picture,his quote : "Last Shuttle "ENDEAVOR" flight from KSC - 5-16-2011. A seriously nifty photo of Monday's shuttle launch from the best seat in the house.....an F-15E Strike Eagle at 26 thousand feet over the east coast.......the protective combat air patrol for the launch......"

So Wrong...but ok with that

2011-08-03T23:04:00.003-04:00

The other day I posted that Jacoby Ellsbury would be named July AL player of the month. Boy was I off. Seems his 5'8 ish teammate Dustin Pedroia walked off with the monthly award. Seems like a good thing if you are a Sox fan. Top two guys in the batting order fighting it out for the top player of the month award. Oh yeah, btw -last month (June) Adrian Gonzalez was the player of the month...

P.S. Sox win tonight on walkoff HR by Ellsbury, maybe August will be his month?

PPS. Back in June, when at a Sox game in the Bronx with a Yankee friend and Pedroia was hitting .230 I made a gentleman's bet that Pedey would end the year over .300 - Love this game!

The End

2011-08-02T12:26:00.002-04:00

For as long as I can remember I have a fear (or dreading) the end of things. Nope, not talking about the BIG end of things but much smaller and on a more frequent scale. The end of a round of golf, end of a day on the lake, end of a vacation, things like that.

I can tell you that in every round of golf I play (not that many lately, lol), somewhere around the 13th or 14th hole I get a sense of sadness that it will be over in x number of holes.

About Thursday on a standard weeks' vacation I start to wonder where the time went and why does it have to end in a few days. Everybody probably wonders that one but it is deeper than just whimsically wondering "where did the time go?".

The dread that hits me actually does sometimes prevent me from fully enjoying the moment and balance of the event.

I looked it up online hoping to find some cool sounding phobia but the list of phobias is too long to go through. I clearly have a phobia about going through that list...

Maybe it's rooted in the whole death thing, or more likely in aging. After all, not too many people want to age. I don't generally feel as old as I am. Maybe I'm holding on or wanting to.

Paul McCartney wrote a song about dieing called "End of the End", brief excerpt:

At the end of the end
It's the start of a journey
To a much better place
And this wasn't bad
So a much better place
Would have to be special
No need to be sad

A blogger I read by former SI writer and author Jeff Perlman often speaks of his fear on death.

I don't think that is where my head is at. It is about how fast life is moving. My post here last week about the constant "rush" in life is related...I think. If you enjoy things, shouldn't you fear them ending? Ending sooner than you hope?

Do you long for things to last?

ESPN

2011-07-31T09:03:00.003-04:00

I'm about half way through ESPN's book that came out recently. Enjoying it although the connecting the dots along the timeline sometimes get lost a bit. The other day while reading they got to the part where they hired the advertising firm that gave them the parody ads with athletes and their own personalities.

Some classic ones and some I've never seen before:

Pedroia (my Boston influence)

Strug

Wally

Bill Bradley

defense wins championships

Grant Hill - classic

rouge

Rocket

jeter

King

Richard Simmons

Sharapova

Spectator Booing in Sports

2011-07-29T08:02:00.011-04:00

A blogger (Peter) I know yankeesredsox.com posted yesterday a self analysis piece on whether booing athletes is a good/decent thing to do after hearing of Hideki Irabu's suicide. Peter wondered out loud whether, in the smallest of ways, his booing of Irabu while with the Yankees could have contributed to his ultimate demise.

I don't believe a fan should ever feel guilty of "casual booing" in fact I believe it is part of the sport and athlete/fan relationship, certainly at the professional level. Don't get me wrong, if you boo college kids, high school etc. then the line may be crossed. After all, they are not profiting from playing (yet).

I believe there are at least a few types of booing.

1) Booing your own team, this is out of frustration, whether it be a multi millionaire not performing up to snuff or the team in total struggling it is a necessary boo to let management and players know that the seats might not always be full. I willingly partake in this one.

2) Booing every single opposing player no matter the situation. Often these types are either drunk or are such negative people in life that they would think they hit the lottery if they were walking behind you and you drop a $20 bill on the ground and they pick it up and keep it rather than return it to you. I cannot remember doing this ever, although I would have if older at the time shortly after a big brawl between the Sox and Yankees in 1976 when Nettles and the Yankees retaliated ( 1976 brawl ) to some lip service Bill Lee had been providing with a physical (and cheap) beat down.

3) Booing only particular players on the other team. This one is easily the most popular. Visiting players, whether good or bad, get it from fans. This differs from #2 in that there is room left for respect of the opposing players if deserved. I would never boo Derek Jeter but when A-Rod comes up to bat, watch out. I obviously partake in this version.

Unless you take it (way) too far and have altercations with a player outside of the field of play, as long as it is kept within limits, booing is a good part of competitive sports and fan viewing. Professional athletes are entertainers and make obscene amounts of money. The tickets and secondary costs of going to an event or game are real and significant to fans. If the booing were ever regulated/forced out of that relationship you might as well have an empty stadium and have it only televised with no live viewing.

Patriots go for it and Mr. Ellsbury

2011-07-28T19:32:00.002-04:00

Attention, if you haven't heard yet, the New England Patriots are going for gold. Having acquired Albert Haynesworth in the morning they went out and stole Chad Ochocinco from the Bengals for two draft picks over the next two years. Everybody is writing/saying that both of these will be just like Corey Dillan/Randy Moss pickups for the Pats. Both will be expected to contribute and keep their attitudes in check (at least for a while) and help the team win a SuperBowl.

Who knows what the new look NFL will be like with salary basements (minimums teams have to spend) and all the player movement still going on. What I would guess though is that if they stay reasonably healthy the Patriots have a good shot at getting very deep in the playoffs.

Switching to the Baseball side of things, Jacoby Ellsbury was written off by many in the media and fanbase last year for being "soft". He suffered through rib injuries all season after colliding with now departed Mike Cameron. Many questioned Ellsbury's toughness. I don't think there is anything you can challenge with a professional athlete that would upset them more. With the arrival of Carl Crawford over the winter, further speculation was that the Sox would deal Ellsbury. Everybody should be glad they didn't. In a few days he will be named AL player of the month (write it down). He is playing as well as anybody in the game including his teammate Dustin Pedroia. Ellsbury has hit .325 so far with 17 homeruns and 60 RBI to go with 29 stolen bases. For July? Just .413, 8 hr, 20 rbi. You'll notice in the banner above on my site I have a picture of Ellsbury. All the pictures in the banner are things I like. I never gave up on Ellsbury, I saw the injuries for what they were, unfortunate. Kind of like every time Mike Greenwell used to get run into by the human injury creator, Ellis Burks. Remember Ellsbury's steal of home against Andy Pettitte and the Yankees a couple years ago? Awesome.

Rush!

2011-07-27T21:56:00.002-04:00

Ever get tired of rushing around?

Most activities, most things you do, you finish and rush to the next activity. There is no smelling the roses anymore. Days are planned to the minute. Take the kid(s) for music lessons at 10:00. After they are done, rush through a drive through so you can get them home by xx:xx time.

I remember growing up in the old days and there being slow moving days. No plans, take it as it comes at you. Decide to go to the grocery store, ok, didn't already have a list completed the day before with a specific time to go there? So be it. I laugh when one of the kids claims to be bored. Yeah in your world you may be. Tired of the computer, wii, xbox, 500 channels.

I like going to the lake. I've been told that I seem more relaxed there. I'm not sure. When I'm out on the boat, skiing and having fun there is a "rush" ongoing at all times. When one person is done with their turn skiing, the next rushes to attention and gets ready.

Not sure if any of it can be stopped. Spontaneous behavior is no longer allowed. Master plans are required in advance for most of what we do in life. Texting on the phone in your pocket is another method of instant gratification. Used to be ok if you didn't talk/text somebody all day long. Now it is part of being. Expected.

I'm tired. Should go to bed. I didn't plan to go to bed this early though. Plan was to browse the web, check scores and read a little bit before bed. I haven't accomplished all of that yet. Where did the time go?

Home Field Advantage

2011-07-24T10:46:00.004-04:00

So we've all been there, traveling for work, for vacation, oh I don't know, traveling to a funeral or wedding. If you've been away from home for a day or two you don't yet realize it. If you've been lucky or unlucky enough to be gone the better part of a week or more then you definitely yearn for "Home field Advantage". What is it, outside of the sports definition? Home field advantage is quite simply, comforts.

Since arriving back home late last night, the list of home field advantages piled up quickly:

- space to put things, no longer constricted to a small hotel room
- water to drink without paying someone $2 for a bottle
- snacks available, again, without paying gross fees
- bathroom space, having the ability to see your toothbrush in it's correct place, not living out of a toiletry bag anymore
- "your" pillow setup. Sounds insignificant but really? The most important home field advantage other than :
- soft toilet paper. enough said
- Overall space. No longer sharing a hotel room with my beloved children (we do a boys room and a girls room when on the road).
- AC that actually keeps a temperature around what you set avoiding the highs and lows of hotel air
- knowledge that every meal won't be north of $40 (even fast food meals) once we restock the pantry and fridge.

How could I forget the shower, nothing quite like a shower head that is above your head for a change. Those lousy hotel shower heads that if you are above 5'9" make you crouch down to wash your hair are awful.

Lastly, the best homefield advantage? No automatic itinerary with detailed places to go, people to meet, things to do. We'll still do things, just some of it will be played by ear. Good to be home.

Atlanta Airport Security

2011-07-23T17:51:00.003-04:00

Hard to believe but there is an airport that has a less efficient running security area than Hartsfield, I give you...O'Hare in Chicago. Either they were training a bunch of new TSA employees or they were all alerted to some high alert and were checking every bag through the machine with their backwards and forwards couple of inches that the belt travels. Took the seven of us about 20 minutes to walk 15 feet and get through the scanners. That was after having our ID's checked and passed. Gaby got some odd pleasure out of my being picked randomly to have the full body scan. I of course asked for, but did not receive, a cigarette after the scan...

NCIS

2011-07-22T22:17:00.003-04:00

When you are confined to hotel rooms, night after night, with two of your kids, what can you do? Watch tv and post on a blog. NCIS is a show made for hotel viewing. Back to back repeats are too tempting to resist. Back to normal in the morning. My wife prefers NCIS LA, has something to do with the male characters, she doesn't get Mark Harmon. LA version is too...sorry...hollywood for me.

Butterburgers

2011-07-22T16:30:00.003-04:00

If you've never been to Wisconsin (or Illinois evidently) you've probably missed out on Butterburgers. What exactly is a butterburger? Fast food with a purpose. Butterburgers probably aren't healthy for you. You've probably had a Big Mac, you've probably had a Whopper and anything from any number of fast food joints, all of which are not healthy for you either. Butterburgers from Culver's has them all beat. Great tasting burger with no holding back on flavor because somebody thought they needed to cover all the bases. Good burger (meat) on a butter grilled bun makes this burger really good. Culver's has the whole frozen custard thing going for them too, especially if you have kids you are taking...which I do and did.

Are the Sox the latest version of the Atlanta Braves?

2009-10-18T07:54:00.005-04:00

The Atlanta Braves won their division 14 straight seasons from 1991 - 2005 (excluding 1994 which never really existed, thanks Bud/Players). This is a tremendous achievement that remains in conversation to this day in Atlanta sports talk radio. It remains a topic because the Braves converted this amazing run to ONLY a single World Series title. They averaged 97.4 wins in that span.

The RedSox have made it to the postseason in 6 of the last 7 years, averaging 95.5 wins in those playoff years.

So all the pundits are racing around with columns, blogs, podcasts, you name it, telling anybody that will listen how Theo Epstein should work this magic or that magic and retool the Sox in a few hours time. We've heard Terry Francona and Theo Epstein both mention the franchise goal of winning 95 games and getting to the postseason each year.

Is that vision setting the bar high enough?

Lets fast forward to the 2016 offseason and listen in to "Blmeanie and the Bouncing Balls and Pucks" virtual sports broadcast :

blmeanie: "welcome to the show today, hope everybody realizes how amazing it is to be a Sox fan. While the loss yesterday to the Kansas City Royals ended their postseason run, they have given us a lot to enjoy this year again." We welcome into the show one of our favorite virtualizers, Mikey from Dorchester. Welcome Mikey."

Mikey from Dorchester (MFD) : "Yo Blue, sup? What's with the happy face on another postseason loss? It's eat'n me up, ya know? Every freak'n year it's another disappointing loss to some loser franchise. KC this year, Washington last year, Texas the year before that. I'm tired of losing."

blmeanie: "Hey slow down Mikey, when you say losing, don't you mean losing in the postseason? I know most of the other 39 teams around baseball would love to make it to the postseason 13 out of the last 14 years. So we only have 2004 and 2007 for championships, isn't it about the chase?"

MFD: "Ever since the average ticket price went above $150 back in 2013 it doesn't feel the same no more. I mean, I went to a game in August, took my brother and his kid Manny, yep, named for that Manny, anyway, we went down to Fenwa…geesh, sorry, BP Field and there weren't nothin' but suits everywhere. Geesh, I mean, I used to go to games and there was wicked excitement on every pitch, the fans were true fans and the game was the show. Now everybody is playing with their virtual conversation devices (VCD's) and not watchin' the game. Whats up with that?"

blmeanie: "Of course winning so much gave the Sox the power to increase ticket prices each year but there is a price to be paid for winning year in and year out, right Mikey?" Which would you rather be a fan of the Sox and their amazing streak of playoff appearances or the Washington Nationals that won the Series in 2015 in only their first postseason appearance since moving to Washington? Maybe you'd like to be a fan of the Fremont A's? They make a run every 7 years like clockwork and fans have to suffer while they trade away maturing players every other year in between."

MFD: "Ya know, getting into the postseason used to mean more, remember when it was only 4 teams that made it in? Even afta Bud added wildcard teams it was something to get in. Those were the days, getting in meant something back then, I mean, the Pirates are the only team that you can count on never making the playoffs."

blmeanie: "Ancient history Mikey, sure you can dream back to before Commissioner Wendy Selig changed the rules in 2012 to add automatic playoff inclusion for any team with a ballpark at least 100 years old and then the more significant change in 2013 when any team above .500 winning percentage getting into the postseason. These were changes to make the game better, more profitable."

MFD: "I can't believe youse are selling out Meanie! How can it be better when 22 teams made it to the playoffs this year? Is it freak'n hockey?"

blmeanie: "You have to keep up with the times Mikey, some good points, thanks for virtually connecting in today, now we go to Sal in Sommerville, Sal?"

Back to reality -sorry I went as long as I did, I really was enjoying myself though. Those conversations have taken place in Atlanta for the last 10 years or so, really since 1995 when the Braves won. Is getting to the playoffs enough for the fans? I agree the mentality of "you have to make it to the playoffs to ever have a chance at winning it all" makes sense. If a franchise focuses on that goal though, don't they sacrifice a little bit of the gambler's mentality of the "roll the dice" moments that could pay off with titles vs. postseason disappointments?

If you are in a market that can be top 10 in payroll year in year out, shouldn't the goal be all about championships?

Read that statement again…and again. If you are shelling out the money anyway, should you pull a “Yankee” and go for it all the time?

I'd take a year or two now and again of missing the playoffs if the moves being made were to elevate the next year to the point that winning a Championship became significantly more likely. Winning a title every fifth year would be great. Unfortunately somewhere in the back of my mind is the fear that 2007 will be it for a while and the claim to fame becomes the run of postseason appearances... sure hope I am wrong.

Put us to sleep already!

2009-10-16T14:12:00.003-04:00

While the MLB playoffs have gone from a 10 interest factor for me down to a 6 with the exit by the Sox, the 6 could slip further as the lack of intelligent thought coming out of the league offices has really crippled "America's game" again.

With the Yankee/Angels game tonight the Yankees will have endured 8 days off since the regular season ended. Eight (8) days off. Counting backwards from the final Sunday of the season, the 8th day off the Yankees had was the last day off for the All-Star break. Wow.

Then there are 3 more days off just inside the series with the Angels if it goes 7. Probably a few days off before a World Series starts and then at least 3 days off inside of the 7 game schedule. Why not just schedule once a week like the NFL. Something to look forward to, easier to mentally know when your team is going to play...

Oh yeah, the Angels finished up Sunday just like the Yankees did against the Twins. The Angels were in Boston Sunday. The first game against the Yankees was going to be in NY. Why wait through 4 off days again? I don't know if the Angels flew home Sunday or not. If they did only to fly back to NY then that favors the Yankees for sure.

At least we got the half hour earlier start times, woohoo!

amazing

2009-10-15T12:08:00.001-04:00

watch this kid, watch the goalie, especially on the overhead, center ice angle at the end.

from Boston.com : "The video of a youth hockey player from Maine scoring a shootout-style goal at the Garden is making the rounds.

According to the Bruins' web site, the player's name is Oliver Wahlstrom. NESN reports he plays for the Portland Junior Pirates in Maine.

The video was shot during taping for the TD Bank Mini 1-on-1, a promotion that begins Oct. 29 at the Bruins game vs. New Jersey."

Twilight Zone

2009-09-02T21:48:00.003-04:00

ok, so Theo Epstein and the Sox made some obvious gambles this past off-season, resting much of their success on injured stars that needed a place to show they were healed and ready to contribute to a winner...

Cue up future HOF John Smoltz. I thought it would work out, thought he would emerge from rehab time and contribute to a run into the postseason...I WAS RIGHT! I only picked the wrong team. Smoltz got smashed in Boston and proceeded to get released/traded and he gets the ball in St. Louis a couple of times now and has one win with a 0.82 ERA and a .727 WHIP. Pretty fancy numbers on a small sample size. Compare them to his 8 starts in Boston, his 8.32 ERA and his 1.70 WHIP. Little bigger sample size but it's like he entered the twilight zone (NL) and voila, his slider slides a little more, his splitter splits a little more. As a (secondary) Brave fan I am somewhat happy for the man...good for him, hope he continues to help out the Cardinals and make a run for another ring.

Cue up Brad Penny. I had doubts about his signing with Boston but felt if he could eat innings and be the 4th or 5th guy that would be fine. He is a big man and I thought big men last long in games...silly me. In his 24 starts with Boston before being released outright, he dazzled the AL to a tune of 5.61 ERA and 1.534 WHIP while averaging 5.4 innings per start. Neither successful nor an inning eater he didn't really pan out. After getting released there is no reason for another team not to take a chance on you, especially if your #5 guy is worse. So the Giants reach into the portal and pull Mr. Brad Penny through to the twilight zone (NL) and today he made his first start. Guess what? He pitched a very economical 8 innings, giving up zero (0) runs on 5 hits and a single walk. I thought I better get the calculator and check how many times he made it to or through the 8th inning for the Sox this year...guess what, his longest outing in a RedSox uni was 6 2/3 innings on May 20th. Bravo to you too Brad Penny. You have found the fountain of youth and it's called the National Pitchers Ready to Retire League.

Ok, so in my next life I want to be an agent for ML pitchers, guess what teams I'm going to negotiate with whenever I have a chance? Yep, NL teams. Seems simple enough. Name 3 (and I will give you 2) dominant NL pitchers that had success in the AL after the NL for more than a single year? C'mon? Pedro, yep. Schilling, yep. Nolan Ryan? Nah, he was dominant but he never dominated. Tom Seaver? Nope, too late in the AL. I cannot think of another, can you?

Things we learned

2009-08-27T07:38:00.005-04:00

So in the last week we learned that the Sox won't be catching the Yankees when the Yankees took 2 of 3 and beat ace Josh Beckett (soundly). Against what was needed most, we found out the return of Jerry Remy to the booth was not going to be a rabbit's foot and allow the Sox to enter contention for the division again. (welcome back RemDog!) We learned Jacoby Ellsbury is the best base stealer in RedSox history (the Sox missed another opportunity with Taco Bell) as he passed Tommy Harper's long standing record of 54 steals. Ellsbury has done it at around an 80% success rate which is impressive too. Ellsbury has quietly accomplished what we hoped all along, decent on base percentage, hit around .300, play great D and add excitement with his legs. Back in April-June everybody was writing him off, he still takes too big a swing too often but he is still learning. We have learned that John Smoltz can pitch effectively against the Padres. Tomorrow night we see step 2 in his NL return against the mighty Nationals. With all due respect, I hope he gets starts against the Pirates, Reds and Mets to finish off 5-0 since returning to the NL. We also learned that Jonathon Papelbon is a bit insecure and is taking lessons from Jim Rice in how to retract statements made irresponsibly to the media. We have learned that Billy Wagner could be a valuable piece against the likes of Sox killers Matsui, Pena, and Damon. Time will tell on that one.

We have learned that Mike Vick will be a potentially significant part of the Eagles this season. The willingness on the team's part as well as evidently McNabb's part is honorable and will allow Vick an opportunity many didn't think he would get this quickly. Many here in Atlanta are saying they have forgiven him for his illegal acts but some/many are still upset that his immaturity and behaviour while here in Atlanta showed total lack of respect for the job he had. Stories of lack of committment to working at it and lack of support for teammates etc. are all over the place. He was just too wrapped up in personal business to be a great football player. We saw brillance oviously, at times. Perhaps with dedication (can only hope he really has learned from his experience) and support he can be magical on the field again and sustain it.

We have learned, in the media at least, that Tom Brady has the best advisors around. No doubt he is anxious to get more money when he sees the contracts being given to some of his peers. He is relatively underpaid all things considered and yet publicly says he wants to perform and help the team win. Many many many other players would be all pouty in public and some would even be holding out looking for a renegotiation. Even if he is doing that behind the curtains I gotta give him props for not doing it in public. If he truly doesn't care about that and is focused soley on winning, awesome (and unusual).

We have learned that Florida is the greatest college football team of all time. Seriously, when was the last time a team on a run over multiple years has received the hype...wait for it...and backed it up year after year. If they win the championship this year, give them the nod as best all time over a 3 or 4 year period. Every game the other team is gunning for them and they continue to find ways to emotionally and physically beat the opponents.

We have learned Tiger Woods isn't automatic in Majors when he leads late. Age, fatherhood, injuries all have played a role in the "bringing Tiger back to earth" movement. I love it. I like and absolutely respect Tiger. I am one of those fans that doesn't want him to beat Nicklaus' major championship record though. Yep, makes me old. Let him get his 18th in about 5 years, then deal with getting older and make it real tough for him to win/dominate. A tie of the record would be just fine for me.

We learned it is better to hit a pedestrian and kill them with your car while drunk than it is to foolishly shoot yourself in a nightclub. Plaxico Burress' 2 year sentence either is an injustice, or, if it is correct, then Stallworth's 24 days in prison should be a benchmark for idiocy from a judge. My vote is the judge in the Stallworth case should be removed from the bench never to pass judgement again. Oh yeah, throw in the time spent by Mike Vick as another crime, somewhere in between Burress and Stallworth as far as severity and risk to society.

We have learned that the Little League World Series tournament continues to captivate a big audience. I have found myself bouncing back and forth from watching RedSox games to the LLWS games between innings. It is relatively innocent and fun to watch. One beef I have is that these kids are 12 and 13 years old and playing with the Little League rules that are for younger kids, right? At least where my kid plays. My son is starting up "fall ball" right now and it is prep for next spring's rules which include moving up to a bigger field (he is 11) and allowing leading off base for the first time. LLWS still plays with the foot on the base until the ball crosses homeplate, which is how my son has played up until now. Interesting, maybe it varies by town/region.

Enjoy the wildcard races, there are only a couple of divisions still truly up for grabs.

*edit : I just learned the Sox released Brad Penny to make room for Wagner. Article I read says Penny asked for his release. At one point in June this looked like a nice move by Theo, since the break it has been totally miserable watching him pitch. Pounding the strike zone usually is a good thing if hitters are missing or taking the pitches, Penny pounds the zone and watches hitters pound him. Hope he finds his way back to the NL and produces for somebody.

Holes

2009-08-08T08:33:00.003-04:00

In 2003 there was a movie released called holes. The description from IMDB is "A wrongfully convicted boy is sent to a brutal desert detention camp where he joins the job of digging holes for some mysterious reason".

What does this have to do with sports right now? Probably nothing. Needed a title for this post though and "Holes" seemed appropriate. Besides, "digging holes for some mysterious reason" sounds a little like the RedSox lately.

The Yankees won a dramatic game in a dramatic fashion last night on an Arod 2-run blast in the 15th hanging up the only non-zeroes of the night.

What the RedSox have accomplished, if accomplishments are like "whole" numbers with a scale that goes negative too, is almost unimaginable on July 14th, the night of the All-Star game.

On the 14th, the Sox owned a modest 3 game lead over the Yankees, were 20 games above .500 and seemingly in the driver's seat and healthy. Here is what I would have said that day had I posted a recap of the first half:

Catcher - Varitek has been a pleasant surprise so far, not for his average but for his production. He has been contributing and not hurting the team so far and has, for the moment, quieted the criticisms.

First - Youkilis has been very good. His torrid start to the season went into May. He is a force to be dealt with and a good partner for Pedroia on the right side of the infield.

Second - Pedroia hasn't gone on a tear yet but has played well and as always, played hard. Will likely have a great 2nd half.

Short - the position of mystery for Theo Epstein's tenure. Nick Green has played way above expectations while filling in for injured Jed Lowry. Need Lowry's return to improve for the 2nd half.

Third - Mike Lowell has been hitting well but is limited now in the field. He no longer is a very good defensive player. Better results so far than could have been expected.

Leftfield - Jason Bay has had a first half that is reason enough to resign him now. Enough said.

Centerfield - Up and down, Jacoby Ellsbury has recently found some consistency hitting lower in the lineup. Getting on base more will help in the 2nd half.

Rightfield - JD Drew has hit decently but without much power this season. He continues to play good D and is what he is.

DH - biggest disappointment this season so far. David Ortiz is lucky to have the support of the management and maintain his status as an everyday player.

Starting Pitching - early trouble by Dice K has left him rehabbing. Beckett is Beckett and Lester is Lester. Penny has had bright spots and won some games. Wakefield has been terrific and made his first All-Star game.

Relievers - awesome combination of arms, best in baseball despite Papelbon's wildness and love for pitches not his fastball.

Overall grade :A-

Now, since July 14th, things have dramatically changed. Read this reply by an unnamed fan (not me - wish it had been though, my thoughts completely) on the Boston.com (boston globe) site yesterday to an article:

Ok - it's reality time
Theo finally remembered that this is a business and not an old boys country club.
He jettisoned Smoltz- too late but better late than never- sometimes experiments don't work - lose him and move on
Now Papi - When he warmed up in June and raised his average to a lofty .241, everyone gave him a pass. Well, now he's back to .221 and still hitting in the middle of the order. I AM a statistician, but anyone with a grade 5 education knows that after 3 months hitting .241 total, you need to be way under .200 in July to drop it back to .221, like around .180 or less. He's not even thinking about baseball. He's trying to play CYA for the steroid thing.
Now he says he didn't know - the other 103 guys knew, but someone forgot to tell the biggest and fattest guy in the room....yah probably...cut him loose - waive him, designate him, put him on a bus to anywhere with a one-way ticket. Jonathan Van Every won't bat .180...and he can actually play the field instead of just block the sunshine in half of the dugout
Brad Penny - needs Smoltz therapy - another guy with only one pitch and it's very hittable
Shortstop - call me up. I'm 62 and can play better than they can......what a disgrace.
Jason Bay - wrap up your leg and get out there dude- the season is slipping away - it's not Pittsburgh, where the season ends when the Steelers head to pre-season camp
Ditto for Drew - suck it up
And last and certainly least - V-tek, Capt....now the capt. of the Titanic....hitting in the lofty .220s again......41 RBI with all those guys in front of you getting on base...you are a sad sack....be glad you're a catcher of sorts- any other position you'd be out of baseball or the third stringer on the Ft. Myers Miracle..." called strike three " - Orsillo's favorite comment when you're up......when you come up with a guy on base, I hope you strike out, so there won't be a double play
The Yankees are running away and here come the Rays.......there are no prizes for finishing third
By the way - Wakefiled went to the all-star game in fine health
didn't pitch there or even warm up
comes home and can't walk - what the hell was he doing there??????
Did he try to climb the St. Louis Arch from the outside and fall off?
And there sits our leader, Francona...what a frontrunner.....things are bad dude...wake up and do something...start showing some emotion...I wish someone would take his private capt. chair in the dugout and rap it over his head....the season is going away - do you know? - do you care?
I've watched day after day of excuses, never raising a voice, never getting fired up...no wonder the players love him...it doesn't matter if they do anything.....
CAN'T WATCH ANYMORE - thank goodness I have the MLB package...there are other real games to watch........ by the way, how is Cliff Lee doing with Philly? Couldn't we have had him?..ditto Halladay...........

So back to Holes. The Sox have dug a hole that is far greater than the 4.5 games they currently sit behind the Yankees. Lets count the # of holes:

Hole #1 : catcher. What? You thought getting Victor Martinez was the patch job for this pothole? It coulda shoulda but until I see Tito using Martinez more often as catcher I am not convinced. His loyalty to Varitek will leave this as a semi-filled hole.

Hole #2 : shortstop. Lowry's recent injury to his arm/hand didn't take a hot bat out of the lineup, it was the further developing sinkhole known as shortstop for the RedSox organization. This hole continues to get bigger and bigger.

Hole #3 : thirdbase. Mike Lowell can slap the ball around still but doesn't really drive it anymore. He is a liability at third now and the beginnings of a nice big pothole has emerged. While it isn't and won't become a sinkhole, a hole is a hole.

Hole #4 : Leftfield. Jason Bay was tremendous through most of June. Then he slumped, all the way down to the .250 range. That would have been ok, slumps happen, rebound in the 2nd half and all slumps get forgotten. Unfortunately he now has hamstring issues and while still slumping is out of the lineup.

Hole #5 : Rightfield. JD Drew's play has slumped in June/July as well. He too battles nagging injuries and we haven't seen his annual back issues show up yet.

Hole #6 : DH. David Ortiz has struggled to hit .220 all year long. His bat is no longer feared by the opposition and with the defensive shift his lackluster bat often grounds out to the right side.

Hole #7 : SP. The rotation was over crowded a month ago. Down goes Wake. Down goes DiceK (thankfully). Down and out goes Smoltz. Add in a Penny that has no shine anymore and the rotation is in trouble. Clay Buchholz, the untouchable young arm, doesn't appear ready emotionally to pitch and help. Today should be fun to watch and see if he self destructs in Yankee Stadium.

It is tough to feel sorry for your team. As has been written, so much promise was put on signings of past injured players, players that were relatively cheap in nature. It really hasn't panned out and the revamping that will need to be done again in the offseason will be a true test.

What can this hole ridden team do for the last 54 games? Maybe they can still win the wildcard, maybe. They need Jason Bay back soon and producing again. They need Tito to catch Martinez more often than Varitek. They need Buchholz and Penny to come up big once in a while and eat some innings. They need Ortiz to hit .250 the rest of the way with some RBI once in a while. They need Nick Green not to throw away balls late in important games. They need the players that have been steady to continue to be steady. Phew, seems like a long list of things to hope for over a short period of time.

If you fill in holes as fast as they appear are you ever getting ahead?

Preview - Yanks Sox for 4 in the Bronx

2009-08-06T08:23:00.004-04:00

The rest of the world seems to complain whenever the RedSox and Yankees square off:

"ESPN loves the Sox/Yankees"
"There are other games/events ya know"
"I'm sick of the Sox and yankees"
etc etc etc

But for RedSox and Yankee fans, there is nothing better.

This is old school :

Cowboys vs. Redskins

Canadiens vs. Bruins

Celtics vs. Lakers

Jack vs. Arnold

Ali vs. Frazier

Phelps vs. Cavic ?

The biggest difference in Yankees/RedSox matchups and these historical matchups is how frequently they occur. I get it, the Sox and Yanks play at least 19 times a season. With any luck, more in the playoffs.

The peak of modern wars between the two teams was surely in the 2003/2004 timeframe when things got a little crazy. There was the Pedro stares into the dugout, the Pedro throw down of Zimm, the Aaron Freak'n Boone game, the idiots, the comeback in 2004, the bloody sock. Exciting times for fans of both teams.

Lately things have settled down considerably, you know, nothing newsworthy really. Pettitte/Clemens/Arod/Manny/Ortiz connections/allegations to PED's. The courting and signing of Mark Texiera. The Joba Chamberlain and Kevin Youkilis love fest. Jeter getting plunked every series it seems.

The 8-0 start to the season series this year by the Sox has set the stage for an interesting 4 game series in the Bronx. The goose-egg means nothing going into these 4 games, really. New York has been the much more consistent and potent team since the all-star break and seemingly has the edge going into the series.

Momentum: While momentum in baseball can be easily overstated and reversed it currently favors the Yankees. The Yankees are 14-5 since the break and have charged ahead of the Sox by 2 in the loss column. The Sox on the other hand have slumped to an 8-10 record since the All-Star game.

Starting Pitching matchups:

Thursday - Smoltz vs. Chamberlain - clearly the edge goes to NY ; Smoltz has not thrown effective starts together and seemingly gets beat up big in an inning along the way. Chamberlain is coming off one of his best starts in his career.

Friday - Beckett vs. Burnett - the most compelling matchup of the weekend . Beckett has been fantastic after a terrible April start. Burnett has been up and down at times but overall very effective. While the matchup suggests it will be the best game of the series, sometimes those games will be the 12-10 type of game.

Saturday - Buchholz vs. Sabbathia - the Yankees have a huge edge here. Sabbathia hasn't pitched as great as the Yankees hoped but this type of matchup, in the pennant race, in August, is exactly what will change their perception. Buchholz has been less than great since his initial outing a few weeks ago.

Sunday - Lester vs. Pettitte - Lester gives the Sox a chance to win every time out. The other night he did just that but the team still lost in a pitcher's duel with Tampa and decided in the 13th inning. Pettitte has been very inconsistent. His time is winding down, you don't know if you will get a good start or not out of him. He still is capable. Advantage Sox in this one.

Bullpens: Much has been written about the Sox advantage this year in the pen. Lately they have been a little more hittable and showing some wear and tear from the innings needed in support of Smoltz, Penny, Dice K and Buchholz. The Yankee pen has been terrible early in the year (3 or 4 players since removed) and good lately. No clear edge for either team, if starters don't go into 7th innings most games it could get interesting with the pens taking over.

Hitting: As I said above, the Yankees are on a roll and the Sox are not. Arod has been hitting better (not for power though), Texiera is lining up votes for MVP, Jeter is Jeter, Melka hit a cycle recently, and Johnny Damon has been big lately. On the other side, the bats have been slumping for the most part. See prior post below. Youkilis and Pedroia have turned it around and are smacking the ball around as is new comer Victor Martinez. Jason Bay will miss a couple games most likely as he aggrevated his hamstring problem last night. JD Drew is also hurting but will have to play with the news on Bay. Mike Lowell is a shell of his former self, still can slap the ball around but defensively does not even resemble his stellar fielding days now behind him. Ellsbury has been steady and good, Varitek, while the ESPN made mention his HR and RBI numbers are 4th best in AL for catchers he is not to be feared. Nor is Lowry at SS. Ortiz used to be walked to avoid situations, now players will be walked to get to him. Advantage Yankees.

What does it all mean? Who knows? Did anybody expect the RedSox to win the first eight meetings this year? Really? A sweep by the Yankees would not totally surprise me. Neither would a split...or any other result.

My prediction? Yankees 3 of 4.

Tell your non-Sox/Yankee friends to relax and enjoy the coverage. ESPN might not recognize there are other teams in baseball this weekend and rightly so...this is Yankees RedSox after all.

July in RedSox Nation

2009-07-30T21:21:00.003-04:00

So a normal July afternoon, nice day to be at work and something is nagging me, bothering me, deep in the far reaches of my mind...oh yeah, the Sox have an afternoon game, getaway day for the A's to conclude the four game series in Boston. I throw ESPN's gamecast window up on the screen, check it periodically.

Here are some highlights they flashed up on the screen during the game:

After the A's took the 4-1 lead in the 6th inning, ESPN gave the A's an 80% chance to win the game, nice statement of the ability of the Sox to comeback, trends don't lie do they:

As the Sox batted, here are some interesting July stats on a few of the key players:

Jason Bay, AL MVP candidate through June

JD Drew, much maligned rightfielder, doing reasonably well, without power through June

David Ortiz, struggling all year, most would say he has come out of it lately, July stats don't lie:

Jason Varitek, struggling the last couple of years, little more pop this year but July was tough and actually lowered his average

Newcomer Adam Laroche was supposed to be helpful, so far (July includes his time in Pittsburgh too) he hasn't

Finally, Youk, Kevin Youkilis. Youk was heading towards an MVP award showdown with Bay earlier in the year. He maintained an average over .400 for a long time, his OBP was hovering around .520 through May. Here is his July:

6 out of 9 hitters in the lineup most days are about to conclude a very miserable month of July. No wonder the team was 47-30 through June and 11-12 in July (7-4 before the all-star break in July, 4-8 after so far).

Usually teams have a player or two slumping, this is ridiculous. Either they get Gonzalez from San Diego AND Martinez from Cleveland or hope and pray they come out of their collective funk in August and September.

I hope they make a move, shake things up a bit, roll the dice. They aren't in first anymore, no lock on a playoff spot, why not?

Expectations?

2009-07-27T12:07:00.014-04:00

Take a look at the comparison above of two starting pitchers. Both are pretty bad. Both are veteran pitchers and both have been considered aces during their respective careers. Both could possibly be headed to the Hall of Fame.

With the trade deadline fast approaching, should either pitcher be replaced in the rotation with somebody acquired through a trade? One of these two pitchers will not be replaced, guaranteed. The other is currently on the hot seat and bloggers and writers are slicing him up and asking the fans to "stick a fork in him".

Pitcher B (above) is Josh Beckett's beginning of his 2009 season. Beckett will not be replaced in any trades made by the RedSox this week or this year or next. Currently he has rebounded to be 11-4 3.42 ERA and a 1.14 WHIP, very good considering his start in April.

Pitcher A is John Smoltz and his 2009 to date. While John Smoltz is no longer an ace in MLB, he can and should be an effective 4th or 5th starter this season. He is coming off surgery so the question remains, what should the expectations have been and continue to be?

The stats don't lie. Both Beckett in April, and Smoltz in June/July have stunk it up. Smoltz and the Sox leaders are all asking for patience. Patience isn't always something the fans in Boston have a lot of. I happen to agree with giving it more time. Smoltz, by everybody's accounts, has good stuff, his pitch location seems to be his achilles heel this year so far. Unfortunately for the Sox fans, the Yankees have surged ahead in the division during Smoltz' time with the big league club. People make parrallels and point fingers during tough times. Smoltz hasn't really helped the Sox win too many games yet. Easy target. Neither has the 2.8 runs per game average the offense has scored since the all-star break two weeks ago.

Smoltz will be given every opportunity to work it out. What remains to be seen is what happens at the trade deadline? Do the Sox go deeper into discussions for Halladay or stick to the bigger needs (IMO), the needs of a bat (Laroche was a nice platoon fix, need something bigger). The next couple of days should be exciting times in baseball. Maybe John Smoltz will get pushed out of the rotation by one of the best in baseball, maybe he will last long enough to contribute...

Rickey and Jim Ed

2009-07-26T07:55:00.003-04:00

Today is Hall of Fame induction day for MLB. Each year in July, baseball honors deserving players into it's Hall of Fame. I've previously written about the flawed voting process and likely will do so again in the future. Today should be about the players and their accomplishments.

Rickey Henderson was a game changer. Never before had a leadoff hitter combined the keen eye and understanding of the strike zone with incredible speed and very good power. Henderson was an on-base machine as evident by his .401 OBP. Over 25 seasons Rickey played for 9 different teams, some of them multiple times. His average 162 game season included 74 steals and 18 caught stealing for an 80.4% rate. Reflecting on base stealers over the years and projecting forward, it is rare that a season produces a single 70+ steal player never mind averaging that many over 25 years. Rickey won the MVP award in 1990 and produced over 3000 hits in his career. Both of these points are nice but he would have made it in without either of them. My lasting personal memory of Rickey? In 2002 he played for the RedSox, I made it to a single game (living in Atlanta) and snapped this picture of Rickey during a pitching change.

I like it. Lastly on Rickey - watch the batting stance guy do Rickey when he was on Letterman, classic :
watch here

As for Jim Ed Rice, there are many thoughts to be written and shared. Having taken notice of baseball in 1975 as a 9, soon to be 10 year old I thought that the two young outfielders (Rice and Lynn) would be the centerpieces of my favorite team for years to come. Well one stayed and one left. That's baseball. Jim Rice, during his career, never received the adulation he has received after retirement heading up to today's ceremony.

Rice didn't make it to 3000 hits or 400 homeruns like most players needed prior to steroid use becoming popular. He suffered through a decline due to age that many or most players endured and his effectiveness was limited to about 13 seasons. His lifetime batting average of .298 is very good for a player considered a power hitter. With the number of at bats he had, Rice needed 16 more hits in his 16 year career to end at .300, one more flair or seeing eye ground ball per year would have inched his career mark up to .300 , shame it didn't happen.

Six times Rice was in the top 5 in voting for the MVP, winning it once in 1978. Every article out there this week and today heading into the induction talks about the monster year it was for him. The stat that stands out to me is the 15 triples. As a line drive hitter, Rice would smash balls to parts of ballparks that were far away (centerfield) and in Fenway's case, had odd angles to bounce the ball around a bit. If Rice had even good speed (not ever mistaken for fast) he probably could have converted a couple of those triples into inside the park homers.

Check out this picture of Rice, notice those massive baseball bodies from the late 70's vs. the physiques of today.

There is a great story and account on espn yesterday read here about an incident when Rice helped out a little boy struck with a foul ball next to the dugout in a game. Another great article here from the Herald

The biggest regret as a fan is that Rice wasn't available to play in the 1975 World Series against the Reds. Rice had been hit in the hand/wrist in September 1975 by Verne Ruhle of the Tigers breaking it. Long considered the greatest World Series played, it was played without one of the most significant offensive players on either team. Maybe Bernie Carbo doesn't get his moment in game 6, maybe things turn out dramatically differently, who knows. My instincts tell me his presence allows the RedSox to beat the Big Red Machine and end the Curse of the Bambino (would the curse ever be known if they had won in 75?) 29 years earlier.

Jim Rice deserves to be in, it is somewhat fitting however that he made it in his last year of eligibility for the normal voting process. Jim Rice HOF, nice ring to it.

Eight Days a Week

2009-07-24T07:39:00.003-04:00

Eight full days from now the trade deadline will come down and most of the significant moves will be done for this season. In the Providence Journal writer Joe McDonald intimates Theo Epstein is not willing to move both Clay Buchholz and Casey Kelly in a deal for Roy Halladay.

Me either.

I don't want another starting pitcher. Sure, never have enough, Wake's annual back problems, Penny and Smoltz doing their 5 inning dance each time out and of course Dice K's troubles...I get it. But with Beckett and Lester at the top of the rotation you have a luxury to potentially go get some offensive help that is much needed.

I know all the talk over Hanley Ramirez and the Marlins not likely to deal him back or anywhere has been exhausted, but what if the Sox make it sweet enough that the Marlins have to consider it?

Start with Buchholz.

While his accomplishments have been significant and notable, his ability to be a chip in a trade is a greater value to me than filling him into the rotation this year and for the future.

Add a little Casey Kelly. The 19 year old Sox player is trying to find his spot, either in SS (he can hit) or SP. For this year they have let him do both in Rookie Ball and A ball. Kelly was their #1 pick last year so he would be a lot to give up...just the kind of candy the Marlins are looking for as part of a package for somebody as good as Ramirez.

The Marlins would have to recognize this year isn't looking great for them, they have made a nice push prior to the break and got close to the Phillies but now the Phils are playing more to their talent level and have separated themselves from the pack a bit.

I don't know what other pieces would need to be added to make this a viable move for both teams but I, for one, would throw this out there with Ramirez being the piece coming back. Unless of course they wanted Ellsbury included or something along those lines. Lowrie, sure. Masterson, sure. Delcarmen, sure. Ramirez' 6 yr. $70m contract is low by yesterday's standards so the Marlins are in a position to not be nervous about the financials associated with Ramirez too.

If I'm GM for a day, I'd inquire about Ramirez for Buchholz, Kelly and (pick two) Lowrie, Masterson or Delcarmen. Still not sure the Marlins would bite but the upside they would receive with Buchholz and Kelly seems very high.

What do you think?

Favorites - by position part II (SS, 3B)

2009-07-23T19:35:00.003-04:00

(cont.)

Shortstop -

The shortstop that comes to mind that I would rank as favorite during my lifetime is Rick "Rooster" Burleson. Again, another from my initial favorite team back in the mid-late 70's. Burleson was an acrobatic fielder with some amazing leaps for catches of line-drives. He was a decent enough hitter and was scrappy as well. He holds the record for most turned DPs by RedSox shortstops.

Notables : Ozzie Smith, Cal Ripken, Robin Yount
Non-Notables: Nomar, Bucky F'N Dent

Thirdbase -

George Brett played the game with grace and intensity. He was a good fielder, won a single Gold Glove in 1985 and career .305 hitter. The Royals were a fun team to watch in the 80's and he was the centerpiece. Gotta love the pine-tar game (although that is part of his legacy) and the reaction when they challenged him on it. Classic.

Notables : Butch Hobson, Mike Schmidt, Chipper Jones

Favorites - by position part I (C, 1B, 2B)

2009-07-22T21:45:00.007-04:00

With the upcoming induction of Jim Rice into the Hall of Fame it made me think of players I really liked over the years. I'll admit, Rice wasn't even close to being a favorite of mine. Fred Lynn was my first favorite baseball player and to this day my close friends probably could have answered that as a trivia question about me.

So with the Sox in midst of a bad stretch, rather than blog about that and the Yankees recent domination of the AL East, I will instead write about my favorite players in my lifetime, not necessarily the best players at each position but my favorites.

Catcher -

Carlton "Pudge" Fisk ; the moment, 12th inning, game 6. I was 10 yrs old, enjoying my first full season really aware of baseball. I always remember how large he was relative to most hitters and the umpires. After firing a ball back to the pitcher he would be putting his mask back on and be towering over most players (and the ump). Was upset when he was "let go" by the Sox along with Lynn and Burleson.

Notables: Thurman Munson, Johnny Bench, Jason Varitek

Firstbase -

George "Boomer" Scott ; Boomer began his career with the Sox in 1966, sent to Milwaukee for 72-76, brought back in '77 and was part of their version of murderers row in '77 and '78. Scott had a weird knack for hitting some triples every year. He ended with 60 in his career. Somebody that big (listed as only 215 lbs on baseball reference, haha, nice one) should not have been able to get the trips. Loved the helmet in the field at first. Lastly, his wife (I think her name was Cookie or something like that) had a little sports store in Falmouth Ma, which happened to be the home of my grandparents growing up. I used to ride a bike there and shop around hoping Boomer would show up...duh, middle of the summer he isn't likely to be on Cape Cod...

Notables: Tony Perez, Willie Stargell (stars on the hats turned me off though)

Secondbase -

Mark Lemke ; Lemke was known as a poor man's Pedroia. He only sniffed close to .300 in the strike/lockout shortened 1994 season at .294 Offense wasn't what I remember about Lemmer. He was steady but not flashy in the field. Lemke always had a dirty uni. He was a big part of the worst to first turnaround in Atlanta in 1991. In the World Series (one of the best ever; Jack Morris out-dueling John Smoltz in the 10 inning game 7 for the 1-0 clinching win) Lemke hit .417 with 3 triples and likely would have been MVP of the Series had the Braves won it. He currently is doing radio pre-game/post game for the Braves. A few years ago he was player/manager for an independent minor league team and was trying to pitch using a knuckleball as his main pitch.

Notables : Rod Carew, Paul Molitor

Who are some of your favorites at Catcher , first and second base? (during your lifetime) and why?

Coming next : SS, 3B

All Star Diary

2009-07-14T20:47:00.007-04:00

8:47 - about to start, had the kids all watch Obama throw out the first pitch, except they must have instructed the production crew not to show how he did. Had a close up of him from behind (3rd base side)...I won my ESPN.com streak pick of him getting it to the glove so he must have made it there...punk move not to show it from behind him, normal camera angle.

8:48 - NL takes the field, AL lineup just seems more dangerous. I predict AL 8-5.

8:50 - first pitch from Lincecum, fouled off by Ichiro.

8:51 - Joe Buck mentions last time NL has won the All Star game was 1996. Ichiro singles, Jeter will move him over unselfishly, or at least we will hear it from McCarver my guess.

8:53 - Jeter gets plunked, sounded like the bat but I guess it was the arm or hand.

8:54 - closeup of left handed batters between pitches gives the viewers a glimpse of a blond in a black strappy dress behind homeplate...

8:56 - after FC by Mauer, Texiera grounds into a sure double play but Pujols bobbles it, Jeter scores, 1-0

8:57 - Jason Bay hits a single into center, loading them back up, Hamilton grounds into a FC scoring Mauer from third.

8:59 - Young grounds out to third, inning over.

9:05 - Utley up after Ramirez grounded to second, Halloday looks good early. Ground out to first, two down and Pujols coming up, not much of a applause considering how popular he is, must be a bunch of corporate people from around America that flew in for the game...although there is a lot of red shirts in the crowd.

9:07 - sharp grounder to third, inning over.

9:11 - Halloday up, why do the pitchers bat in All-Star games? I don't care where the game is played, stupid. You (Bud) already changed the rules when you made the game winner the home team in the Series, make DH mandatory for All-Star games, allow the players to play. Geesh, nice strike out, perhaps that will hurt Halloday's trade value to a NL team...

9:13 - closeup of Ichiro's silver cleats, sweet, I guess. Helava player, fashion wise I'm not so sure.

9:14 - nice Budweiser nostalgic commercial about baseball, baseball has the license on those kind of moments, expect a few more during the game tonight

9:15 - browsing during commercials, notice Pedro has come to terms with the Phillies. Not sure how to react. Pedro was, for his time in Boston, the greatest and most dominant pitcher in modern times. He won some games for the Mets but never the same. I cannot imagine he will be more than a 5 inning pitcher for the Phils.

9:18 - Obama in the booth, finally the view of his first pitch from behind. Barely made it to home plate, I expected better.

9:20 - Mr. President just gave his rundown on all the teams having hope this season...except the Nationals of course...even the most prominent resident of Washington is down on the Nationals.

9:23 - NL ties the game 2-2 on a single and error. Take the lead on a Prince Fielder ground rule double (pinch hitter).

9:28 - Franklin (nice beard) in to pitch for the NL, he is their closer so a little weird for him to be in for the 3rd inning. Jeter grounds out harmlessly to second. Mauer lines out to first, two down. Bringing Franklin in after taking the early lead might be a great move, he is lights out this year and often teams want to make sure you keep any momentum you have going.

9:47 - have run out of steam, not sure how the pro's do it, keeping a diary for an entire game, my hat is off to you Mr. Simmons.

Yawn...Stick A Fork In It

2009-07-14T06:51:00.002-04:00

MLB's annual Homerun Derby, brought to you by StateFarm, was last night. I'll admit, I haven't watched the entire derby since the game was at Fenway back in '99. Last night however, I watched the whole thing, taken pitch after taken pitch. The format is set up for the hitters to lull you to sleep taking pitches until they feel like they have the right feel for one. The hitters this year seemed more headliners than they have had in recent years although that may be my perception and not fact.

Ever play in a coed softball intramural league in college? The one I played in you had somebody on your team pitch to you while you batted. You were allowed one lousy pitch per at bat. All the pressure was on the pitcher to lay a meatball over the plate. It sped the games up tremendously and added an element of barstool discussion for after the games. MLB needs to change something up. While the one pitch rule in college was extreme, how about something like this:

Round 1: you get 10 outs, but taking a pitch counts as half an out. No more taking 5 or 6 straight pitches, swinging at one, then taking 5 or 6 more.

Round 2: you get 10 outs, but taking a pitch counts as a full out. Less hitters here, should have the guys that hit the ball better in round 1, should be ready to hit again.

Finals : you get 10 pitches, period. Do what you can with your 10.

There really isn't much drama in the whole competition anymore. Don't know if it is backlash because of the steroid years or not but there is less excitement (unless you are in the park I would imagine). The biggest moment last night was whether hometown favorite Albert Puhols was going to smile at his kid after he took his turn and the kid was trying to towel him off. There needs to be something to make it more important, a must see TV moment if you will. Bud, you still there? You still the commish? How about making the Derby decide the home team in the World Series? Would you see a few more big hitters being encouraged to join in? Perhaps from the good teams that are likely playoff bound. Ok, it started as a joke and then got worse...bad idea.

How about each team sends their representative to the first round? Not only would there be some team pride introduced but you could then include some fans too? Each team brings a fan (from a local competition) to get some swings in as well. The fans' homers (maybe have a second fence in about 50' for the fan participants would not count toward the overall player's score but there would be a secondary winner (fan) and the team he/she represented. Imagine David Ortiz being there representing the RedSox and giving advice to Mr. Fan from Andover, MA?

Whatever MLB decides to do, which likely will be nothing, they need to do fast. I can likely say with confidence that I won't be watching the entire event next year unless there were some changes made.

All Stars

2009-07-06T08:04:00.005-04:00

MLB's All-Star teams have been released, there are some notable ommissions (A-Rod, Manny) and some feel good nominations too.

The voters (fans) got most of this right for a change. Of the 16 spots voted for, there are only a couple that I would say are noticably wrong.

(from espn.com):

1) NL catcher, Molina is in because of the game being in St. Louis, strong local voting. Atlanta catcher Brian McCann deserved to be the starter but is going as a reserver.

2) AL outfield, Josh Hamilton battled injuries all season and this vote was for his performance last year, specifically in the HR derby.

It is hard to argue with any of the other voting results.

As for reserves, one AL pitcher selected will be a big story and highlighted during the pregame and during the game quite a bit. Tim Wakefield, 42 year old Tim Wakefield is making his first All Star appearance. Congratulations to Wake.

Here are the complete rosters to date, one more spot to be voted on for each league:

Leading the way as far as veterans with the most appearances are Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera with this being their 10th trip for each.

Trivia question I heard on the radio this morning on 790thezone.com : Evan Longoria is the first Tampa Ray to be elected to start the all star game since....... Answer later in the day

Tommy Can You Hear Me?

2009-06-28T19:42:00.003-04:00

With all due respect to the Who, Tommy Hanson is the most important Tommy right now.

Dating back to his 2nd start this year(career) against Baltimore, Tommy has now is in a streak of 21 scoreless innings.

His ERA is down to 2.48 AND he is not really throwing great yet.

See the stats below of his young career so far:

First few outings were not against the cream of the crop, Milwaukee is a good team but Baltimore and then Cincinnati are relatively easier starts...then the Yankees and then the Sox today.

I have predicted this kid would be next year's Cy Young winner in the NL, nothing he is doing yet would make me want to change my prediction.

His walks are high and should improve at he gains experience.

He is the bright spot in an otherwise dismal showing so far by the Braves.

On July 17th, the Braves will retire Greg Maddux's number in a big ceremony. It is too far away to be accurate but I hope Tommy Hanson pitches that night. Their styles are very different, Hanson can throw the heat, but it would also do him some good to take in the appreciation for a future Hall of Famer that never was confused for a hard thrower.

I am already looking forward to next Saturday when Hanson and the Braves go to Washington.

Role Models

2009-06-26T07:38:00.005-04:00

Should superstars, whether in sports or any walk of life, be role models?

One of the blogs I check periodically is called Dugout Central, it is a collection point of writings by many people about baseball. One .recent post this week by a writer named Teddy Mitrosilis caught my attention. He writes about Manny Ramirez's "rehab" in Albuquerque and wonders outloud whether Manny coulda/shoulda done things differently. He speculates how great an opportunity it would have been for Manny to either connect with fans by signing autographs etc. as well as connecting with the minor league players and giving them insight into what it takes to make the jump to the majors and allow them to get a glimpse of what they are trying to elevate to. Here is a quote from Teddy's post:

He should have played his four innings, and then hung out with the other minor leaguers for the last five. He should have spent those five innings talking with the hitters, giving them two hours of total access to ask any question a kid would want to ask about hitting to one of the greatest hitters to ever play the game.

He should have spent the other five innings coaching. He should have paid attention to the other minor leaguers’ at-bats, and then talked to them about pitch sequence and approach when they came back in the dug out.

He should have had steaks and beers delivered to the clubhouse after the game – on his dime – and sat around with the rest of the guys telling them what life is like in the big leagues.

For all of Ramirez’s faults, he has a reputation of being a tireless worker. He should have sat around with the boys, enjoying a rib eye, explaining to them exactly what it takes to not only get to the big leagues, but also stick there.

He should have talked to them about all the fun you have in The Show, but also the professionalism and dedication it takes to taking care of your body and being ready to perform.

You don’t think those minor league players would have been hanging on every story and every line? That would have been like Bring Your Dad To School Day in the second grade. Those words would have actually made a difference.

You could argue that Manny should have gotten to the ballpark early, and stayed late to sign autographs for all of the fans that want them. That would have been a nice gesture, but I’m not going to say that he has to do that. Hey, if he wants to say thanks to the people who pay his salary and support him, that’s up to him.

But it’s not up to him to give his time to his current teammates. He owes that to them. He’s walking into their yard, taking the at-bats and outfield reps from a young kid who could use them to develop and chase a dream, all while he is suspended for testing positive.

What is the responsibility of the superstar?

I don't believe there is a responsibility to be a role model...but I do believe it would be great for everybody if more superstars took it upon themselves to do more with their status.

I am not talking about giving money, so many athletes, actors, musicians etc all give tons of money to great charities and causes. I'm talking about role models.

Again -not required but in the quote above, how great for those minor leaguers would it have been if Manny did any of those things while in Albuquerque?

Yesterday pop icon Michael Jackson passed away. While he obviously had nothing to do with sports, his passing raises the same type of questions. When MJ was at the top of the world, mid to late 80's, he made life changing choices that will be questioned forever. His influence, across traditional racial lines, was immense. Unfortunately, in my opinion, he started getting "weird" on the world and lost the opportunity to be a role model that could have affected many many people.

Celebrity brings riches and popularity by default. How any person handles that tranformation is anybody's guess. More and more, today's youth need role models out of the celebrity pages doing more of the right things.

I have heard the argument that the role model should be the parents. I agree as the primary role models. Parents, grandparents, siblings, uncles, aunts, teachers all should be present and role models to some degree. Unfortunately, as a father of 5, I am not Superman, Derek Jeter, Brad Pitt, Lebron James or Barack Obama. Role models come from fiction, and from real life, they should make a person dream, dream to be better or great at something.

My role models growing up were sports related, Fred Lynn and Larry Bird. Lynn to me was the young, talented athlete that enjoyed what he did. I wanted to make diving catches like Lynn in centerfield and hit so effortlessly like he did. Larry Bird was the superstar that continued to work harder than everybody else to improve when he was already at the top of his profession. These two shaped my teenage years and likely added some values to who I was becoming. The didn't get busted doing something stupid, they didn't (publicly)get in trouble. I never met them or had any real interaction with them but it didn't matter, they were role models to me.

It is increasingly hard to find public figures that you would want your kids to have as role models, that is why I posted today.

Smoltzie time

2009-06-25T12:22:00.008-04:00

After waiting a little over a year to get back out there, John Smoltz will take the mound tonight against the Nationals. The odd part about that statement is what was unsaid. He will be pitching for the Boston RedSox and making his first career appearance without the familiar tomahawk on his chest. He will have different players fielding behind him, different catcher to throw to, AND different expectations.

"I know I'm going to be judged really fast by a lot of people," he said. "First impressions are always nice, but they're not the lasting impression."

Many will claim he should have retired if he gives up a few runs or gets chased early. Some will cry that he is ruining his legacy.

The RedSox, and Smoltz himself, have said over and over that the goal is to push forward and have Smoltz available and healthy come September and hopefully October.

The dream is for Beckett, Lester and Smoltz to anchor the postseason rotation (no offense to DiceK, Wakefield, and Brad Penny). The Sox would have the best postseason staff (on paper) this side of Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz 10-15 years ago.

Getting to the postseason and having some success along the way is their collective goal.

I think regardless of tonight's outcome in Washington, Smoltz will have outings where he gives up more than anybody wants him to but he also will have outings where he amazes people. Take a look at this excerpt from :baseball reference

I've highlighted where I want to make some points:

Grey - time as the closer, not for today's discussion
Blue - extremely consistent ERA, granted against NL and pitchers batting
Orange - Incredible WHIP by today's standards, very consistent
Green - Great strikeouts per 9 and walks per 9 stats
Yellow - only times when his ERA was above 4.00

Smoltz isn't a pitcher that was on the way out when he got hurt last year. He was a pitcher, converted back to a starter, that was still dominating and putting in 30+ starts over the last 3 years prior to the injury.

His stats in those three years are very nice, 44-24 record, about a 3.20 ERA and a 1.18 WHIP, his strikeouts per 9 innings actually went up all three years and was abnormally high last year before the injury.

What fans in Boston don't know about John Smoltz (yet) is the fire he has burning. Sounds like a cliche but it really is different for him than others. He is an extremely intelligent pitcher that absolutely gets pissed off when he performs poorly. I can't imagine him ever shrugging off a bad outing.

If his body lets him, he could easily be the most important piece to the RedSox championship drive this year.

In case you missed the last statement I said Smoltz could be more important than David Ortiz's bat, than Josh Becketts golden arm, than Ellsbury's wheels. How deep would you like to have your rotation when you hit the postseason? How deep will the teams you face be?

Smoltz could be the best 3rd starter in the major leagues in about a month. If you judge him based on tonight, be prepared to change your judgement later on.

I think he does ok tonight, 5+ innings, couple of runs given up, gives the Sox a chance to win.

Does Vegas have odds on Smoltz getting a postseason start this year?
I would bet on it.

Perfection

2009-06-24T21:27:00.005-04:00

Sometimes other interests other than sports connect with sports to form a union of sorts. Announcements came out that Fenway Park will be hosting Paul McCartney for two nights, Aug 5 and Aug 6.

Obviously I am a huge Beatles fan and hence a McCartney fan. I have seen Sir Paul 4 times in concert beginning in 1990. Seeing him in the shrine that is Fenway would/could be heaven. In case you can't figure it out I am vacillating over whether to fly up for one of the shows. Might be a once in the lifetime kind of opportunity.

One reason not to go to Boston to see him in Fenway is that McCartney also announced today that he will be playing in Piedmont Park in Atlanta (home for me) Aug 18th. Pre-sale opportunities are still going on for both Boston and Atlanta...what to do...

Hanson, Chamberlain, Buchholz

2009-06-24T07:53:00.003-04:00

There are 3 teams in MLB that I follow closely. The RedSox, Braves and Yankees.

The Sox because I grew up in the burbs of Boston, the Braves because I have lived in Atlanta since 1990, the Yankees just to keep tabs on the rivals.

All three teams have exceptional starting pitching prospects currently.

For the Sox, Clay Buchholz:

Buchholz threw a no-hitter in 2007 as a rookie. Last year was a disaster, 2-9 record with a 6.75 ERA. He went into the offseason with work to do to regain confidence and find his approach again. He was lights out in spring training but ran into a wall of starters ahead of him. In AAA Pawtucket (Redsox) he is 5-1 1.94 so far this year and has been quoted as getting impatient in his quest to make it back to Boston. The added time in the minors has not been a bad thing for Buchholz as there will be some doubters when he does make it back to the majors. He needs to continue to improve and be absolutely ready when his chance comes up.

His chance may come up sooner than later. The big unknown for the Sox is what will John Smoltz bring to the mound tomorrow (6/25) against the Nationals in his first start in over a year. With DiceK going on the DL, Buchholz is one injury away from getting called up. If Smoltz doesn't continue to be healthy or anything pops up on the other starters Buchy is next in line.

I would expect him to be called up before too long, it is too much to ask that the rotation stay intact for the season.

For the Yankees, Joba Chamberlain:

Joba remains a mystery to me. The hype is huge, he is huge (not CC huge though). Chamberlain remains on a innings/pitch count to protect against further shoulder injuries. In 2008 he was 4-3 2.60 in mostly relief (setup). 12 of his 42 appearances were starts. In 2009 he began and remains as a starter and is 3-2 with a 3.89 ERA. Some would say that is what they would hope for as he progresses. I wonder whether the innings/pitch counts coupled with his increase in walks this year are keeping him from performing better. He has 37 walks through 69 innings pitched this year, last year he ended with 39 walks through 100 IP. Chamberlain at some point will need to be given the ball like they have done with Sabathia. It won't be this year but he needs to become the type of pitcher that pitches into the 8th inning with the dominating stuff he has it is getting underutilized as he pitches 5 or 6 innings now. The upside is huge for Chamberlain, whether he builds the stamina and control to allow him to get there remains to be seen. The last thing on Chamberlain I want to comment on is his maturity. He goes over the top when he gets a strikeout, often yelling/screaming and pumping fists. The Yankee fans will point to Jonathon Paplebon of the RedSox and say "same thing". I get that, don't like it for Paplebon either but there is a difference when a closer in the 9th does it, and does it against a rival or in a tight spot vs. a starter doing it in the 4th inning. Maturity may be the key for Chamberlain both in his control and pitch count as well as overall poise on the mound.

For the Braves, Tommy Hanson:

Last night Tommy Hanson pitched his 4th game in the majors, he shut the Yankees out through 5+ innings and got his 3rd win against no losses. He hasn't pitched well yet but has wiggled out of jams he has put himself into. His walks are way up compared to his minor league stats and he hasn't found a rythym yet in the majors. Watch out when he does. Like Chamberlain, he can throw 100 mph and has nasty breaking stuff too. While Hanson is in Atlanta to stay (no reason to move him back down to AAA) he will be monitored over the season most likely on success and confidence. He seems very poised for a 22 yr old. He is pegged as the anchor of the Braves staff for years to come. Chipper Jones was quoted on the radio yesterday as being amazed that Hanson is so poised and doing well without yet pitching the way he is capable of pitching. Quite high praise from a hall of fame hitter.

With each of the three teams I follow closely having a stud young pitcher it will be exciting to follow their careers. While the Sox and Yankees will get more attention because they share a division, I hope the Braves can again soon be contenders to give Tommy Hanson the spotlight I think he will deserve.

Celtics vs. Lakers

2009-06-18T12:01:00.005-04:00

The Lakers organization won their 15th NBA title last week. Congratulations to them. 15 titles out of 63 years (24%) is outstanding.

Today I would like to offer up some fun facts about the Lakers and the Celtics.

Lakers - 15 titles 24%
Celtics - 17 titles 27%
all other teams - 31 titles 49%

Comparing their titles:
- 9 of the Celtics came against the Lakers
- 2 of the Lakers came against the Celtics

- the Celtics' oppositions in the finals for the 17 titles had 38 Hall of Fame players (each year for same player counts additively, for pending or active players, assumed Dwight Howard, Kobe, Jason Kidd, Allen Iverson and Reggie Miller make the HOF)
- the Lakers' oppositions in the finals for the 15 titles had 29 Hall of Fame players

- the most HOF players the Celtics faced in a single Championship year was 4, twice it happened:
1957 against St.Louis (Cliff Hagen, Slater Martin, Ed Macauley, and Bob Pettit)
1984 against the Lakers (Kareem, Magic, Worthy and McAdoo)

- the most HOF players the Lakers faced in a single Championship year was 6:
1972 against the Knicks (Bill Bradley, Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Dave Debusschere, Earl Monroe, Jerry Lucas)

- in 3 of the Celtics' 17 titles, the opponents had 1 or no HOF players on the team:
2008 - Kobe
1986 - Olajuwan
1976 none (Pat Riley played on Suns, in HOF for coaching)

- in 8 of the 15 Lakers' titles, the opponents had 1 or no HOF players on the team:
2009 - Dwight Howard (assumed)
2002 - Jason Kidd (assumed)
2001 - Allen Iverson (assumed)
2000 - Reggie Miller (assumed)
1982 - Dr. J
1980 - Dr. J
1954 - Dolph Schayes
1949 - none

- overall Celtics regular season record in 63 years, 2922 wins and 1999 losses .594 winning percentage
- overall Lakers regular season record in 61 years, 2970 wins and 1841 losses .617 winning percentage

Hall of Fame comparisons:

- The Celtics have had 23 current HOF players play for them
- The Lakers have had 15 current HOF players play for them

- The Celtics 23 HOF players played 169 seasons for the Celtics
- The Lakers 15 HOF players played 124 seasons for the Lakers

- The Celtics had at least one HOF player on their roster from the 1950-51 season through 1994-95 season

- The Lakers had at least one HOF player on their roster from the 1948-49 season through 1995-96 season

Current or pending HOF's :

-Celtics - Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen
-Lakers - Kobe, Shaq, Karl Malone, Gary Payton

Head to Head:
- have played each other 270 times, Celtics have won 151, Lakers 119.

Greatest Player Ever in my opinion:

- Celtics: I would say Larry Bird (many would say Russell, I get that, greatest winner)

- Lakers : I would say Kareem (totally underappreciated IMO relative to what he was/did)

Greatest HR hitters of all time

2009-06-17T12:18:00.005-04:00

With the recent "revelations" that Sammy Sosa used steroids, along with the Arod admission, Bonds, Giambi, Palmero, and countless unnamed (for now) top historical players I found my thoughts going to how good were the "older" generation players.

Aaron, Mays, Mantle, Williams, Ruth, Gehrig, Frank Robinson and others that sit atop the all time HR list accomplished truly amazing feats.

Currently there are 25 players in the history of the game to amass more than 500 HR in their career. Five (5) or 20% of that short list have direct implications back to PED (Bonds, Arod, Palmeiro, Ramirez, Sosa). Two others on the list are or have been suspected (McGwire, Sheffield), if ever proven to have used PEDs that would be 7 out of 25 or 28% of the greatest homerun hitters cheated.

As I look at the remaining names on the list, you get goosebumps thinking about these historic players:

Aaron, Ruth, Mays, Griffey, F. Robinson, Killebrew, Reggie, Thome, Schmidt, Mantle, Foxx, McCovey, F.Thomas, T.Williams, Banks, Mathews, Ott, and E.Murray.

Ted Williams stands out to me, because I hail from Boston originally as well as because he lost close to 5 seasons of his prime to military service.

I took a minute to estimate some production numbers for him had he not gone to serve his country and lost that time:

The pink highlighted cells represent what I estimated. (averaged the four years prior to get 1943-1945, averaged 1951 and 1954 to get 1952 and 1953)

The yellow highlighted cells are partial years I subtracted (and replaced with full pink years)

The green highlighted cells are his actual career totals.

The blue highlighted cells would be my estimate of his career totals without missing the time.

While I project Williams would have been close to or around the #3 all-time spot (when you remove the cheaters) and with similar HR numbers to Willie Mays it is the likelyhood that his average would have stayed around his career .344 mark that coupled with the HR production, and the almost a walk a game, amazes me. Ruth is the only other top HR hitter to compare to when looking at average as well.

Mays and Aaron didn't lose any significant time during their careers for any reason.

As I further get into the numbers, it is a real shame Griffey had so many injuries in his early 30's, he would have been a challenger (assumed clean) to Aaron's HR mark.

Will we see any more of the top All-Time HR leaders get asterisks placed next to their names/numbers in the near future? I honestly hope so, it will make it easier to understand who to embrace as heroes and who not to...

RedSox - musical chairs time

2009-06-16T07:38:00.006-04:00

In modern baseball there haven't been too many instances of teams having too much quality pitching. None that I can come up with anyway. The current RedSox have such a problem. Thursday, John Smoltz will come off the DL. Here is the list of available major league quality starters they have:

Josh Beckett
Jon Lester
Daisuke Matsuzaka
Brad Penny
Tim Wakefield
John Smoltz
Clay Buchholz

7 fits into 5 spots how?

Great problem to have, everybody is talking about it, offering up their opinions.

I have read/heard :

a) Trade Penny while his stock is high, he has pitched better each time out
b) Demote DiceK to AAA or the DL
c) Demote DiceK to the bullpen
d) Demote Wakefield to the bullpen
e) go with a 6 man rotation for a while

None of these scenarios allow for Buchholz to come back up to the majors, he is tearing through AAA and already has a no hitter in MLB on his resume from 2007. He also has expressed some frustration in interviews lately with the path currently blocked to the majors.

Tony Massarotti, of the Boston Globe, wrote about this problem yesterday

He lays out the options, talks about the pro's and cons of each. Nice article, better yet were some of the responses in the comments section from readers. Someone named "chops" wrote:

How about a different approach altogether: make Matsuzaka and Smoltz "co-starters". Or to phrase the idea better, give Smoltz the role of "finisher" for Matsuzaka. Dice-K hasn't been getting past the 5th inning. Smoltz is 42 and coming off shoulder surgery: neither one is going to be throwing a lot of complete games. The argument against sending Smoltz to the bullpen is that he'd lack the every-five-games routine of a starter and the slow prep toward each start. But as Matsuzaka's "finisher", he could have that routine. Every five days he'd prepare, knowing he'd be brought in sometime during the game - the 2nd inning would be a good time in most Dice-K starts this year, but the 5th or 6th is what the Sox would hope for.

So Dice-K starts the game. He nibbles and throws 95 pitches through 4 innings, and Tito lifts him before the heart of the opponent's order gets their third look at him. Then Smoltz comes on and throws his 70 or 80 pitches and finishes the game or hands it over to the true bullpen in the 8th or 9th.

Now the bullpen won't be heavily taxed every five games to clean up Dice-K's mess, and both pitchers will be kept active, healthy, and fresh in case an injury occurs somewhere in the rotation, at which point the Sox can go back to a conventional rotation... or call up Clay Buchholz.

I like this idea, for the short term anyway. If DiceK continues to perform subpar, then let Smoltz take the hill for first pitch and make a decision on DiceK (minors/DL) later. This option buys you some time at least.

All this drama will unfold and take shape this week and into next week. A week from Saturday? RedSox are in Atlanta to play the Braves...this blogger has tickets and is hoping to see Smoltz take the hill against the ol' Braves and seek revenge on behalf of Tom Glavine as well as how Smoltzie was treated as well last off season.

Streakin'

2009-06-15T22:42:00.006-04:00

Some people have addictive personalities. Some don't.

I fall closer to the "do" side of the equation.

Take the "Streak for the Cash" on ESPN.com

Never tried it? You should. You find yourself rooting for sports you didn't know existed or have no earthly knowledge of any participants or the rules.

What is it? It is a gimmick, a good one, created by espn to get you to visit their site multiple times a day...ok, so I visit it 10-20 times a day anyway, might as well give it a try.

Basic principle is that you have to make picks and try to get a streak of correct picks in a row going. ESPN puts up the choices, most are straight up "who will win the game/match" type picks. Some get more involved, something like, "Will Dwight Howard have more points and rebounds tonight than Kobe will score points".

There is no obligation to make picks at any time, you can go at your own pace.

The current iteration of the streak rules are this:

10. QUALIFIERS:

The top seven (7) entrants ("Qualifiers") who reach the highest streaks between 4/1/09 - 12/6/09 (the "Qualifying Period") will be flown out to Bristol to participate in a "pick-off"

So far, the top 4 streaks are 24 and three at 22. Two of the three at 22 are still active meaning they haven't made an incorrect pick yet and can still increase their streak. To put it in perspective, my top streak EVER (been doing this since late last year) was a streak of 10. After reaching about 5, the sweaty palms started up and hives broke out (slight exaggeration)...

Six times I've made it to three in a row, only the once (10) did I get further.

I am probably a little too impatient and make bad picks too easily (ya think?).

I'm currently at zero with a pending pick waiting for the outcome of the Brewers and Indians, which is sitting at 14-12 in the 8th...if I can get this streak started, there is a sweet cricket match (they are matches, right?) at noon tomorrow with India and South Africa.

The site tells me that 81.6% of the streakers that have picked this particular cricket match have picked India to win. My own intel supports that theory. Just have to wait for prior picks to be completed before you can make the next pick.

If I can get a streak going, there is a pick that looks like a layup tomorrow night:

Anybody else play? Anybody need a wing man for Vegas?

Re-entry into the blogging world

2009-06-14T08:37:00.004-04:00

Ever have fun doing something, then stop all of a sudden, then forget that you had fun in the first place?

It has been almost a year since I last posted here, some of the pictures I previously used have been deleted and forgotten.

Much has happened in the world of sports since July 15, 2008.

Baseball:

The Tampa Bay Rays made a historic (for them) run on the baseball world and made it to the Series, passing both the Yankees and RedSox on the way. The Rays were a feel good story all the way, with plenty of innocent youth performing the improbable feats to take them further than they ever had been before. When the emerged on the big stage, the World Series, the Phillies reminded them of the dues they needed to pay on the way to capturing a title. In 2008, the Phillies landed their first World Series title since the Tug McGraw, Steve Carlton, and Mike Schmidt Phillies of 1980. The Phils only lost 3 games throughout their 2008 run at the title, one in each round of the playoffs. The World Series MVP, usually reserved for the best hitter during the series, was Cole Hamels. The Phillies two best hitters, Ryan Howard (.286) and Chase Utely (.167) left the voters no choice. Hamels was a nice 1-0 2.77 in 13 IP but that shouldn't have brought home the hardware.

2009 in Baseball is underway, we have seen in no particular order:

- Mannywood put on hold for 50 games

- offseason signings by the Yankees that sent shockwaves throughout baseball (or at least to John Henry's twitter account)

- emergence of Raul Ibanez as a serious power hitter, currently with ML leading 22 HR (evidently clean as a whistle too)

- Chance of Tom Glavine becoming an embraced member of the Braves organization for the next 20 years get flushed down the drain

- The debut of top Braves prospect (see Glavine above) Tommy Hanson. Watch this kid, barring injuries he could be very special

- renewal of the RedSox Yankee rivalry, kind of... currently at 8-0 in favor of the Sox, all the close games have gone the RedSox way, which never happened this regularly in the past. Texiera sideshow and banter should be interesting for next 8 years or so.

- Dodgers continue to win despite loss of Manny. Should be interesting how the chemistry works itself out when he returns.

- Struggles of David Ortiz, current leader in sincere curtain calls for players hitting .220 or less.

Football:

The Pittsburgh Steelers added on to their franchise legacy winning another Super Bowl. The path to the big game was made a little easier by the season ending injury to Tom Brady in week 1 back in September. Big surprises during the 2008 season were the Arizona Cardinals, making their first appearance in the Super Bowl. The Cardinals played the Steelers close and kept it very interesting (rare) throughout the game. Almost as surprising was how the Eagles dumped the defending champs, the Giants, out of the playoffs.

Other news during the year, in no significant order:

- Brett Favre, keep waiting for him to take his circus show to Tampa Bay. Would fit in well down there (Ringling Bros. home is there, sorry, couldn't pass it up). Good luck Minnesota.

- Michael Vick is a little closer to coming back to the NFL, who will want him? I heard something this morning that could put St. Louis in the front of that discussion.

Basketball:

Well, the NBA finals finished up last night...yawn...all the talk of Phil Jackson as the greatest coach ever now has the numbers behind it...Kobe as the greatest ever player now has more numbers behind it...Outside of LA what will this NBA season be remembered for? I'm not sure. There were some stories, nothing major though --> in no particular order:

- Chicago emerges as a young team that is getting closer. Rose will continue to get better and become a force to reckon with

- KG goes down, so do Celts chances of repeating. Just too many minutes for Pierce and Allen and too much inconsistent play. Big Baby and Rondo show possible future of the team though.

- Orlando makes it through to the finals without Nelson. The stars aligned for the Magic this season. Best they really could have asked for. They aren't a team, yet, that should be expected to contend for a title yearly. Add another piece or two and they could be really dangerous. Dwight Howard gets an offensive game? Watch out.

- Shaq, Duncan, KG, Iverson, Norwitzki : are we seeing a changing of the guard?

- Next year could be very interesting with all the non-moves that will be made as teams make final plans to get into the Lebron sweepstakes for the summer of 2010.

Hockey:

- The Pens knocked of powerhouse Detroit the other night. Congratulations. Too bad for Marion Hossa (not really). I guess you can't blame him for ditching a team to try to win a title, just seems he has been doing that for a few years now, seems to be destined as one of the best players not to ever win a championship.

- Hockey is making a small comeback but needs to land a deal back on ESPN or something like it to get more broad appeal again.

- I really enjoyed the Bruins revival, the style of play was great (hitting/checking/skills) and they have a bunch of good young players to build around for years to come. Not so true here in Atlanta...

I hope to post a couple times per week as stories break or news happens that interest me. Feel free to add comments as we go.

Pre-All-Star Game thoughts

2008-07-15T08:14:00.003-04:00

Tonight's MLB All-Star game led me to have a few thoughts to post.

- The last year in Yankee Stadium brings (hopefully) a memorable night with lots of old-timers like the night in Fenway a few years back.

- the notion of the winning team giving their league home field advantage in the World Series needs to stop. Coupled with the managers desire to play everybody it conflicts and contrasts the desire to win. Need to go back to best record at end of regular season gives homefield advantage, or, best interleague record (league overall) provides the home field advantage (AL soundly has beaten NL this year I believe).

- I read at that the ticket prices are extremely high for all of the events including the fanfest events. Shame on MLB. Perhaps with so much revenue coming in, they could give the players a huge pot of $$$ to the winning team to divide. That could go a long way to making them fight to win it

- If I have to hear about A-Rods pending divorce during the telecast I may puke. Enough.

- here is the starting lineup

Len Bias revisited

2008-06-25T08:21:00.002-04:00

With last week marking the 22 year anniversary of the death of basketball star Len Bias, I was going to do a post and discuss the world of basketball and how it "could have been", particularily for the Celtics.

Yesterday espn.com put out an article on his death and focused more about the impact of it, how his mother has been speaking to schools etc. and less about the basketball impact.

It is a very interesting article and I recommend reading it : click here

This, for me, is one of those moments in life when you remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news. While not as globally important as the space shuttle disaster or the Sadam Hussein capture (amoung others) , it still stands out for me.

Miscellaneous Tuesday Thoughts

2008-06-24T10:16:00.004-04:00

Overall the sports scene is in a 'tween mode right now. NBA finals are complete (did I mention the Celtics won?) and MLB is heading into the All-Star timeframe soon.

Some miscellaneous things to discuss:

Interleague play in MLB, good or bad, done right or done wrong? The obvious example of how it is bad is the injury to Wang for the Yankees. Their top pitcher is out for 2-4 months because he injured himself running the bases during an interleague game. Now NL pitchers run (potentially) every game they pitch so what is the big deal? The big deal is that for the number of games the AL teams have to play in NL parks, it isn't worth it to practice hitting, baserunning for the pitchers. If you accept that it is here to stay (read:revenue) then what can be done to improve it?

Do you have it play on AL rules only in all parks? That could give the AL an advantage as their rosters are built to have a DH included and the NL teams would be inserting a less than equal offensive player as their DH. There is no other solution unfortunately to make it "fair" and reduce injury possibilities for players playing by rules not expected of them for 130+ games in the schedule.

The only other solution would be to make both leagues play by the same rules all season, either DH or no DH. This would be so radical that "slow moving" Bud would never go there on his watch.

So in the end, there will be no changes, things will remain the same and discussions from those in charge will be about how nothing is broken. Whatever.

This past weekend there was coverage of the US Olympic Trials on tv. Have to admit we watched some at home. My youngest daughters were very interested in the gymnastic trials. Some diving interested them too but the interest really was in gymnastics. This is the first time we discussed the Olympics at home and I am sure we will watch quite a bit come August. Having an international family (3 of 5 kids adopted from SE Asia) we have the possibility of rooting for other countries other than the US.

Here is a quick movie file to watch, funny :

Get your DVR's ready - RedSox honor Celtics tonight

2008-06-20T13:04:00.001-04:00

The RedSox will honor the Celtics tonight before the game with the Cardinals. The cross-team commeradarie has been great the last few years and tonight there will be a significant love-fest on display.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2008/06/sox_to_honor_cs.html

great pictures from parade

2008-06-20T11:21:00.000-04:00

from www.boston.com

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/06/2008_nba_champs_celtics_rollin.html

Red commercial

2008-06-20T10:00:00.006-04:00

Schilling to have surgery

2008-06-20T09:47:00.002-04:00

Curt Schilling announced on WEEI's Dennis and Callahan show today that he is having season ending (possibly career ending as well) surgery on his shoulder.

Interesting how this ended after all the intrigue and fights over how to handle the shoulder in the offseason.

6/18/08 Celtics Stole the Ball!

2008-06-19T21:55:00.001-04:00

Celtics Stole the Ball!

Finally. Three and a half to four full quarters of the stiffling defense that gave them 66 regular season wins.

Finally. All three amigos playing well in the same game.

Finally. Huge contribution from Rondo after everybody wondering if they would have to close it out with House/Cassell down the stretch.

Defense wins in all four major sports (yes I'm including hockey as a major sport). The Celtics have the best defense since the Pistons' days back in the early 90's. Possibly the best team defense ever.

Who knew Pierce could be a stopper before these playoffs began? Not me. Amazing.

I thought Perkins would have an impact and he did. He didn't score much, didn't show up on the stat sheet much, but he had a few tough rebounds, put a heavy body on the bigs from LA and had a significant block in the 2nd quarter during the big first run. Having him in the rotation improved the play of PJ and Powe as expected. We even got to see Big Baby go end to end for a dunk in the 4th. Very cool.

18 steals is amazing. The Lakers had to wonder if there were 7 Celtics on the court at all times. Anytime the Lakers would go in the air to pass, the Celtics blocked all the passing lanes. Was truly enjoyable to watch a defensive game of beauty. It all started with Rondo's defense. This guy could get scary good if he develops offense to go with his athletic skills.

Garnett didn't go out with a whimper but with a bang. He made foul shots, he made jumpers, he rebounded, he passed well, he did his best MJ hang in the air (did he come down before shooting?) longer than the defense for a 3 point play move. Best case scenario to remove the lingering doubts. He did what he needed to in a big game.

Ray Ray's shooting was so dismall in the Atlanta and Cleveland series there was serious doubt whether they could win without his scoring. Talk about big time shooting, all series he drained open and contested 3's. The aggressive move that got him a trip to the locker room was his way of keeping the defense honest.

Pierce didn't score big last night. Didn't need to. He missed a bunch of shots early but made up for it with passing. Clearly the MVP of the series and deserves all the adulation he is getting. Repeat next year and join the Parthenon of Celtic greats.

Doc Rivers - much has been written and said about him out-coaching Phil Jackson this series. Was it even close? Those "wired" segments on tv showed Phil offering less than inspiring speeches for the camera while Doc was constantly pulling at the hearts of the Celtics and correcting any malaise that slipped in. I was one of those that was not a huge fan of Doc's prior to these playoffs. He did have some odd choices in the earlier rounds but all is forgiven now. He was brilliant during the finals.

Kobe - wow, imagine being the best in the world/planet and believing it and hearing it all the time...now imagine not being good enough to lead your team (picked by most everybody to win) to victory. I admit, I am a Kobe hater. Has little to do with his legal troubles in the past. Has little to do with the claims (of others) of being MJ's equal. I "hate" Kobe for what he is relative to why I have disliked the NBA the last 10+ years. He is the poster child of a spoiled, incredibly talented athlete that is from the "I" generation. How in the world does he not DEMAND the ball every time down the court in the third quarter? Defense too intense? Guess what, you just smashed the comparisions to MJ. Name a team that ever took MJ out of a game or series, ever? Prediction, Lakers don't make it to the finals next year. Bynum? Yep, very nice talent, never played a game that mattered in his life. The western conference is tough, other teams will be ready to get to the finals too.

22 years is a long time, next year is not out of the question to repeat. Intensity is the key (and resigning Posey). I think there is a good chance to get to the finals again in the East and with KG and company, perhaps they rule the basketball world again next year.

Finally. The end (hopefully/rightfully) of Kobe/MJ comparisions. Forever (please?).

Go Celtics!

photos from AP, espn, boston globe and other sources

6/17/08 Game 6, the clincher

2008-06-19T21:54:00.001-04:00

Game 6 - the clincher

Should not be a big surprise- I believe the Celtics win tonight and wrap up the title.

While I haven't heard if Perkins will be playing, I think Doc needs Big Baby in the game either way to eat up some fouls and occupy space and rebound. PJ Brown is effective but you can't live and die with him out there.

How about -go big- on the lakers, go with Ray, Pierce and KG plus PJ AND Big Baby. Make the Lakers match up with you instead of you worrying about them. I would love to see that lineup for a few minutes and pound it inside on mismatches. Lots of nice picks for Ray to get free too.

On ESPN.com today (daily dime) is this offering on KG:

Garnett is like Kobe Bryant in that his greatest asset is also his weakness. In Kobe's case, it's his fearless attitude that instills a belief he can do the impossible -- so he tries it. Garnett has a tremendous inner drive. Except he doesn't know how to tone it down. Watching Garnett do a TV interview on Saturday, he looked just as intense as when he steps on the court. You know how blenders have different settings like whip and puree? Garnett has only one button: ice crusher. Imagine what he'll be like as the end of the series draws closer.

Very interesting take on KG, probably the most accurate assessment I've seen. If KG doesn't come up big tonight, at home, there will be a game 7. Doesn't matter if Pierce goes for 35. KG is the key tonight.

What is up with the travel screw-ups. I heard they were going to fly out Sunday night originally, then it got moved to Monday morning, then trouble with the plane and they didn't land until late last night. Not a good omen.

Perkins playing would be a big boost to the team. Everybody writes that he is a tremendously tough player, plays through a lot , etc. I need to see it tonight.

Prediction : Celtics 92 Lakers 86

As always, read Bill Simmons on espn.com http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080617

6/16/08 US Open Sunday/Monday

2008-06-19T21:53:00.003-04:00

US Open - Sunday/Monday

Sunday's 4th round of the US Open was fun to watch as a lead in to the Celtics/Lakers game.

I watched a good bit on Saturday as well but really wanted Westwood to hit his putt (assuming Tiger would) to make it a threesome today in the playoff. He missed and of course tons is being written about Tiger today.

I get it, the knee. He is mis-hitting more shots than normal for Tiger. It almost makes him human. I fully expect Tiger to win by 3 or 4 today. He smells the blood in the water and will take it home.

Somewhere previously in this blog, I wrote of cheering for somebody else other than Tiger and got an earful from a few of you as well as my wife. I have no shame saying I was rooting for Rocco yesterday. Very likable and a good story to boot. He played solid but just could not hit a mid-range putt yesterday. Rocco's gee-golly this is great attitude and the "I knew he was going to make it" quote after Tiger hit it sort of imply's he is in envy mode for today's round. I hope not. With Tiger and his knee vulnerable, I hope Rocco plays solid and puts the pressure on.

BTW - my leaderboard from ESPN didn't go low enough, where did Phil end up? Maybe Phil and KG can get together for a few laughs, compare chokes.

6/15/08 Game 5 Preview

2008-06-19T21:53:00.001-04:00

Game 5 preview

It was announced today the Perkins will not play tonight and Leon Powe will start in his place.

Even though Perk hasn't had many moments this series after a great series against Detroit, he adds a toughness element that will be missed.

Obviously much media play has been made about how this series is over, perfect for what LA needs to be thinking. They will play the backs up against the wall theme all night and by my prediction into Tuesday in Boston for game 6.

Intensity will be huge for both teams, look for lots of 3's by the Lakers, putting pressure on the Celtics to come from behind again. This time, unfortunately they will fall short

Prediction : Lakers 98 Celtics 92

6/13/08 What can you say?

2008-06-19T21:52:00.001-04:00

What can you say?

The full range of emotions watching that game last night.

Complete anger in the first half. If I had millions to waste I could see where the remote or some object would have made it into the tv. I kept hoping they would get that ugly 24 point deficit down to 15 by halftime. Then they make their run and get it to 12 only to have a mini-Laker run bump it up to 18 at halftime.

First half observations:

Lamar Odom - when did they trade for this guy and who was wearing that uniform the first 3 games? This was a completely different player than the Celtics had seen prior to last night. He was the difference maker in the first half.

Kobe - all the talk of how he likes to get everybody involved in the first half then get his offense in the 2nd half seems to be what went on in the 1st half last night. Finding open shooters at every possession.

Pierce - continuation of game 3, we are in trouble

Garnett- trying too hard, can't hit a shot again, uh-oh

Allen - only one that has been consistent, getting some touches but not enough

Rondo- slipping all over the court, is it because he is running/stopping differently due to the ankle? Not effective.

House - wow, looks very afraid in 1st half, misses all his shots (I think)

Now the Lakers, up 18 at halftime, at home, should have opened the 3rd quarter the way they did the first. Nope, we saw early in the 3rd the Celtics play very cautious and smart offensively while you could tell the defense was much tighter. Big change was Pierce on Kobe. I like the job Ray has done guarding Kobe but the job Pierce did on him in the 2nd half was terrific. You could tell at every turn, Kobe was looking at the refs about the bumps and denying Pierce was doing.

Throughout the 3rd, I was thinking if they could only get it to 9 at the end of the quarter that would allow a chance. To actually hold the high flying Lakers to 15 points and cut the lead all the way to 2 was amazing. I'll admit, I kept waiting for a mini-Laker run to bump it back to the 9 or 10 I previously was hoping for. It never came.

Now the substitutions of Posey (18 points) and House made all the sense in the world. If Perkins doesn't do whatever he did to his shoulder does Doc go small? Dunno...

The 3rd quarter and part of the 4th was Pierce being Pierce finally (again) and controlling the flow offensively. The shots the Celtics got were open 3's or a drive to the hoop.

Play of the game/series? The one on one block by Pierce on Kobe's post fade-away! I want to watch that on youtube forever.

Some of the reverse layups Pierce and Allen made were impossible. The three point play on the reverse by Pierce was amazing, how did he get the touch on that to go in? Same for the first reverse by Allen.

Wonder why Odom didn't play in the 2nd half (sarcasm alert). 180 degree change from the first half, this guy played invisible in the 2nd half. Useless.

The 4th quarter was very exciting, the Celtics maintained the defensive intensity, started mixing it up with Garnett getting some looks and Posey and House still contributing big.

How does Ray Allen, with the clock winding down, get by one defender and go all the way to the rim in a 3 point game?

Truth be told, both teams are flawed. The NBA finals has seen better teams most years but as the Lakers are finding out, if your biggest flaw is defense, that will prevent you from winning against a good team.

More to come later as I continue to digest what I saw.

(here is another clip from BombayTV CLICK ON IT TO PLAY)

6/12/08 Game 4 Tonight

2008-06-19T21:51:00.001-04:00

Game 4 tonight!

Most sportswriters, bloggers, analysts, and experts generally agree the defining moment of this series is going to happen tonight in game 4. Typically people believe or say game 5 is the pivital game in a 7 game series...and it will be if the Lakers win tonight. It seems to me that the tone of the series is currently as if it is tied up. It almost seems that by winning Tuesday night the Lakers have climbed back even and that tonight's game would decide the winner.

Hard to imagine that the Celtics won't play better. Obviously Rondo's ankle will impact that game. I have read opinions that the Celtics could be better off because Kobe won't be able to leave Rondo to go double with House or Cassell in. BS, the speed and energy and extra rebounding Rondo does is all worth it and makes them better. I think the Celtics will play the inside out game all night. Look for Garnett to get most of the early looks and foul shots as he moves to the hoop. Perkins, Brown and Powe will all have significant impact inside.

Prediction: Celtics 94 Lakers 90

(here is a little something I prepared, the site that hosts it is cool, check it out sometime CLICK ON IT TO PLAY)

6/11/08 Game 3 Recap

2008-06-19T21:50:00.003-04:00

Game 3 recap

As expected, the Lakers came out very aggressive, attacking the rim. They out hustled, out attacked the Celtics throughout the first half and had 7 point leads multiple times.

Their aggressiveness offensively was half the story. In my opinion, more importantly, they switched up Kobe to play D on Paul Pierce whenever possible. No longer did Pierce have open looks, no longer did he have the ability to drive around defenders. Pierce had a horrible night, in all aspects. Horrible. No other way to say it. Kobe gets some credit as I mentioned. However, superstars are supposed to elevate other parts of their games when shots aren't falling, right? I cannot think of a single aspect of Pierce's game last night that I can say, "yeah, he did ok rebounding, or passing, or defense, or hustle"...none of the above from the Captain last night.

I have been extremely impressed prior to last night with Pierce in the last month. I was not a huge fan, never have been. I admit it. This playoff season though made me a believer in the man and player. Last night took something off that new image. Game 4 will go a long way towards my impression of Paul Pierce.

Kevin Garnett had a miserable night as well. He scored some finally in the 4th quarter but his game for 3 quarters was just as bad as Pierce's. When 2 out of 3 (of the big 3) fail, the team cannot hope to win.

6/10/08 Refs announced for tonight

2008-06-19T21:50:00.001-04:00

Refs announced for Game 3 in LA

The quote below is from a reader/poster on boston.com pertaining to the announcement of who the 3 refs are for tonights's game 3 (Joey Crawford ,Bennett Salvatore, and Mark Wunderlich)

With the history of these three characters how do they get this game? Two of the worst calls in playoff memory are owned by Salvatore and Wunderlich.
Is this a setup by Stearn so that when this game is handed to LA to extend the series, and of course inflate the $$$ income he can again apologize for the terrible calls? With of course a wink!. Early in the 2nd game Kobe, not my favorite rapist, was being mauled by the C's and got nary a call. Leon was at the line all night. We know that will be reversed in LA, Pierce will get mauled and not a call his way. Kobe will feel a gentle breeze and shoot two. Why play 7. One game on a neutral court like the Super Bowl. It looks like some of these officials actually believe that thousand of fans spend big bux on tickets and travel and hotels and food to come only to watch them perform.
Perhaps we need a Senate investigation[call Spector quick] as to why it is rare for a visiting team to
win on the road in the playoffs? Same players, same ball, same game, same
rules [ooops maybe not]. Bag job? Yup..bag job

Gotta love passionate fans.

But it does beg the question, how and why are these refs getting an odd game gig in the finals (odd games are the most important swing games in 7 game series)

As always, Bill Simmons will get a few laughs tomorrow when his game 3 recap comes out, here is his article following game 2, very good read : Click here

6/10/08 Game 3 Preview

2008-06-19T21:48:00.003-04:00

Game 3 Preview

Tonight's game 3 of the NBA finals has most everybody believing the Lakers will win, off of better play, better (home court) officiating, and the will of the crowd. All of these factors very likely will contribute to the outcome of the game. The Lakers haven't played great, specifically on defense, and, as ESPN writer John Hollinger writes, their shot selection

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dime-080610&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1

Hollinger concludes through the math on shot selection that the Lakers were choosing/settling for long range 2 point attempts significantly more often than the Celtics. He states that the shot in the lane or near the hoop and the 3 pointer are more desirable. I can't disagree but context has to be considered as well. He mentions KG and his tendency to take the 19 footer (2 pointer) as his primary shot. That is one example of a good long range jumper that muddies the water a bit. The biggest point of his article comes from mentioning the foul shooting discrepancy between the teams. If it is assumed that most foul shot attempts come from a close in shot attempt, then the Celtics show even a greater lead in "good" shot attempts through 2 games. Interesting to see if this changes in game 3 tonight.

Going further down the page (linked above) to Daily Dime #2, there is discussion about the comments Mark Jackson was making on the telecast Sunday about Paul Pierce being the most explosive offensive player in Celtic history. Give me a break. Talk about revisionist history. Mark Jackson was a rookie in 87-88 season, as Bird and the Celtics started to decline. Through his career, he faced only the Bird that was constantly sidelined with back problems, foot problems and other ailments of the style of play he demonstrated his whole career. Lets look at the components of offense and see how Pierce and Bird match up

Shooting:

Long Range 3pointers: Both players can and do hit 3 pointers at any point, call it even

Post up: Both players can post up defenders, but the abilities and variety of moves that Bird used gives him an edge up over Pierce. An entire offense was built around Bird's posting up and options off of it.

Driving to the hoop: Bird used his shooting ability to fake the shot and begin his drives. Pierce goes more one on one and muscles his way in. Both are/were effective, Bird's drives often resulted in a teammate dunk vs. Pierce often gets to the line for 2 foul shots. Both have good use of left hands to help free up opportunities.

Moving without the ball: Save for Reggie Miller, nobody in the history of the game has been as good as Bird in this offensive category. The announces like to talk a bit about Ray Allen and Rip Hamilton (last series) as some of the best, and they are, but Bird and Miller were so far ahead of everybody else in this category. While Pierce uses picks to create space he doesn't use that space to his advantage, often the defender is given time to recover before Pierce makes his move to the hoop.

Offensive Rebounding: This is a category that often is overlooked. It is a huge part of what made Bird elite. His anticipation of where the ball would bounce off the rim would allow him to get to it or tip it to a teammate. Pierce isn't a real factor on the boards.

Perhaps Jackson would have been more accurate if his comment was more about the power driving moves Pierce does. Clearly he has a knack for making a play in traffic and getting to the rim area while getting fouled. I don't think that is what Jackson was saying though, I think he got caught up in the moment of watching a current player and overstating his relation to others in history.

Back to tonight- energy, specifically on defense can keep the Celtics in this. If they are close down the stretch, it could be a great opportunity for the Celtics to steal one in LA.

BTW - in the same article (linked above) check out the Curt Schilling blog excerpt. Schilling was sitting next to the bench (LA) in game 2, he offers up what I assumed already, that Kobe hasn't grown up and everything to him is the fault of another player. Read and enjoy.

Prediction: Lakers 104 Celtics 92

6/9/08 Up 2-0 after blowout (?)

2008-06-19T21:48:00.001-04:00

Up 2-0 after blowout?

The Garden was rockin', everybody including the announcers were talking about game 3 in LA Tuesday. Lakers kept hitting shots and the Celtics would hold the ball and wait until the shot clock went under 10 and then have a bad or no shot.

Kept wondering what Doc was doing, maybe PJ Brown and Powe needed to get off the bench again, after all, it was on their watch that the lead ballooned to 24.

Here is the box score, I haven't seen a +/- stat in basketball but assume it is team differential while player is on the floor. Take a look at KG and Posey:

A win is a win, I like the way Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, obviously PJ Brown and Leon Powe played. Rondo played good enough too, missed too many foul shots (team missed 11) but ran the offense and was very active defensively.

Powe was a beast tonight, no offense to Doc for not playing him against Detroit much, but this guy should start in a couple of years.

On to LA, up 2-0, steal at least one there and finish at home. I like the chances, although the Lakers will thrive with the support of the crowd, much the way the Celtics did these two games.

BTW - loved the piece on ESPN about how split Bill Walton is on who to cheer for, please, baby Walton might be a nice piece for a team out of the playoffs, but is he a contributor to a championship team? Don't think so. 38 points for Laker Eastern Europeans tonight (see post after game 1)

6/6/08 NBA Finals - Game 1 and beyond

2008-06-19T21:46:00.002-04:00

NBA finals - game 1 and beyond

Bob Ryan, Boston Globe icon and basketball expert, started his column after the game last night with a warning.

"Don't get cocky. Resist the urge to fire off that sarcastic e-mail to your old college roommate currently residing in Reseda. Just appreciate the fact that the championship of the world's greatest basketball league is once again being played in this town and that your Celtics are now one step closer to title No. 17."

It is one game, "Don't get cocky" is great advice. It is tough not to. Everybody outside of the 617 or 508 area codes has picked the Lakers in 5 or 6 games. When I was preparing to sit and watch the game I tried to ready myself for a game 1 upset just in case. I was ready with the "you need to win at least one road game in the finals anyway to ensure victory so losing one game at home is no big deal" speech.

On to the game:

The first quarter was a little boring, I thought the little interview with Phil Jackson was a good one, I liked the comment about how both teams were feeling it out and getting over any anxiety they might have had. That perfectly described the first quarter. Not a great quarter but easily forgotten in the magnitude of the series.

The first half I would describe as a win for the Celtics despite being down 5 at halftime. In my opinion, they did not play a great half, they rebounded for crap and all the loose balls went the Lakers way. As long as the lead did not expand right away in the 2nd half I was confident that it would be a close game and the Celtics could pull it out.

Nobody could have anticipated the injury/return of Pierce and the impact on the game. Saw a quote from "Phil the Manipulator" where he implied maybe it wasn't that bad an injury in the first place, almost suggesting some theatrics were being used. Gotta hand it to him, he can sound convincing no matter what rubbish comes out of his mouth.

In the 2nd half, the Celtics defense (Phil will say the Lakers just missed shots) and rebounding took over. One shot and heading the other way is the best way to win playoff games. All the loose balls that the Lakers were getting in the 1st half were now the Celtics.

I wish Garnett had even one of McHale's good low post moves to get to the rim. I tire of seeing him with his back to the basket fake to his right, go left and fade away. I know it is unstoppable but I would rather see him punish the defenders.

"Don't get cocky"

Tough to do. Besides Koby, and Pau, who are we supposed to fear? Who in the rotation has big game capability? Fischer will get 15+ with open looks because of double teams, not a problem. Odom? Let him get his from jump shots, not a problem. I have a long standing theory I just made up, if your rotation of players has more than one caucasian European player in it, you aren't tough enough to win a title.

Good pitching beats good hitting in baseball playoffs.

Good defense wins championships in the NBA.

4/14/08 The Masters, just another major?

2008-06-19T21:46:00.001-04:00

Masters- just another Major?

Let me begin with a statement - I thouroughly enjoyed watching the Masters this week. I started with some of the par 3 contest on Wednesday, a little bit of Thursday's and Friday's rounds, then almost all of Saturday and Sunday. Gotta love tivo or whatever brand dvr I have, makes it so much easier.

Ok, now the crazy proclomation - Has the Masters become just another Major tournament? One (1) of the things about the Masters that is near the top of the list for me as to why it is one of the top sporting events each year is the ability to separate itself from the US Open, the British, any other tournament during the year by having the back 9 on Sunday be drama filled. I'm not talking about the drama yesterday. I was waiting for the Tom Petty backdrop of "Free Falling". That is US Open ground, "let's see who can survive?"

The Masters is supposed to be about shot making, putt making and the ability for a hot player to make a charge late on Sunday. The added distance, added trees (and yesterday, the weather) make it much more difficult for anybody to charge on Sunday.

I don't want the winner to score -20, Immelman's -8 is very good all things considered, but the course would not let anybody threaten him. You can say it was the competition, that they did not have what it takes this week to push to the top. Have you watched these guys golf recently? They are collectively the best ball strikers and shot makers in the world. I would venture a guess that the 20th best player today would consistently beat all but the best 2 or 3 from 25 years ago.

I kept hoping, waiting for somebody to make the charge...still waiting.

75, 72, 72, 77, 72, 72, 78 these are the Sunday scores for the top 7 finishers, some pretty decent names go along with those scores, Woods, Cink, Mickelson, Harrington along with some new blood, Immelman, Snedeker, Flesch.

Where was the charge early in the day by a Mickelson, Singh, Casey, Goosen?

Self proclaimed all time great Ian Poulter showed us something on the weekend...all talk, go put your pink outfit back on, get a little more mouse in your hair in case next year there is reason to show you on the weekend coverage!

I am very content with the outcome, a new winner with potential to have a great record in the majors going forward. A likeable guy.

I just wish there was more drama on Sunday, otherwise it becomes just another major...

11/17/07 Cornbread vs. Legend

2008-06-19T21:44:00.001-04:00

so a faithful read posted this on another post but it is worthy of its own thread

Hey Steve I heard this comment and thought of you being a big Bird fan.

The buzz up here in the sports talk radio arena is a comment that Cedric Maxwell made after the Celtics 3rd win of the season. Forgive me if someone knows the exact quote but it went something like this "Kevin Garnett is the second best Celtic to wear the uniform behind only Russell". And he went on to add that he thought Oljauwon and Dirk Nowitzki were and are better all around players than Bird was on both ends of the court.

A reporter caught up with Bird and told him the Garnett comment that Maxwell made and his reply was "ya that's ok he quit on us and I'm sure he'll quit on him (Garnett) as the season goes".

I'm not sure if you caught any of this or if even made any waves down there, but the topic has opened up a whole can of worms as far as who is the greatest and in which oreder do they fall. Most of the sports host feel Bird is second behind Russell which I feel is right. It's hard to compare with the whole center/forward argument, but if you have to assign them a number Russell then Bird in my book.

Here's a dumb question. Any thoughts on this????

[More:]

ok, first off, no, I had not heard this. Assuming the quote is actually a quote (real), then there has to be significantly more to their relationship than anybody ever knew. Doesn't Max do the TV or something for the Celtics? Maxwell is regarded as the reason they won the championship in 81 ("climb on my back...") and I never knew of animosity between Bird and Maxwell. If Maxwell indeed is part of the Celtics broadcast team, then it really is interesting that he is making quotes that are anti-homerish. Olajuwan is hard to compare as you mention (center vs. forward) but to say Nowitzki is better than Bird was is ridiculous.

Larry's (on left) and Nowitzki (on right) stats per 40 minutes played
excluding of course any decreases for declining years for Nowitzki, which hasn't happened yet):

Just for a look, here is the same chart with Garnett and others added in. My opinion of Garnett is fast changing and I was curious about his stats:

I am shocked and disappointed by Maxwell's statement. I wish I knew the scoop. Will try investigating further but if you hear anything else, let me know here.

Maxwell is dead to me now.

here is some stuff I found on this "feud"

www.forums.eog.com/online-sportsbooks-and-gambling-discussion/larry-bird-slams-cedric-maxwell-109280.html

a quote from a poster in that forum : Cedric maxwell is on a sports talk show in Charlotte off and on during the summer. The host is Billy Packer's kid. Decent show unless Maxwell is on. i have heard him say on many occasions he carried Lary Bird and refers to the 81 championship mvp as proof. He stirred up a ton of shit by playing the race card during the Vick incident. IMHO he is an ass.

www.blog.hofmag.com/2007/05/02/nowitzki-no-larry-bird/

After thinking through the potential counter arguements amoung any group of player comparisions, I come to realize something about the NBA that differs from say, MLB.

When comparing my heroes, Bird, McHale, DJ etc. to players before them, I was countered with the argument of "the game is different, you need to compare them against their contemporaries"...

That argument was based on the assumption that the basketball of the 80's was better than the basketball of the 60's. Fair enough statement I believe.

Comparing someone today to the 80's though is the inverse of that. Basketeball today is worse off than the 80's. I am not talking about fan appeal although it translates to that as well.

I am talking about the skills of basketball. Today's player has tremendous physical skills and would rank higher than any previous era no doubt. The basketball skills outside of physical jumping abilities etc. are declined compared to prior generations. Not the case when comparing 80's to 60's though. Big differnce.

While the escalated money has a part in decline in skills, so must the Me/Now generation that has ESPN and video games and instant gratification through the internet for any information. I don't think there is as much practicing of fundamentals as there used to.

Take Michael Jordan. At the time of his peak period, he was easily the most physically gifted basketball player in the NBA. What made him the greatest ever, he practiced fundamentals and merged that with his physical prowess.

How many of todays greats do that?

11/3/07 What's Next?

2008-06-19T21:43:00.001-04:00

what's next ?

The Sox win the 2nd Series title in 4 years and appear poised to truly contend at the highest level for years to come. The Patriots face off against the Colts tomorrow and the game has been dubbed the mid-season super bowl by many in the media.

If the Patriots do what is becoming expected of them, win it all, then that will be 2 championships out of the 4 major sports for Boston/New England this go around.

What's next?

How about the Celtics?

Last night they opened with a good win against the Wizards. Sure the Wizards are not Phoenix or San Antonio but they were better than the C's last year. Everybody was. This is about beating teams and climbing up the ladder.

I watched about half the game, thanks ESPN for taking over the NBA. Gives me a chance to see the Celtics last night at least.

Garnett's opening shot along with the general nervousness of both teams in the opening 5 minutes was ugly but once they settled in it was ok to watch. That is a lot to say. The make up of this team has some amount of mass appeal as Garnett, Allen and to some extent Pierce play unselfeshly.

Here are some pictures from the game courtesy of the Boston Globe:

10/28/07 Up 3 games to 0

2008-06-19T21:42:00.001-04:00

up 3 games to 0

Good game for the Sox unless your name is Lopez...

There is a pattern that emerges with Dice-K in the postseason. Look unhittable for 3 or 4 innings, then run into some trouble in the 5th. Last night, no different. Cool that he got a big 2 rbi hit in the middle of that...historic, at least McCarver and Buck told me so. First Japanese pitcher to get a hit in the world series or something like that. Sometimes historical moments aren't that significant or seem made up or can be confusing (more later).

Well done Dice-K, other than the walks in the 5th, very well done.

Jacoby Ellsbury = quickly becoming my favorite player to watch. I've mentioned he reminds me of a fast Fred Lynn and time will tell how good he will become but the boys in the booth said two records were matched or broken last night by Jacoby.

1) First rookie to hit 2 doubles in the same inning of a world series game
2) Third rookie to have 4 hits in a world series game

ok, great achievements no doubt, but the other night they mentioned that because Ellsbury didn't have enough at bats this year so he technically will be a rookie still all next year. So, lets fast forward to the series next year. Lets say Ellsbury hits two doubles in an inning again. Does McCarver say, "Jacoby Ellsbury ties a major league record, hitting two doubles in the same world series inning...the only other rookie to do that was...Jaboby Ellsbury...???" Get my point? How many rookie of the year winners will have 2 world series rings to show for it? And besides, will he have to do all the rookie stuff the veterans make them do during the season?

David Ortiz played well at first, grabbing one tough backhand that he took to the bag himself and stretching on this play to get the batter

ok, the one play in the game that needed replays was the Manny slide at home. After watching the angles they showed it is likely in my opinion that the catcher made the tag...however, look at these two shots and you have to wonder when the catcher went from holding the ball in his glove to when he was holding the ball in his hand alone. To make that full out stretched tag with both arms/hands fully extended, you lose some of your reach compared to stretching with just one arm. My guess is he was holding the ball in the glove to ensure it would not get knocked out by contact. But in trying to make the stretch and tag, did he pull the ball out as you see in the second picture. If so, then the tag may have been made without the ball in the glove...

I realize that the big deal is more about Manny flipping his helmet off and how poor a runner he is (McCarver's feelings). Manny wasn't loafing last night, the helmet thing was amusing and unfortunate if it slowed him a little but I saw him hustling and saw him charge hard on a base hit to get the ball and prevent runners from moving up.

Game 4 tonight. Hopefully Lester pitches 5 or 6 good innings. The bats are working good and things should be ok if they get the good starting pitching.

Here are some pictures forwarded to my wife from a friend back home (Boston)

10/27/07 Anticipation!

2008-06-19T21:40:00.002-04:00

Anticipation

The anticipation is killing me...

sure, game three of the World Series is tonight, can't wait but that isn't what I'm talking about...The excitement is building...the anticipation is awesome...I cannot wait for the incredible satisfaction of having my free taco from Taco Bell on Tuesday.

The first ever world series game in Colorado is tonight, should be a good one with lots of runs scored.

Prediction number 1: The Humidor will be mentioned no less than 5 times as McCarver and Buck will focus on how baseball changed in Colorado when they implemented the storage system. Awesome...true but do we need to hear it endlessly?

Prediction number 2: McCarver will dwell on Ortiz playing first for at least 5 times, especially if there is any throw in the dirt that he doesn't pick up. True but do we need to hear it endlessly?

Prediction number 3: They will dwell on the vastness of the outfield and how that will be a factor because Manny plays the outfield. True but do we need to hear it endlessly?

Prediction number 4: They will dwell on the "home cooking" and how the Rockies play so well at home...I cannot wait to see the Sox hit in Coors Field. Don't you think the great gap hitters of Boston will find those vast gaps in the outfield?

Prediction number 5: Sox 8 Rockies 5

10/25/07 13-1!

2008-06-19T21:40:00.001-04:00

13-1 !

Wow, some records were set along the way to a 13-1 thumping of Colorado. The layoff really isn't something to complain about if you are a Rockie fan. The Sox and Indians finished up Sunday night so the earliest the Series could have been scheduled to start would have been Tuesday instead of Wednesday. The complaints about the off days during the series is something that can be called out but the start of the series and the 8 day layoff is a function of one team sweeping and one team going 7.

- Beckett striking out the first 4 batters and the first 5 outs, sweet. Killed all the questions about whether he would continue to dominate

- Pedroia hitting the leadoff homer in his first world series at bat, ties Don Buford for that honor (1969)

- Sox put up 3 in the first.

- Back to back wall ball doubles by Colorado keeps Beckett and the fans honest and into the game.

Much has been written about the patience of the RedSox hitters but until you see it first hand you cannot imagine the difference that they (and the Yankees for the last 10 years) have over other teams. The Rockies haven't faced a team that piles on your pitch count, waits for a mistake, pounces on the mistakes and makes you pay. I have said it previously, the Phillies and Diamondbacks are nice NL teams that both were somewhat hot down the stretch. Neither could match what the Sox have to offer.

This lineup, when clicking, tortures opposing pitching. Tortures.

Last 4 games, double digit runs, first time in the postseason history.

43-6. That is the score since they were counted out down 3-1 against the Indians.

The NL games will be different, for sure. Dice K and probably Lester will have to hit. That takes someone potent out of the lineup.

Game 2 tonight - Sox 6 Rockies 4, Papelbon with a big save to close it out.

10/24/07 Game 1 thoughts and Terry Francona

2008-06-19T21:39:00.000-04:00

Game 1 thoughts and Terry Francona

"Tonight's the night, everything's gonna be alright..."

ok, no more quotes from Rod Stewart, World Series...game 1...Beckett vs. Francis...there is only ONE ACTOBER...

I like the Sox in 5 or 6 games. All the talk of what to do with Youk, Lowell, Ortiz without a DH in the games in Colorado, if they lead 2-0 going west it becomes easier to figure out depending on pitchers being faced and how the first two games go for each batter.

Do you think the Colorado defense has worked extensively on the balls hit past third that hit the shortwall in foul territory in the past day or two?

Coming up big tonight? Beckett, Ellsbury, Manny

Prediction : Sox 6 Rockies 3

Each day during the series I will try to focus on a player or two. Today I will start with manager Terry Francona.

I keep reading about his days as a player and decided to look up his stats. Over 10 seasons, he had a whopping 1731 at bats and hit a modest .274

In his next to last season I found a nugget of info. Terry Francona, lifetime OF and 1B player pitched one inning while with Milwaukee. He faced three batters, striking out 1 and pitched a 1-2-3 inning. It was in a blowout loss to Oakland in May. He had 8 strikes in 12 pitches, the other two outs were flyouts.

Perhaps we should all give him some slack now in how he manages the pitching staff. His career ERA is 0.00.

good luck tonight, may the best team win

10/22/07 The Better Team Won

2008-06-19T21:38:00.002-04:00

The better team won!

pictures courtesy of www.bostonglobe.com

I can hear my Yankee fan co-workers and friends now..."they got lucky", "they won't beat Colorado", "Cleveland choked".

Truth is, Cleveland didn't choke as much as they were not prepared to win yet. Their inexperience cost them, no doubt. Their talent is tremendous and they should be back again soon. This will be a great learning experience for them and most teams have to go through that. I hope Colorado learns the same lessons.

Some things about the game last night that were interesting to me in random order:

- Dice K looked great for 4 innings and good enough in the 5th, don't know if Schilling's pep talk with him the other day was responsible but the outcome was great

- 3 hits for Varitek, nice to see him get some success at the plate, he is one of the best "catchers" but not for his hitting. Nice ground rule double - more on that later

- Youk = MVP in my book, I realize they don't gain the momentum back without Beckett and I am thrilled he is pitching game 1 Wednesday, but Youk kept hitting even when the big boys didn't.

- Pedroi, remember all the talk of his struggles? McCarver and Buck nailed it (sorry had to give them props) the other night talking about how Dustin had been hitting the ball well but not getting much for it...way to go

- Lugo , despite his best efforts, the Sox won anyway. Tough all around series

- Lowell, my oldest daughter was intimidated by Lowell's huge eyebrows, thanks Kevin Millar for pointing them out to her. Big hits when needed

-Manny, Anybody see the interview after the game when asked about the Lofton running mistake play, Manny defended himself against the Lugo popup play...language is so much a problem that lots of what Manny says should just be thrown out

- Ellsbury, thank you Francona for reading my pleas in the blog and getting Ellsbury in the games. Outstanding catch in left as well as the running catch in right-center that he ran down from left center.

-Crisp , amazing catch in the 9th, way not to pout and find a way to help

-Drew, Mr. Grandslam has bought his way to next season

-Papi, not a good weekend in Boston but as long as the outcome works out...I didn't like the goggles in the dugout while the game was still on, poor judgement especially when the other team could see you.

Papelbon, awesome intense funny, the way he pitched out of the trouble in the 8th was incredible. The hand motions towards Varitek before they embraced after the last out was awesome.

Francona, overall comfortable with him as a manager, some tough questions always need answering though, like too long to play Ellsbury (energy).

Another thought on Francona and decisions - the double play that Pedroia hit into last night - Lugo runs on a 2-2 pitch but with first and third, and a guy with 33 steals, why not run him immediately as they were prone to the DP's all series?

ok, the popup that Lugo screwed up on with Lofton hitting. Inexcusable and frightening. He is the only player for the Sox to have the deer in headlights looks this weekend. He scares me and I hope winning this round calms him down. They need his speed and glove to be there.

Lugo #3 - on the ball hit by Gutierez that Lofton SHOULD have scored on - shortstops of RedSox past have immediately on balls down the line gone out towards left in case of the carem. Lugo was nowhere to be seen while Manny jogged down the ball. I can picture Nomar getting to that ball quickly and at least giving Lofton an excuse for not scoring.

New Curse: with the praise for being on 11 post season rosters and the all time stolen base (postseason) record all being mentioned over and over, does anyone really think Kenny Lofton is a winner? When he was in Atlanta, he was a negative influence and always seemed to get the stats when it didn't matter. Good luck to the next team to take him to the playoffs, perhaps teams that can't seem to find their way to the postseason should look into signing him, at least they would make it...

Colorado doesn't scare me, the buildup will be david vs. goliath but in reality, the Rockies have been extremely hot, have a tremendously long wait, have beaten the Phillies and Diamondbacks (both would be .500 teams in the AL btw) in the playoffs. Unless Josh Beckett and Jonathon "Riverdance" Papelbon get hurt skiing in the Colorado snow, this series should be over in 6 at most, possibly 5 in the Sox favor.

10/20/07 Back to Boston

2008-06-19T21:38:00.001-04:00

Back to Boston!

Beckett was cy youngish. Sabbathia was ok but never awe inspiring. Crisp and Lugo need a seat but I would still let Lugo play for his defense.

My lineup for Saturday would be :
Ellsbury
Pedroia
Ortiz
Manny
Lowell
Youk
Drew
Varitek
Lugo

Schilling doesn't scare me, assuming he is physically fine (no reason not to) then him throwing back to back bad games in a series isn't likely in my opinion.

Saturday prediction : Sox 5 Indians 3

As for the Indians having an Beckett ex sing the anthem and God Bless America last night...here is my comment about this on a great site related to RedSox Yankees baseball : http://yankeesredsox.com/

I saw that this morning, dirty pool all the way.

That would be like having a PETA representative reciting the pledge of allegiance at the sentencing of Mike Vick.

or

That would be like having Charles Manson do the introduction for The Beatles at their Rock-n-roll hall of fame induction.

or

That would be like having John Rocker introduce the keynote speaker at a NAACP meeting.

Oh yeah, btw - Torre declining the contract the Yankees offered was a good move for the Sox. Some Yankee fans don't think Torre is right for the job now that there is significant youth playing for them but there will be a learning curve for whomever they put in his place.

10/20/07 Incentives

2008-06-19T21:36:00.003-04:00

incentives

Ok, so one of Joe Torre's reasons for declining the Yankees offer was because of not needing the incentives and feeling insulted by them.

I understand that because of the history and he was not coming into a new job. I agree with his assessment.

Now, on the other side I would LOVE to see the sports world transform to a highly incentive based pay world.

For example, as long as the baseball world is center stage we'll continue with that. How about having a salary cap in baseball but have bonus pay for playoff appearances that make it extremely important for players to make the playoffs. Lets say a cap prohibits teams from spending to the level the Sox and Yankees have, say a cap around $100M per year, still lots higher than most teams spend but cap the big spenders.

Now, have a postseason reward for every player on making the playoffs of $1M. If you make it to the second round you get an additional $1M per player. If you make it to the world series you get an additional $2M per player. If you win the world series you get an additional $5M per player. Lower amounts could be factored in for coaches, other people in the organization.

So if you were the world series winner, you would have your base salary plus $9M more, even if you were the 25th man on the roster...think the team would pull together more? Have accountability more for screwing up?

Now the only downside I can think of quickly while typing this is that small market teams or teams rebuilding would have no pull for free agents, free agents would have even more reason to go to teams willing to spend the $100M cap and teams already in contention.

The only thing that would still work would be teams that use their low cost minor league call ups etc. to build would still have their chance to succeed. Oakland, Minnesota, Colorado would still be able to groom young talent and make their runs. The teams that would suffer would be the middle of the road spenders, teams that spend but not top dollar, and teams that might not manage and have prospects coming up to help as much. These teams would lose some free agents over time and drop down in the standings.

Overall a system like this in all sports would allow for more intense competition because the thrill of being a winner would be coupled with monetary rewards. Boxers that lose in a title match would get something but not 10's of millions of dollars for appearing, the winner would be like the winner at a poker championship...

Where does the money come from? The leagues would throw in some (popularity would continue to rise and income for the league would rise with it) as well as each team contributes cash into a fund. Why? If a team has to contribute to the fund, then they will be more likely to "go for it" more. Winning is boss.

whatcha think?

10/9/07 Respect

2008-06-19T21:36:00.001-04:00

Respect

Last night the Yankees lost the game and series to the Indians. It appears that there will be significant change in the Bronx next season. There may not be the same level of animosity for a while as the young players gain reputations and accomplishments.

Likely gone are :
Torre (Boss' decision)
Posada (free agent - career year, old)
Pettitte (free agent/option)
Clemens (free agent/old)

Possibly gone are :
Rivera (free agent, they still might need to sign him)
A-Rod (player option)
Mussina (under contract/old)
Giambi (under contract/old)

With a change in manager there will be issues with personalities especially with the veterans. Look for the Yankees to spend considerably to compliment the young players they have in place.

oh yeah, I forgot a beef I have. Joba Chamberlain is the great hope for the Yanks, can someone tell him to put a bend in the bill of his cap? The way he leaves the hat flat makes him look even more goofy than he already does...

10/8/07 1986/87 vs. Today

2008-06-19T21:34:00.001-04:00

1986-1987!

ok, so we aren't yet done but take a look at the Boston sports scene right now compared to 1986-1987 (sorry to the Boston Globe running a similar story - I have planned this for a while).

In 1986-87 as a Boston sports fan, we had it pretty good.

1)
Celtics beat the Rockets for the NBA title, Bird was MVP, one of the absolute greatest teams EVER.

2)
Bruins make it to the NHL finals only to get crushed by the Oilers

3)
Patriots make it to the superbowl only to get crushed by the dancing bears

4)
RedSox make it to the world series only to get crushed by Bill Buckner and Bob Stanley (or Rich Gedman if you prefer)

So here we are in 2007-08

1)
Celtics have made moves to at least get excitement going. Some analysts say it is enough to win the east and get to the finals, we'll see

2)
Bruins have sucked, might be better...who knows

3)
Patriots appear on paper (and on the field so far) to be the reinvention of Miami Dolphins of '72. Would be shocking if they don't win it all

4)
RedSox have righted the ship and beat a miserably underperforming Angels team. Appear to be ready to roll and possibly win it all again.

Other than not having my favorite sports hero ever, Larry Bird, to root for, I'd say this version of Boston sports ranks equal to or higher than the glory days of '86-87.

'86 Celtics = '07 Patriots {both are supremely dominant in their respective leagues and have the MVP on the roster}
'86 RedSox = '07 RedSox {I think the Sox will win it so they will be even better than the '86 version and there is no hobbled Buckner around this time}
'86 Bruins = '07 Celtics? {reaching but lets say the Celtics get past the first round of the playoffs}
'86 Patriots > '07 Bruins

So if two championships come out of this season (Sox/Pats) then by all accounts that trumps any year.

I haven't mentioned the BC Eagles cause I don't intimately follow them but they are ranked #4 right now and (excuse me) flying high.

Any thoughts, opinions of a better sports town ?

10/6/07 2 Down, 1 to go

2008-06-19T21:33:00.002-04:00

2 down , one to go

10/1/07 MLB Playoffs

2008-06-19T21:33:00.001-04:00

MLB playoffs

The Sox will have homefield through the playoffs. Looks like my prediction back in June http://blmeanie.net/blmeanieblog//index.php/a/2007/06/ that 95 wins will take the AL East division was right. The Sox ended with 96 and the Yankees 94.

Sox have the Angels in the first round with the favorable schedule (if you want to pitch a 3 man rotation). I like the way the Sox finished after floundering for a while. They still are not healthy, but who is. Expect Beckett and possibly Schilling in first two games. This would leave Dice-K for game 3 before bringing Beckett back for game 4 if necessary. Sox in 4.

Yankees and Indians. Yankees are the wildcard. Indians finished with 96 wins. Indians have the big 2 on the mound back to back (Sabathia and Carmona). Indians have the home field advantage...Yankees in 5.

Perhaps the Mets collapse will take over as the worst in modern times (from the '78 Sox) and be flashed in highlight reels for the next few decades as such. While the Braves didn't make it, there are some smiles around town that the Mets didn't either...Good luck to the Phillies with whomever they face.

Time to vent a little : the country club scheduling is absurd. Taking 8 days to play 5 games is ridiculous. They play 162 games in 181 days (April 2 - Sept 30). So in just under 6 months, they have 19 days off, or 3 per month or 75% of a day off per week.

In the postseason they get to have 3 days off in the first week. All sports do this but it gets magnified more in baseball because of the volume of games they play.

If a team's strengths include depth that allows them to excel over the season playing virtually every day, why penalize them in the postseason by allowing a team with potentially less depth by allowing so many off days?

9/28/07 Bleachers for Sale

2008-06-19T21:32:00.003-04:00

Bleachers for sale!

ok, so I don't live in the Boston area anymore, but if i did, I would jump at the chance to buy Sox bleacher seats that are being replaced.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2007/09/28/good_seats_available_just_495_a_pair/

ok, jump may be too strong, but here is the reality...I own a set of 4 connected seats from the Olympic Stadium here in Atlanta before it was partially torn down and converted to Turner Field. The seats are plastic with a metal base and have the Atlanta Olympic Logo self colored on the seat back (not printed, cut out, some texture).

They were at an auction a year or so after the Olympics so I bought them. They were going to be part of my home theater room in the house we had at the time but we moved and they have sat up against the wall of my garage since...oh well.

To summerize, buy them now, or you'll never know how many things you can place on top of them or lean against them in your garage...

9/20/07 Anger

2008-06-19T21:32:00.001-04:00

Anger

Brandon Moss and Eric Hinske...what do they have in common.

To quote the line from the Steve Martin movie, Parenthood, his boy is playing right field as the worst player on his baseball team. The star player's father starts yelling afer Martin's boy misses a popup, "NO BUSINESS...NO BUSINESS, HE'S GOT NO BUSINESS BEING OUT THERE!"

Crisp, Ramirez and Youkilis out of the lineup for last night's game. Ramirez out for all of September so far. Youkilis experiencing pain in his wrist in BP. The ship has a major compromise in the hull, taking on water fast.

Somebody better step up and start bailing or this ship will go down 3 and out in round 1.

Hate to be right but all along I have been saying the Yankees are one win streak and a Sox losing streak away from being all tied up.

Both are off today, thankfully, and the Sox get to face Kazmir in Tampa tomorrow. Hope the Blue Jays play as hard against the Yankees and don't lay down like our friends in Baltimore did.

9/4/07 September baseball, football starting up

2008-06-19T21:30:00.001-04:00

September Baseball, football starting up

After the dismal series in NY a week ago, the Sox have righted the ship against Baltimore and Toronto (so far).

Clay Buchholz pitched a no hitter in his second career start on Saturday. While I was in the woods camping, I kept track of this on my trusty Treo. Great device, although annoying when signal is weak...

Math problem revisited: If the Sox play .500 the rest of the way, they get to the magical 95 wins. To tie for the division, the Yankees would have to go 19-5 (.792) in the same 24 games remaining. It does appear the stranglehold the Yankees have had on the division titles is about to end. While still in the middle of the wildcard hunt, the Yankees appear to be a team in transition. My guess is that one or more of their highly touted youngsters will be dealt over the winter for a veteran pitcher.

College football had an exciting first weekend. Michigan's loss to Appalachian State narrowly beat out Notre Dame's embarrassing loss to Georgia Tech as the story of week 1.

The Pro's start up this week, on Thursday i will post my picks for the week. Starting next week I will post the outcome in the pick'em pool I am in and discuss what went wrong/right.

Phil Mickelson finally beat Tiger head to head on a Sunday. Good to see. Want Tiger to earn that record when he finally beats Jack's major titles mark.

8/27/07 It's Been a While

2008-06-19T21:28:00.001-04:00

Its been a while

August is almost over and I noticed my last post was August 3rd.

Mike Vick has plead guilty to something, although the language of the plea is interesting. Either way his days in Atlanta are over. The big battle that is remaining is Falcons vs. Vick for approx. $22M in cash. The Falcons want to get back that amount from the signing bonus Vick was given a couple of years ago with his extention. I read a little of Vick's public appology today after appearing in court. The concensus is that it was humble and honest as opposed to a scripted statement from lawyers. With that being said, i don't believe Mike will be signing a check back to Mr. Blank and the Falcons for the $22M with a sincere appology note. Money is money and he will fight that for a long time.

The Sox and Yankees were within 4 games twice during August and current are 7.5 games apart. If the Sox play .500 ball for the balance of the 31 games remaining they will end with 95 wins for the season. Back in the first week of June, here in this blog, I predicted 95 wins would be enough for the winner of the division. To match the 95 wins, the Yankees have to win 23 of 32 remaining games or a .719 clip the rest of the way. Any way you look at it, they pair up for 3 games beginning tomorrow night. The pitching matchups are ideal and the teams are close enough still that there will be the usual excitement. Game 1 Tuesday is Dice-K vs. Pettite, Game 2 has Beckett vs. Clemens, and finally Game 3 has Schilling vs. Wang.

Somehow along the way Beckett and Wakefield lead the majors with 16 wins each. Dice K would be there with them if not for lousy run support lately. Pitching wise, this has been a great year for the Sox. Schilling appears to be close to normal, Wake, Beckett and Matsusaka all are in stride, even Tavarez looked impressive this weekend. Heck, I'll even go so far as to say Gagne had a couple of less then terrible outings recently...

Part of my August missed here on the blog was time spent in Boston. I took the family on a vaca and we took Fenway in one day. The Sox were out of town but the team has a tour they offer of Fenway that I highly recommend. The history and views they let you have are great. No, they don't let you on the field, no they don't let you in the clubhouse, and no, they don't let you behind the scoreboard. They do parade you around the field from the new sections in right field (Sox appeal?) all the way around to the Monsta seats. Here are a couple of pics from my tour.

1975 was my first real memories and excitement about baseball

From the Monster Seats, host made a good joke, he said that he finally got to sit up there for a game (tickets are lottery only) and he was amazed that almost every game a celebrity of some sorts is shown sitting up there...wow, what amazing luck celebrities have with the lottery system...

Son Jack up in the Budweiser section in right field

One of the most famous seats in all of sports

On the way up to the Monster seats. I saw this and stopped to take a picture, soon every guy around me in line was asking for their camera from their spouse as it was a cool shot.

8/1/07 Trades!

2008-06-19T21:26:00.000-04:00

Trades!

Finally, finally reason to get excited about basketball in Boston again. When the Ray Allen deal was made there were constant references by Danny Ainge that he wasn't done making moves. This move is the big one. If healthy, they should be the favorites in the East. The extention signed by Garnett really makes the deal and these guys should provide a chance to see success over the next 2-4 years.

The division leading RedSox added a second closer. This will make every close game a lot easier. Gagne will close some games when Papelbon has worked a few days in a row but will primarily set up Papelbon. Looking ahead this could be a way to get Papelbon into the rotation in future years if the Sox were able to sign Gagne long term. With Schilling saying he is ready to make it back to the rotation, Lester showing he is ready to contribute and Beckett, DiceK and Wake, the staff looks fully loaded for the stretch run. Now if last night (small sample size) is an indicator, Ortiz could be back on track...

The biggest winner during the trade deadline deals in baseball is the Atlanta Braves. They traded for Teixeira from Texas and Dotel from Kasas City. Both will help they grab the wildcard or challenge the Mets for the division title. This team is loaded with bats and although I keep hearing that Teixeira will be put in the cleanup spot I would rather he go in the 5 hole to protect Andruw Jones. Lost in the hype on his bat is that he is a gold glover first baseman. That is a secondary pickup but important too. He is under contract for next season and played college ball at Georgia Tech, look for a deal to be made this offseason to lock him up for long term.

7/30/07 July 30th Rumblings

2008-06-19T21:25:00.000-04:00

July 30 ramblings

The NFL has opened camps around the country. Some of the big names not yet reporting (holding out) include Michael Strahan (time to retire?) and Brady Quinn. What's up with that? Looking for money better than the pick he ended up being no doubt. With the learning curve and acclimation necessary to go from college to pro you would think he would be in camp on day 1. The loyalists will defend Quinn, citing the slippage in the draft as mistakes, but to succeed, first year players need to be in camp and participating immediately.

Big news over the weekend was Priest Holmes showing up to play for the Chiefs. Interestingly, he decided to come back afte the terrible neck injury after having a dream. http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/trainingcamp07/news/story?id=2953742&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab2pos1 I wish him well and hope he doesn't end up hurt again.

MLB news - Gwynn and Ripken enter the hall of fame. Both played their entire careers with a single team (read:dinosaurs) and both are deserving in my opinion. There are Ripken detractors out there that quote numbers and say he should not be in and that the consecutive game record is not Hall worthy. Based on his stats and his being one of, if not the first, to change the shortstop position into the good hitting power hitting players we have seen in the last 20 years, I vote him in. His lifetime numbers strike me as similar to Yaz, .276 431 HR, 2 MVP's, 3184 hits. I know 3000 hits and 400 HR isn't the lock for the Hall the way it used to be but they still tell a story.

Gwynn was the best "hitter" in the game for a generation. Obviously not the best producer or power hitter, just a sweet swing and ability to get on base. Amazingly his early career numbers show what he could have been had he not put on all the weight he put on. Five seasons of over 20 steals with a high in 1987 of 56 steals.

As of this morning, Bonds remains 1 short of equaling Hank Aaron's HR record. The Giants are on the road for 6 games before returning home. I think he ties the record on the road to set up breaking it at home. For me, this has become that terrible car wreck on the side of the highway and as you pass by, you have to look. I don't want Bonds surplanting Aaron on the throne, it is happening though, and I can't help but take a look as it goes past. It is history. There are many moments in history that you don't like but you know of them, can picture many of them.

The Sox hold an 8 game lead on the resurging Yankees. The trade deadline is tomorrow afternoon, will be interesting to see what moves both teams make. I think the Sox make a splash for someone, somehow Ortiz isn't right (health) and they need protection for his power loss. On a high note, Coco Crisp has climbed into the .280's lately (.279 as of last night) and Manny has really been hitting since the break. Schilling is due back soon and the pitching generally has been very good again of late.

There is a nice story worth reading http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?id=2952659&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab4pos1 about Rod Beck and his family. Take a look.

I see a story about the Celtics and Timberwolves talking again about Kevin Garnett and a possible trade. Danny Ainge better have something up his sleeve, the draft results left me wanting for a complete overhaul. I thought Garnett said he would not play for Boston anyway?

7/23/07 Lester returns to the mound

2008-06-19T21:24:00.001-04:00

Lester returns to the mound

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2007/07/23/happy_to_deliver_good_news_on_lester/

Please read that story, feel good moments have been few and far between lately in sports.

Obviously fans of teams chasing the Sox might not want him to win tonight, or at all for the rest of the season, but most fans should be behind this kid tonight.

I'll be playing softball when the game starts tonight but my DVR will be spinning in my abscence.

On a RedSox Yankee board I visit daily ( http://www.yankeesredsox.com/ ) I have been calling for Lester's return for a while. Whether he can perform or not, he can't really be worse than Tavarez has been. Tavarez can get you through the first three innings quite well. It is that second time through the lineup that he usually gets knocked around, badly. With Schilling coming back eventually, Lester may or may not get starts. For now, I am happy to see this story develop.

7/21/07 Alarms going off in my head

2008-06-19T21:23:00.000-04:00

Alarms are going off in my head

Ok, so I posted multiple times on Mike Vick and the saga that is his life.

I've also posted numerous times on Barry Bonds and the steroids issues in MLB (is there any last hope he will retire before breaking Hank's record?)

Yesterday, news came out that one NBA referee is under investigation of betting on NBA games including games he was a referee for.

A few days ago Gary Player, a highly respected elder statesman in the world of golf, said there is at least one pro golfer on steroids.

Yesterday NASCAR has sound bites flying all over the place regarding their testing, or lack of, for steroids and recreational drugs.

Each of these by themselves represent a story, some are horrific (Vick), some are distasteful (Bonds)and they all leave the average fan disappointed and angry on some level.

Together it suggests to me that the sports world is fast approaching armaggedon. Drug use, gambling, weapons charges and this dogfighting subculture all are on top of distaste and anger of the money these athletes make.

Consider this - if Mike Vick was a third string QB making $400k per year and did not have the famous $130M contract in his pocket, how would the coverage and reactions differ to his legal troubles?

There still would be the outrage regarding the abuse and treatment of the dogs. There still might be an indictment (might). There is no doubt PETA would be all over it. Would it dominate the sports news though?

At what point will a sports fan hesitate (further) at buying a ticket for $40 or $80 or more for a sporting event that has cheaters (steroids)or thugs (weapons/dogs) as the participants? Now we have possibilities of games being altered to hit betting lines by referees.

The average fan 50 years ago was not vested in the same way they are today. A ticket buyer, whether for single games or season tickets has to weigh what they will see as a product with the cost, not unlike any purchase in life. Does the recent stories and troubles of athletes make a difference to the middle class worker that needs to fork over $200 for tickets, parking and concessions for him, his wife and 1.8 kids?

It seemed easier to me a year ago, or three years ago (doesn't matter). I bought season tickets for the Atlanta Thrashers 4 years ago. Then there was the lock-out/strike year. Many fans waved goodbye after that. The product wasn't worth the heartache for them which goes back to the salaries etc. and how that relates to the cost the fan has to pay to see the product.

At some point do the dollars of the fans start going towards other leisure pleasures? Instead of going to the ballgame with your family do you spend it on something else? Does attendance drop in major sports in cities that have successful teams?

When is the line crossed with player behaviour and the growing legal issues that keep being brought to the public's attention?

One retort is that the legal issues are no different than a cross section of any portion of the public, that it might be proportional in severity. Perhaps, but I am not paying $6,000 per year for season tickets to watch criminals play hockey, I am paying for the pleasure to watch a skilled athlete that has a dream life and riches beyond my imagination to play that game.

I don't think I am an idealist by any stretch. I do want some of the innocence back in sports though.

I am tired of the negative crap.

6/29/07 NBA Draft

2008-06-19T21:19:00.000-04:00

NBA draft

wow, what an incredibly boring draft. Very predictable, even down to the Celtics stumble with the #5 pick.

Let me start with the top:

Portland : obviously a no-brainer. His athleticism sets him apart from the Ewing comparisons being thrown around. I think he could be better than Ewing and the one knock I keep hearing is about his lack of passion for basketball. I don't know enough to do anything other than mention it and stir the pot.

Seattle/Las Vegas : even more of a no-brainer. Durant has passion and has tremendous skills, too bad the ping pongs went against the Celtics.

Atlanta : the buzz was that the hawks would take Horford at 3 and Law at 11, amazingly they didn't screw it up and that is how it fell. Amazing. Sports talk radio was going off this morning on the past picks and the failure to get Amare Stoudemire from Phoenix in the rumored 3 team deal with kevin Garnett. Stoudemire would have been an amazing addition, but I doubt it ever got that close to reality. Other than Sheldon Williams last year, the picks have been ok, I think Marvin Williams (over 17ppg in the last couple of months last season) will be a player, Joe Johnson is a player, Josh Smith is a player, Horford should be a player and Acie Law can play. Childress et al can fill roles. Not going crazy here but the Hawks could be a playoff team this year and with one or so more moves could start contending for the East (not necessarily a title).

Memphis : Conley, nice pick, a little early but nice upside.

Boston : ta-da...trading #5 to get Ray Allen. This is to appease Paul Pierce I guess and show that the C's aren't rebuilding, right? Would have been a good move 3 years ago. Bad feet kept him out of a bunch of games and surgery in April sounds scary to me.

I don't know enough about Gabe Pruitt (picked 32nd overall) to really make sense of it but from his stats it looks like a scoring guard and not a point. Taking Big Baby with the 35th overall pick might be ok. His weight is listed at 289, lol, I'd like to have that scale at my house. If he keeps the weight under control (for him) then he is a rebounder and can score. Could be a very good backup player in the NBA.

Milwaukee : EEEEEEEEEEEE! Gotta love the pick when the GM never has seen him play in person and publicly the player's "people" say he doesn't want to play in the city. He may turn out to be very good. Tough to sell to the fans I would imagine. Lots of analysts are projecting they trade the rights to him to somebody that he wants to play for.

That is where i will end as that is where my interest faded last night.

Cya next year at the lottery (celtics, memphis, milwaukee)

6/4/07 King James and other sport shorts

2008-06-19T21:18:00.002-04:00

King James and other sports shorts

Baffled...that is how I feel having read espn.com's Bill Simmons' article last week on the crowning of King James (Lebron).

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/blog/index?name=simmons&entryDate=20070601

As I read his thoughts, I felt he was writing it at gun-point. His arguments were not his normal thought processes. His praise seemed misplaced or at a minimum over done.

While the game that brought about all this praise was a tremendous effort by Lebron I cannot put him on the pedastal (yet). Scoring 29 out of the last 30 points the Cavs scored was tremendous...tremendous affirmation that his teammates SUCK. This was not Michael Jordan scoring 63 on the Celtics in the playoffs (in a loss).

"If you care about basketball, this game immediately joined the Bird-Dominique Duel, The Flu Game, MJ's Last Shot, Magic's Sky Hook, McHale's Clothesline, the Sleepy Floyd Game, MJ's 63-Point Game, the Bernard-Isiah Duel, the '87 All-Star Game, the Suns-Celts Game, Bird's Steal, Havlicek's Steal, West's Half-Court Shot, the Miller/Spike Lee Game and every other classic over the years that can be described/remembered/rehashed in three or four words. We'll call this "LeBron's 48-Point Game" someday. 'Nuff said."

The defense was pathetic that Detroit threw at Lebron at the end of regulation and in the two OT periods. Simmons often writes about his conspiracy theories with regards to the Ewing draft lottery, perhaps he should be writting about this. It is as if somebody in the league office sent word down to Detroit to single guard Lebron down the stretch. Absolutely no double teams, and if he gets by his man (point guard Billups) nobody will step in to help.

The dunk towards the end of regulation and then the game winner in the 2nd OT were jokes. Now, I am not saying I'd like to step in front of Lebron as he is charging towards the hoop, but uncontested layups in the confrence finals? Give me a break...see the quote above, see where he includes the McHale clothesline (of Kurt Rambis), that was playoff basketball, not the run and hide defense Detroit put forth.

The state of the game is horrible. The level of competition is miserable and likely won't be getting better anytime soon.

Unfortunately Lebron James and other contemporaries might not ever stack up for me. The competition factor really makes it difficult for me to compare players of this generation. Now, that makes me sound bitter and old, but so be it.

On to Billy Donavan, ok, so you quite your job, accept another that will pay you $27.5M over 5 years and you want to go back? When did quiting and leaving not mean anything anymore? I know University of Florida holds him high and will take him back but c'mon...say no and stand up for a change. The guy left you at the alter, have a backbone and say NO. He might leave again next year, or the year after. It's harsh but sometimes you need to play hardball. As a boss, I have a rule that if somebody quits, no matter who it is, I will not take them back in. How can you move forward with confidence they will be there when you need them? I know it will be a tough life in Orlando Billy, but you should take the job (don't get me going - Orlando should boot him out too) and suffer with your millions doing what you love...now if Orlando was bitter and let him go, and U of Florida was bitter and didn't take him back, perhaps the Celtics could dump Doc and get him? You know, irish kid in Boston. Maybe he could give a speech about "Larry Bird isn't walking through those doors..." , oh well, maybe not...

Roger Clemens 2007 debut has been pushed out from today to possibly this Saturday. With the Yankees 12.5 games back, there still is plenty of time to catch the Sox. The beauty of baseball is in the 162 game season. Until September you really are never out of the race. After the Yankees took 2 out of 3 this weekend from the Sox, lots of questions still linger for both teams. Here is the Yankee box score from last night:

Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO LOB AVG
J Damon DH 4 0 0 0 1 1 3 .251
D Jeter SS 5 1 0 0 0 0 3 .333
B Abreu RF 4 1 2 0 1 1 0 .244
A Rodriguez 3B 5 1 2 2 0 1 3 .293
J Posada C 5 1 2 1 0 1 2 .363
H Matsui LF 4 1 2 0 0 1 2 .284
R Cano 2B 3 0 1 1 1 1 2 .265
J Phelps 1B 4 0 2 1 0 1 2 .281
M Cabrera CF 4 1 1 0 0 1 3 .248

Damon, Abreu and Cano are performing below expectations. Posada is overperforming. Giambi is out. Not quite the murderer's row envisioned during spring training.

As for the Sox, the winning has been primarily a result of the pitching. Here is the box score from last night:

Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO LOB AVG
J Lugo SS 3 0 1 0 2 1 3 .226
D Pedroia 2B 5 1 2 3 0 0 3 .336
D Ortiz DH 5 1 1 1 0 1 0 .325
M Ramirez LF 4 0 2 0 1 2 0 .288
K Youkilis 1B 3 0 1 1 0 0 2 .350
M Lowell 3B 5 0 1 0 0 2 4 .333
J Varitek C 4 1 1 0 0 0 3 .275
W Pena RF 4 1 1 0 0 1 0 .229
C Crisp CF 3 1 1 0 1 0 0 .238

Lugo and Crisp are the biggest disappointments. Pedroia, Youkilis and Lowell are performing better than expected. Manny is up to .288 and is coming on strong. Ortiz has not started hitting for power yet so there is upside there.

Both teams have underperforming players and overperforming players. Both teams will continue to score runs as players perform back towards their norms. Pitching will be the key and the nod has to still go to the Sox and their pitching.

5/22/07 NBA Draft Lottery

2008-06-19T21:18:00.001-04:00

NBA draft lottery

Tonight is the ping pong competition known as the NBA lottery. Two teams will come out of the lottery as clear winners, the rest will have big questions still to be answered. This is because, if you read all that is being reported about the draft, there are only 2 players available, Durant and Oden. It is hard to find information on anybody else this year...

I am rooting for two teams to occupy the two "winning" spots. First is the Celtics (hometown) and second is the Hawks (don't laugh, read on).

First the Celtics -

The Celtics haven't won a championship in 21 years, that to me is amazing. The beginning of the end was in June of 2006, fresh off a title run over Houston, the Celtics pick Len Bias in the draft with the #2 overall pick (behind Brad Daugherty)

At the time, I was a huge Celtic fan and thought that Bias would become a James Worthy type of player but with a power game too. For sure, everybody that followed the Celtics were counting on adding many championships and that Bias would lengthen Bird/McHale's careers by taking some of their minutes as they aged. Tragedy struck as Len Bias died from a cocain overdose less than 48 hours after being picked by the greatest franchise of all time. Mike Krzyzewski and Dean Smith have both stated that Michael Jordan and Bias were the best players ever to come through the ranks of the ACC. A nice article from the Boston Globe is here http://www.boston.com/sports/articles/2003/11/18/what_might_have_been/

Not only did the Celtics not get their next franchise player to follow Bird, they began a downward spiral that continues today. With Bird, McHale, Parrish, DJ, Ainge, Walton all ending their careers the Celtics were moving to a new crop of players, led by Reggie Lewis. Continuing the spiral, Reggie passed away when his heart failed him in a pickup game during the offseason in 1993.

Ten years ago, the Celtics appeared to be poised to vault back into contention with two top picks in a rich draft. The odds were in their favor to land the top pick who became Tim Duncan. Unfortunately for Celtic fans, the ping pong balls didn't cooperate and Duncan went to the Spurs to be teamed with David Robinson and immediately begin a mini dynasty.

For Celtic fans, last week's cover on the sporting news magazine tells it all.

The era of Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce followed and we know how successful that has been. With a good chance to get one of the top two picks this year, the Celtics have the opportunity that comes around every 10 years or so. (1986 - Bias, 1997 - Duncan, 2007 - Oden/Durant)

Espn.com has a mock draft simulator that you can mess around with, in 10 tries the Celtics held one of the top two spots in 8 of the tries for me. I can live with that.

Now the second of the teams I hope to see get one of these two standout college players, the Hawks

The Hawks have a different story to tell. In the 80's the Hawks and the city of Atlanta considered them very close to championship quality. Unfortunately, the truth is with the Celtics, 76ers and Pistons, the Hawks weren't coming out of the east never mind beating the Rockets or Lakers in the 80's. Sometimes a franchise has to build it's memories up to compensate for recent performance, this is clearly the case with the Hawks. The franchise has been at or near the bottom of the league for close to a decade. They haven't made the playoffs since the lockout of 1998-1999. They have averaged 27.25 wins in the 8 years since then. The GM, Billy Knight, has a knack for making bad moves since taking over around 5 years ago. He has consistently picked tweeners, players that are too small to play forward and too big to be traditional guards. He keeps pulling the "best athelete" line and has ammassed a team of similar players. Nice article from last year: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.a.cnn.net/si/2006/writers/chris_mannix/03/21/hot.seat/t1_knight2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/chris_mannix/03/21/hot.seat/index.html&h=410&w=300&sz=29&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=v9zev1XLKQAeqM:&tbnh=125&tbnw=91&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbilly%2Bknight%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den

The one true All-Star on the team is Joe Johnson.

Johnson was acquired in a trade with Phoenix that leaves the Hawks in a tough spot this draft. Included in the deal was the Hawks first round pick, unless it was in the top 3. If the Hawks end up in 4th or later in the lottery, they won't have a 1st round pick.

In the Espn.com simulator, the Hawks had the top spot once and finished out of the top 3 all 9 other times I ran it.

Lets assume they get the top pick or even the number 2 pick, my bet is Billy Knight doesnt go with either Durant or Oden, call it hunch.

5/21/07 Weekly thoughts

2008-06-19T21:17:00.003-04:00

Weekly thoughts

The great thing about sports is that no matter how busy you get in life with work, kids, the weather, the sports world keeps on going and providing good things to talk or write about.

The NBA moves forward into the conference finals. Gone are the Suns with nearly everybody blaming the league offices for them being dismissed in six games by San Antonio. Would I have suspended the players for going on the court at the end of game 4? Probably not, I would have suspended Robert Horry though. ESPN personality and Washington Post writer Michael Wilbon wrote on the subject http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/18/AR2007051802092.html and has the take that the NBA has let the Suns down by allowing the Spurs to bully the Suns all series long. He says the NBA should have made an exception to the rules and allowed the suspended Suns players to play in game 5. I agree. Lets suppose Michaal Jordan or Lebron or Kobe are the ones coming on the court with 18 seconds left in a game that has been decided (ok, so maybe Kobe wouldn't stand up for a teammate, you get the picture)? Would David Stern pass down suspensions for Michael Jordan (in his day) or Lebron today? No way. The most exciting team was knocked out in game 6 and now the NBA has the juggernaut and exciting matchup potential of Utah or San Antonio vs. Cleveland or Detroit...woohoo!

The NHL playoffs have one of their Stanley Cup finalists in place after the Ottawa Senators moved past the Buffalo Sabres. The big story here isn't the success on the ice, unfortunately it is a story that came out over the weekend of a Sabres fan that attended a game in Ottawa. This fan was a woman...and she got beat up after a Buffalo win. This woman, Renee Luck, was repeatedly punched in the face by upset Ottawa fans after the loss. From espn.com - "Luck's face was swollen and cut after she was assaulted by two men as she and a group of friends were leaving their seats at Scotiabank Place. Luck was rescued by other Senators fans." - entire article - http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/playoffs2007/news/story?id=2875417 Give me a break. If it was a loud mouthed, cussing jerk, maybe an altercation could happen. I don't know this woman obviously, but it is really hard to imagine any fans getting to the point of repeatedly punching a woman in the face. Can you say loser? I'm sure the jerk(s) were drunk beyond belief.

Anyway, the Senators will face either the Ducks or Red Wings. The Ducks hold a 3-2 lead in the series.

Zach Johnson, Master champion, won this weekend here in Atlanta at the AT&T Classic. All three of his career PGA wins have occurred in the state of Georgia. While I did not have Zach in my weekly golf pool, I will be sure to take him when the PGA Tour Championship comes up this fall...why you ask? It is played here in Atlanta at East Lake Golf Club.

Another PGA story I happened to find on www.pgatour.com is a good one. Nice guy Hal Sutton led the fundraising efforts that led to the building of the Sutton Children's Medical Center at CHRISTUS Schumpert in his native Shreveport, La. The full article (worth reading) is at http://www.pgatour.com/2007/r/05/18/sutton.foundation/index.html

On to baseball. This past weekend featured the first pass through interleague games this season. I will focus on the marquee matchups from the weekend. Clearly the Kansas City Royals visiting the Colorado Rockies deserves the limelight...oops sorry if you didn't realize they played this weekend. Looking back at the weekend, 6 of the 15 matchups featured both teams under .500 winning percentage. This is caused by the wonderful scheduling by MLB that provides a few high profile matchups every season. RedSox vs. Braves was one and Yankees Mets was the other. Both of these series had interest for me personally as the two teams I follow and root for played each other and the two teams that would be considered their rivals also played.

It worked out to be a pretty good weekend, the Sox took 2 out of 3 from the Braves and the Mets took 2 of 3 from the Yankees.

Earlier this season I beat up on many of the Sox hitters for their early performances. Without any fanfare, Jason Varitek has raised his average up to .280.

Here are the Sox batting averages for the players that play everyday:

Youkilis .340
Lowell .333
Ortiz .312
Varitek .280
Pedroia .260
Drew .254
Lugo .250
Ramirez .245
Crisp .236

They have the best record in baseball due to their pitching, no doubt. Drew, Lugo and Ramirez are below where they will end up, that only is a good sign of how they will keep winning when they heat up. Coco my friend, remains in the .230's. Local talk radio this morning suggested that Andruw Jones was on display for a potential trade to the RedSox. Too bad Andruw is terrible this year (contract year) at .212

Finally, my son's little league team finished up their season Saturday with a win in the Championship game. As I mentioned previously, the league he plays in (NYO) is very structured and very intense. The amount of time put in by parents, coaches and of course the kids really is a lot but I will say the improvement of the entire team was fun to watch. Jack (my son) didn't get any hits in the championship game but made one nice defensive play and really enjoyed the season. As the team pitcher I received a ball signed by the entire team and well wishes for my likely pending rotator cuff surgery (joke). I missed the first playoff game last week due to a conflict with a work function and virtually every parent sought me out to thank me for being there Saturday. That felt good. The spring baseball was intense but the coaches and a few of the players now begin "All-Star" season, which doubles or triples the intensity and involves traveling for games and tournaments through the month of July. Both of Jack's coaches are coaching the all-stars too so I am sure the teams will do very well as both are very good coaches for this age of kids.

Here is the winning team's picture, jack is 2nd row, third from the left (yes I know he needs a haircut)

5/15/07 Excitement being a Falcons Fan

2008-06-19T21:17:00.001-04:00

Excitement being a Falcons Fan!

The Atlanta Falcons have become one of the franchises that is always in the news...now before giving praise, keep in mind 95% of the news is bad and negative. Lets look over the recent history hitting the airwaves.

Jonathan Babineaux - has been charged with felony cruelty to animals in Gwinnett County . Gwinnett police alleged that Babineaux killed his live-in girlfriend's dog, a pit bull mix named Kilo, in February. Babineaux is practicing with the 1st team defense because...

Grady Jackson - Jackson is suing the Falcons for defamation and invasion of privacy, alleging team officials wrongly released his medical records to several media outlets and hurt his market value while he was a free agent. Jackson still showed up for mini camp despite the lawsuit.

Rod Coleman - Injures his knee. The injury, which Coleman acknowledged to several teammates, occurred over the weekend in a boating accident.

All three are prominent defensive linemen and play important roles.

Michael Vick - This is national news that everybody has heard about. Mike owned property where a cousin of his was living and allegedly breeding and raising fight dogs. Last Friday a Fox reporter, Chris Landry, was quoted saying this about his discussion with former Falcon Ray Buchanan : "He tells me that Michael has been into this dog fighting for so long that . . . .he not only knew about, he is behind all of it, he's paying for all of it. . . . Apparently, he's into it big time."

This hit the sports talk radio yesterday morning and both local sports talk stations had Big Play Ray on and he sidestepped all hard questions and tried to say there must have been a misunderstanding with Landry. At some point yesterday, through Fox, Landry made a statement holding fast to his account of the discussion with Buchanan.

Someone is lying and this will get sorted out soon.

If found to be involved directly with the dog fighting in Virginia, Mike Vick will likely get a large suspension from the NFL.

Once again this has callers on sports talk radio defending Vick (I have no problem with people defending him until proof comes out of involvement) but many of the callers are playing the race card which is extremely old. The biggest argument or logic for the race card is claims that Patrick Kerney (former white Falcon player) did not get same treatment when an alleged rape happened at his house to a house guest while he slept. Evidently the house guest arrived at the house late at night with multiple men met out in Buckhead. The claim is that Kerney is getting a pass and should be guilty of something because it was his house. The difference is that IF Vick is found to be directly involved he will be guilty of a Federal crime. If there is no linkage to Vick, then he has not committed any crimes other than bad judgement in letting his cousin live and run the house.

Yesterday more bad news came the Falcons way, Brian Finneran, who missed last season with a knee injury, reinjured the knee in practice and might be gone for this season as well. Finneran is a very good 2nd or 3rd receiver that did very well catching Vick's bulletts two years ago.

So going into the season, maybe they don't have a quarterback (to be seen) and their #2 receiver is likely out. Their defensive line might not have 3 key players and they traded their quality backup quarterback to Texas a few months ago.

The franchise has NEVER won back to back seasons since they joined the league in 1966. In the upside down world they live in and last season being a 7-9 campaign, this was supposed to be a good year...oh well, another top draft pick should be available next year.

5/11/07 Chipper vs. Jim Ed

2008-06-19T21:16:00.001-04:00

Chipper Jones vs. Jim Rice

In this week's Score Atlanta http://www.scoreatl.com/ there was an article about how great Chipper Jones is and how he has been one of the "finest hitters the game has ever seen". Please spare me the over the top accolades.

Don't get me wrong, Chipper has been a tremendous player and a big part of the sustained success of the local Braves since arriving in 1995 (post knee blowout). Calling Chipper one of the finest hitters of all time (how I read the quote above) is ridiculous. This is how baseball has fallen in my opinion. Guys like Chipper that are one of the best hitters on a team for a long time get immortalized too easily.

I will now compare two players, Chipper Jones and Jim Rice. Rice is not (yet) in the Hall of Fame and may not ever get in.

The stats shown above show their career stats year by year thanks to www.baseballreference.com . Sorry about the double pictures, could not get it to easily fit on the screen. Here is a link to pull the picture in its entirety http://www.blmeanie.net/blmeanieblog/pics/chiprice2.jpg

I added three different comparisons at the bottom of each players stats, per game, per At Bat and first 10 full seasons. For Jim Rice I threw out 1981 which was a strike shortened season.

Lots of debate circles around whether Jim Rice is a hall of famer or not. I have sat on the side that says he is. Locally there is generally acceptance of the thought that Chipper will be a hall of famer, which is shown by the author's quote I started with at the top. Amazingly, I picked Rice to compare Chipper to and their stats are very similar and both have reasons to think they should be in the hall and reasons why they should not be.

Rice had "greater" seasons but Chipper has been very consistent. Look at the RBI numbers, Rice 4 times exceeded 120 and Chipper has never. 120 to me is a threashold of a monster productive year. Teammates etc. all play into RBI numbers so I conceed no single stat determines a player's value.

I think the first 10 years comparision is the most valid as that has their primes in it and does not include Rice's decline years that Chipper hasn't experienced yet. Looking at those stats summerized below (average of first 10 full years):

Rice : .303 avg, 31.3 HR , 110.4 RBI, 94.9 runs, .358 OBP , .529 slg, 316.8 Total bases
Chip : .303 avg, 31.0 HR , 103.9 RBI, 103.3 runs, .404 OBP , .536 slg, 301.1 Total bases

These numbers differ mostly in the on base percentage with Chipper getting many more walks and less strikeouts than Rice. Hitting wise you could almost say they have been twins.

Awards etc. for their careers:

Rice : 1 MVP , 5 other times in top 5 MVP voting, 8 time all-star
Chip : 1 MVP , 1 other time in top 5 MVP voting, 5 time all-star

Here is the punch-line : Rice was a more impactful player...(ducking)

The MVP voting and all-star appearances show that the similar stats between the two means that times have changed and Jim Rice was a more dominant player for his era he played in. The HR hitting era that started after the 1994 lockout has many players' stats inflated across the league, Chipper's comparisons against his peers, while good, are not dominant.

The debate then should switch to what defines a hall of fame career? Is it stats, stats and relation to era, or some other criteria altogether?

If I had a vote today - neither get in and I would remove quite a few that have already been put in. The hall is too watered down and comparisions of stats is letting more very good but not great players in every year.

5/9/07 Around the Block

2008-06-19T21:15:00.001-04:00

Around the block

Many many things to get to this week. From Clemens to Bonds, the upcoming NBA draft to fallout from the NFL draft, from OJ getting the boot to race issues, the big fight and of course our periodic check into Cocoa Puffs.

With the unexpectedly early announcement that Sir Rocket has chosen the team du annee (year), those of us RedSox fans that still like Clemens (me and at most 2 others) have to endure him in pinstripes again. Have no fear, his stats will balloon up like Barry's head in no time, yet he will help the hated Yankees. He will post an era north of 4.00 but have a winning record due to the lineup behind him. My biggest disappointment comes from knowing this likely puts the icing on the cake as to which team's hat he will wear into the hall. It's too bad, I thought the Blue Jays hat would have looked great on his bust.

With yesterday's homer, Barry Bonds is 10 away from tieing Hank Aaron for the all-time HR record. When will some of the gutless, yet clean, pitchers in the NL start walking him repeatedly or better yet, bean him repeatedly. Bob Hille of the sporting news says, "I'm just afraid that the moment Barry Bonds breaks the home run record, he's going to get a big head."

The NBA draft lottery is on May 22nd. The likelyhood that the Celtics secure one of the top 2 picks is 38%. The top two picks are generally assumed to be Greg Oden and Kevin Durant. Either one would be fine with me to wear the green and white. Perhaps order could be restored to the NBA if the Celts finally had some luck in the lottery. With the need for guards strong, Durant would likely be my choice given the two to choose from. I understand the people that would want Oden and his size but Durant appears to be less likely to end up being written about with "why some draft picks don't work out" in the title. Dump Pierce for a future pick and some dead salary, go through one more year of rebuilding and come back with Durant, Jefferson, Green and a future 1st rounder as your core.

The interesting articles and opinions about the NFL draft all have Miami as the team that made the biggest mistake. They also were acknowledged as having a very good draft. Interesting how that works but that is the NFL draft. NOTHING is for certain until a few years from now. Then and only then can the grades be given out. Randy Moss to the Patriots is interesting. Look for him to reborn again and be a model citizen for at least the first 4 or 5 games. One time of Brady throwing underneath while he jogs down field and he will implode. No harm no foul. Having the Patriots cut him mid-season is the best way to teach the other players that nobody is unexpendable.

Today, news broke that in Louisville Kentucky, a restaurant owner found out OJ Simpson was in his restaurant. He tracked him down and told him "he would not server him". After having to repeat himself, OJ got up and followed the owner out to the lobby. OJ asked if he could wait for his party to show up to explain they would have to leave. During this time, a blond, presumably OJ's date got in the owner's face to which the owner said something to the affect, "your blond, watch out, he may slit your throat."

It has been close to 12 years since OJ was acquitted and yet he causes such polar responses to everything he does, everywhere he goes. Everything I have read or heard suggests the majority of his supporters are African American.

Race finds it's way into sports talk way too often. I am not suggesting there is no place for it or that there are no issues with equity in sports but the stories this week that major league baseball is responsible for the decline of black players in the majors is absurd. The notion that blacks are being held back somehow and that MLB is responsible should provoke widespread discussion into the value of the groups that bring this crap to the public. Maybe there has been a decline in black players in baseball because the inflow of hispanics and now Asians is increasing every year. Maybe it is because the "glamour" sports of Football and Basketball have the youth looking at and idolizing the stars of those sports more than baseball. The pace of baseball has likely hurt it more than anything in my opinion. Today's youth, whether black or white or whatever, have less patience for baseball than yesterday's youth. To conclude this thought I will borrow from a local sports talk personality who said it best the other day, (from memory, not a direct quote) "when I talk negatively about Michael Vick for 5 minutes on the air I get overloaded with emails calling me a racist, yet when I spend an hour blasting Dirk Nowitski I don't get any emails. Where are all the German listeners?" His point is that every issue, every discussion cannot and should not revolve around race. Has anybody looked into why there has been a noticable decline in caucasian players in the NBA in the last 30 years? This is big, notify all the networks, get ESPN on the line. Geesh.

This past weekend, there was a fight on pay-per-view. Ho hum, but worth mentioning is that it was the largest pay-per-view fight EVER. Estimated at 2.1 million people paid for the right to watch a fight. Amazing. This wasn't Hagler/Hearns or Hagler/Leonard or Tyson in his prime against anybody, this was a middleweight bought. Boxing has gone a long way, unfortunately it is down as in popularity. I admit I was not one of the 2.1 million people, I had no interest. However, I did follow the talk before and after the fight. Talk of how De La Hoya tried to steal many of the rounds with a flurry at the end, of which, he evidently didn't land too many punches. Both fighters have gone so far as to keep the door open for a rematch...why not? Here are the real numbers and my complaint about fighting and sports in general. From ESPN.com : "De La Hoya was guaranteed $23.3 million and Mayweather $10 million for the fight. With the overwhelming success of the event, De La Hoya could take home upwards of $50 million with Mayweather earning around $20 million."

Think about that, no matter who won, De La Hoya was making at least $23 million that night. What incentive, other than pride, is there for a top fighter to go all out? Lets say the payout equals the 50 and the 20 million respectively and the rest go to promoters etc. Lets then have a rematch and guarantee $10 million each (they gotta eat, right?) and have the balance of $50 million go to the winner on a sliding scale. All $50m if the winner gets a knock out before round 8, $40m before round 9, $30m before round 10, $20m before round 11 and $10m if he gets a knock out in the 12th round. Any leftover funds not paid out go to brain damage research. I'm serious. Give these guys a reason to want to win. De La Hoya made in the neighborhood of $50m...obscene...he lost...

My last report on the Sox centerfielder had him at .231 and on the rise. This week, his season to date average is .226. I am pretty good at math and I believe he must have had a tough week to decline an average from .231 to .226. While the Sox continue to perform, he does not. Before the all-star break, he is gone and they trade for a centerfielder that can get on base. There are 8 players in the AL that have at least 50 at bats yet have an OBP lower than .300, yep, Coco is one of the eight:

name/obp/ab
Ty Wigginton .294 127
Melky Cabrera .295 95
Coco Crisp .277 93
Nelson Cruz .273 70
Dioner Navarro .274 77
Jason Kendall .212 110
Tony Pena .266 117
Shea Hillenbrand .248 102

And finally, I get some press. Check out page 5, middle top for mention in a local Atlanta weekly sports publication called Score Atlanta http://www.scoreatl.com/SCORE_current_issue.pdf
This link will always bring up the current issue but the issue in question is the May 9-15th edition.

Cya next time!

4/29/07 Sunday Sampler

2008-06-19T21:14:00.001-04:00

Sunday Sampler

Its been a while since I posted, sorry about that, sometimes life gets busy in our household.

The Redsox are in the Bronx this weekend. They won game one Friday which featured timely hitting, poor pitching and an 11-4 end result. Mariano Rivera looked normal and he saw his ERA climb over 12 for the young season.

Saturday's game was completely different as Karstens was the starter for the Yankees. The first two batters singled and Karstens left with an injury. Things looked good for the Sox but Kei Igawa came in and threw 6 shutout innings and even Mariano Rivera closed the game out to get his first save, 3-1 Yankees.

Today's game has Wang vs. Tavarez, advantage Yankees.

Overall the Sox have hit well enough to be tied with the Braves for the best record in baseball. The pitching has carried them so far but numerous concerns still remain on the hitting side.

Time for the Cocoa Crisp report. Crisp has elevated his season average up to .231 but missed 5 games last week. He had some huge hits against the Yankees in Boston last week before sitting out. While .231 isn't anywhere near where he needs to get to, it is improvement and the jury is still out but feeling a little better.

Varitek and Lugo have both climbed up around the .250 mark and are showing signs of climbing further.

Ortiz has been on track and Lowell has been the same early season performer we saw last year, hitting .321 with 4 HR to this point. Keep an eye on him, he went way downhill in the second half last year.

JD Drew has been a little slow out of the gate, hitting .278 but he is a hitter and will elevate that average.

Manny is the biggest surprise at this point in the season. His average remains low at .188 with only 2 HR. He needs to heat up and start contributing.

The pitching has been great, team ERA is 3.25 and Beckett has gone 5-0 with a 2.48 ERA.

Barry Bonds is at 742 now, 14 away from cheating his way to the record books. boooooooo.

The NFL draft was yesterday, I admit to having it on tv or the radio for most of the first round. Was fun watching the train reck that was Brady Quinn. Felt sorry for him as they kept focusing on him after Miami passed on him at #9. He ended up in a good spot with Cleveland and will have a good chance to succeed there.

The Falcons addressed many needs in the first few rounds taking Jamaal Anderson (DE) in the first, Justin Blalock(OG) and Chris Houston (CB) in the 2nd and finishing with Laurent Robinson (WR) in the 3rd. It was a smart draft for them, not giving in to the temptation of trading up to get local star Calvin Johnson from Georgia Tech.

The Patriots took Brandon Merriweather (S) from Miami with the 24th overall pick and then trade the 28th overall pick to the 49ers for a late pick this year and the 49ers first round pick next year. The Patriots also traded the 91st overall pick to Oakland for a later pick this year and a 3rd round pick next year.

Rumors on espn.com have Randy Moss being traded later to New England! Not sure what to make of that, it goes against the philosophy of the team a little bit but if anybody can straighten Moss out and get the most out of him I would say they have the best shot.

The NBA playoffs are underway, I haven't yet engaged in it and won't for another round or so...just enough time to hope Kobe gets knocked out and hopefully Shaq too. Lets go Suns!

On the local front, the little league team my son plays for has two regular season games left and sit atop the standings. Yesterday they lost in the last inning to an inferior team. It is the second time a cellar dweller has beaten them this season and combined with how they have completely dominated good teams in the league it leaves open the question of how they will do in the playoffs. They likely will be paired up against a much weaker team... Jack (my son) continues to learn and have fun. Yesterday he hit a line drive to left for a double. It has been a while since he has connected that way so hopefully all the tutoring and coaching has worn off and he is going back to hitting the way he can...lol...the amount of players on his team that have gone backwards in performance at the plate is significant. The question I play around with in my mind is - is all the coaching and changing of batting stances etc. all good to do with an 8 year old? Are you teaching good habits that they will keep or just messing up a young player and they are not yet at the point that the habits will be long term? There are a couple of good hitters (with bad form) that the coaching staff (myself included) have been trying to "fix" all season. We killed confidence all over the place, but yesterday the bottom half of the lineup generated most of the offense so maybe they got over a hump.

The weather here in Atlanta has turned finally, we are now getting temps north of 80 daily and today I am taking a couple of the kids out on the boat for the first time this season. Cya next time.

4/20/07 A-Rod Beloved by all of NY

2008-06-19T21:13:00.000-04:00

A-Rod Beloved by all of NY

Alex Rodriguez deserves some due.

I heard on the radio this morning that he hit his 10th HR of the month and with 11 games left in the month needs 4 to tie Albert Pujols' record from last year for April HR. A-Rod already has the American League record in hand for April. In Jim Rice's best year (1978) he hit 13 in the month of May. I remember watching the games and checking the paper when I couldn't see the games on tv, every day (it seemed) Rice was hitting one out. It is a magical month for a player to hit 10 or more. Of course it has been diluted by those allegedely taking steroids but when you have a player that you believe is clean (like A-Rod) it takes on a special feeling.

New York fans are loving it and all seems well in the Bronx with A-Rod and the fans. This will only continue if he continues to hit walk-off homers and delight the fans. So he either will hit 70 HR this year, keep being the hero and will become the official darling of NY or he will come back to earth, have a monster year with 50+ HR and get criticized for not being clutch when it counts.

Very tough spot to be in. No win for him. When the trade thing was going on with Texas/Boston/NY a few years back, I would have made the trade for him (Sox) in a heartbeat. Perhaps he will be the new face of the lifetime loser (move Ernie Banks down on the list) and never win a world series but to have his ability in the lineup every day was something that EVERY team should want.

All this love coming from a Boston fan may seem displaced. I assure you, with the first head to head matchup this weekend, I hope the top 3 starters for the Sox blow him away and he goes on a 2-15 kind of weekend.

Series Preview:

Friday - Pettitte vs Schilling

On paper this appears to be the most compelling matchup of pitchers as the Yankees march two rookies out there on Saturday and Sunday. It doesn't always work the way it is supposed to so I expect both pitchers to be gone by the 5th and have a slugfest in the opener. Yankees win game one 8-6.

Saturday - Karstens vs Beckett

Again on paper this should be a big day for the Sox. Beckett has started off unhittable and as long as he does what he is capable of the Sox should win this one. It seems that teams I root for (Sox/Braves) always have trouble with pitchers they are seeing for the first time. I hope that trend does not continue and they get off on Karstens early and often. Sox win 7-2.

Sunday - Chase Wright vs Matsuzaka

ESPN game of the week or Sunday night baseball or whatever it is called now. Another Yankee call up to fill in for injuries. Should allow the Sox to put some runs up but you never know. Dice K has pitched well enough to be 3-0 yet sits at 1-2 right now. His run support hasn't been great so far and this will be the first time facing the Yankees. He will be geeked up but overall I think he will do fine Sunday. Sox 5-3 winners.

3/13/07 Dead Arm

2008-06-19T21:11:00.001-04:00

dead arm

Today's post takes me to a story you likely haven't heard much about on ESPN, cnnsi or any of the major sports networks (yet). It is about a pitcher with a dead arm already and it is only March 13th. The season's long journey has just begun and this pitcher is worried, really worried.

The pitcher in question is me. For the last few seasons (spring and fall) I have been the volunteer that pitches to all the kids on my (now) 8 yr old's team. The pitches vary in speed for each player, that is part of being the pitcher, I have to learn where they best are able to hit it and at what speed to deliver the meatball.

Last fall, Jack played for the first time in NYO which stands for North Atlanta Youth Organization...which is long for Extremely-intense-sports-factory. As I had in the church organized league I pitched for Jacks team. An average practice or game saw me throw between 200-250 pitches. No problem. This spring however, the intensity has been raised and with batting practice sessions in the cages before the games, the workload on the trusty arm has increased to between 300-350 pitches (conservatively).

The coaches for his team praise me for the job I do in getting strikes over the plate for the kids to hit. I am worried they get together away from the field and snicker and have a secret pool as to when my arm will fall off completely. If I could get in on the action I would wager sometime in early April.

Sunday night the boys had an hour long practice followed by an hour and half long practice scrimmage. Off to the cage with the bucket of balls and one after another they came marching in for 20-30 swings each. Good thing there are only 13 kids on the team...

After the cage and during the game they were batting around almost every inning, no signal to the bullpen though, batting around is a good thing. In the 3rd inning sometime I started to see some old familiar friends, the spots that preceed a bad headache or migrane. Tough as nails I pitched through it, not really seeing all of homeplate for the last 4 innings but you can't measure toughness in a little league adult pitcher...

We made it through the game and somehow got home and I collapsed into bed at 6 pm for the night.

Best news I had heard was that the next scheduled practice wasn't until Thursday.

Only one thing, my softball team started the season last week. No biggie, except I'm, yep, the pitcher. Completely different motion, shouldn't be a problem, right?

I pride myself as a softball pitcher by being more cerebral than most of the batters and move the ball to where I want it to force them off balance. Last night, no such luck. I walked at least 4 maybe 5 and had zero control all night (my pride is my control).

The really good news is that I can take off until Thursday's practice now, maybe not throw a ball the entire time...

Email shows up this morning from one of the two little league coaches with pictures shot of one of the kids on the team in an extra BP session yesterday. Complete with advice for the kid to follow and work on. Really a nice benefit for the kids. Bad news- tonight Jack and I are going out for extra BP and a photo shoot. Yep, I get to pitch. I really could be the picture taker if given the chance, maybe I need to show up in a sling...let's see, sympathy or called a wuss? Yep, wuss it would be, gotta tough it out.

Note to self, work on lefty throwing, might need it down the stretch. Maybe I need to get them to stop batting around every inning, maybe plunk one or two in the back, show them who is boss?

Who am I kidding, I love it and ya know what? Until I have to get Tommy John surgery I think I will keep throwing strikes.

3/7/07 Greatest NBA Centers Ever

2008-06-19T21:09:00.001-04:00

Greatest NBA Centers ever

Today ESPN had an article and results of a poll of "experts" that picked the best 10 centers of all time in the NBA.

Having recently talked a little about it when discussing the NBA all-star break, I thought I would chime in.

The top 3 could have been in any order and good arguements could be made for any of them to be #1.

Kareem was dominant for so long, the only issue I have is that I never saw him/remember him in is prime. Having seen him huff and puff for oxygen in Boston Garden during one of the finals in the 80's took some of his legacy away for me.

Wilt was Wilt. The video clips tell the whole picture, man vs. children. Physically he was so different then everybody else. The only thing negative I would bring up would be that he should have won more than 2 titles.

Russell was a winner. He wasn't as talented offensively as the other two but in every other part of the game he was dominant. He made his teammates better in the way he played. He complimented other's talent so well. The 11 titles in 13 seasons will never be matched by anybody in professional sports, ever.

I think the next 4 choices could be in a different order. It all comes down to how the question was asked. If it is meant to be on stats and achievements then Walton stays where he is, if he gets a pass for the lost time due to injuries he would move up. The voters evidently did not give him the pass and he fell to 7 behind Shaq, Hakeem and Moses.

The gap between the big 3 and these 4 is so significant that the numbering should have gone 1, 2, 3, 11, 12, ...etc.

To have Shaq come in #4 and presume he was close to Russell, Wilt and Kareem is crazy. This isn't just some old guy complaining about the modern star, the stats, achievements, competition, and impact on the game all point to the big 3 being far ahead of the rest.

Hakeem was a great center, but as dominant as he could be, he could disappear too. He also took a few years to learn the game where as the others all joined the NBA ready to go.

Moses gets mention as one of the best rebounders of all time. All I remember is a tenatious rebounder/scorer that probably averaged 3 or 4 of his 12.3 career rebound average came from his own misses. Having a wide strong body helped him when he missed...

Walton was as talented as any of them, he played the ultimate team game and if he never had a foot problem, might have been in with the top 3 as the top 4. He was that gifted but cursed.

The last 3 of the top 10 were David Robinson, George Mikan and Patrick Ewing. Now I never saw Mikan play but based on the numbers and based on the way he changed the position and game he could easily be a top 6 guy. As for David Robinson, please...As for Ewing, possibly but I wouldn't have put him in there. Willis Reed, Dave Cowens, Bob Lanier and Robert Parrish easily could have been in place of Robinson and Ewing and the same arguements would be made. They all were good/great but on the outside looking in at the best of all time.

The fact that somebody gave Dwight Howard a vote should have eliminated that person and all of their other votes immediately. Probably the same type of person that would put Scottie Pippen on some kind of all-time great team...but that is saved for another day, believe me somebody will suggest it.

So to wrap up, if you had a team of good players and were competing for a championship for one year, would you take Kareem, Wilt or Russell in their prime? One year run, I'd go for Wilt as long as you had supporting cast.

If you were trying to win for the next 10 years, Russell or Kareem would be my pick, probably Russell (so what, I'm from Boston!).

Who would you pick?

2/22/07 DJ Dead at 52

2008-06-19T21:07:00.001-04:00

wow, talk about bad news. Word was released today that Dennis Johnson died today. No specifics have been released.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2775430

DJ brought intensity and toughness to the Celtic team in the 80's. One memory I will never forget is in the scene after Ralph Sampson punched Jerry Sichting in the finals, DJ was out in the middle of it, fist cocked, dancing and looking for somebody to punch.

RIP DJ...

2/22/07 espn - the sports guy

2008-06-19T21:06:00.001-04:00

espn - the sports guy

I would highly recommend reading Bill Simmons' article on the NBA All-Star game to anybody who likes to laugh.

I read his articles faithfully and rarely find them to be less than entertaining.

I literally laughed out loud a few times while reading this. Enjoy.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070220

2/17/07 NBA All - Star Weekend

2008-06-19T21:04:00.001-04:00

NBA All - Star Weekend

Every where I read, I see comments about how great this all-star weekend is going to be.

I love Las Vegas, don't get me wrong, there could be lots of sub plots that we'll probably never hear, but having the game in Vegas can't make the game itself good.

Bill Simmons (espn, sports guy) wrote this week about the greatest all-star game ever http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070215 Check this out. I read his columns religeously and find his writing style and comic style to be nearly perfect. Sure he has a Boston slant on everything, that is the icing on the cake.

Ok, so comparing to 1987 is unfair.

Simmons quote - "For the love of God, LOOK at those lineups again. You had Magic and Bird in their absolute primes. You had MJ during the season when he won the dunk contest, averaged 37 a game and put himself on the map as The Next Great Guy. You had Barkley and Hakeem in their breakout seasons. You had Isiah, McHale, Parish, Worthy and 'Nique at their absolute peaks. You had Moses, English, Cheeks, Davis and Kareem with something left in the tank. You had Doctor J in his final All-Star appearance. You had six guys who ended up making the NBA's "Top 50" list on the bench to start the game. You had John Stockton, Joe Dumars, Patrick Ewing, Fat Lever, Clyde Drexler, Terry Cummings, Sidney Moncrief and Karl Malone watching from home because THEY WEREN'T GOOD ENOUGH TO BE INVITED. Will we ever see anything approaching this again? I say no."

Ok, just looking at these lineups, here is my assessment:

East starters :

Dwayne Wade - great scorer, only 25, doesn't shoot the 3 well, ok on FT% (should be better for all the attempts he creates), overall will likely have a career similar to Allen Iverson.

Gilbert Arenas - also 25, good scorer, has played with marginal talent so far in Golden State and Washington. Might be a very good player you never need to pay attention to.

Lebron James - man child at 22, good scorer that should be better, FT% in the 60's, geesh. Forward version of Shaq. Not a great rebounder, especially on the offensive boards (1.0 per game?), decent on the assists. Over hyped? Not yet, but if he doesn't take it to the next level soon, yes.

Chris Bosh - another 22 year old, while young, Bosh has shown a nice big man's game, he is very active on the boards, nice scoring capabilities. Nice player.

Shaq - nearing the end, fan vote in obviously. All time great no doubt, too bad never had desire to be better at the line. 53% over a long career takes you down a notch in my book. I don't care what his body was like, don't care how awesome he was against contemporaries. He averaged 10 foul shots per game in his career, making around 5. Crunch time strategies changed because of his inability. Think of Barry Bonds late in his career...devastating at the plate but cannot run or field at all. Incomplete player. All time great, sure, somewhere in the top 10 all time at the position. Quick list ahead of Shaq- Russell, Chaimberlain, Olajuwan, Kareem, Moses.

Backups include :
Caron Butler 26 yrs old, nice player
Dwight Howard 21 yr old, very nice start, jury still out
Chauncey Billups - 30 yr old, nice last couple of years. Was a #3 pick (thanks Pitino) overall that never has lived up to that spot. Other than the last 2 years, career was a yawner. MVP talk last couple of years is only relative if you take the MVP to mean most valuable, not best player.

Richard Hamilton - 29 yr old, ok scorer over his career, nothing else shows up in the stats, weak rebounder, ok assists, no steals to speak of. All-star because he is 21pts per game.

Jason Kidd* (out with injury) - 33 yrs old. My take - nice player, nowhere near the top of all time point guards, nowhere. Doesn't score many points, partly because he can't shoot well. Doesn't get top point guard assists other than a few years in Phoenix. Stat that does show up big is his rebounding for a point guard.

Joe Johnson** (injury replacement) - 25 yr old, traded twice by teams, emerging as a player. Splits time between point and 2 guard. Nice player, time will tell.

Vince Carter - 30 yrs old, scorer and highlight film player, 'nuff said.

Jermaine O'Neal - 28 yr old, last couple of years has scored more (on bad shooting for a big guy), very nice rebounding stats. Nice player.

wow, exhausting but here is the west:

Kobe Bryant - image suffered the blow but will be considered a great player. Selfish scorer that never figured out how to truly make team better ala Jordan.

Tracy McGrady - scorer all the way (not a shooter), 27 yrs old now, nice player

Kevin Garnett - 30 now, in the end will be remembered as a great player, scorer, rebounder, assists, good shooting %, all good. Never elevated teammates though.

Tim Duncan - 30 also. Great player, scoring, rebounding, shooting %, but oddly, never gets criticised for FT% - 68% career. Will be thought of as an all timer, never truly dominant though.

Yao Ming* - only 26, still evolving, scoring and rebounding continue to climb each year. If healthy, could become dominant over career against current competition.

West Reserves
Steve Nash* - Reigning two time MVP, 33 yrs old. Rich man's Jason Kidd. His points, shooting and leadership is superior to Kidd's. Many people argue that he should not have been MVP, but look at how the talented Phoenix team plays while he is hurt. They suck, which is really amazing considering the talent they still have in the lineup. Is he Isiah good at the point, no, as Bill Simmons said, Isiah was one of or possibly the best pure point guard ever (uggh, need to go wash my hands for typing that). Nash is best of the bunch this era.

Shawn Marion - see notes in Nash description above about Phoenix talent. 28 yr old, good scorer and rebounder. Without Nash leading the way, would be lesser player.

Amaré Stoudemire - 24 yrs old, missed year last year, see impact of Nash in above. Q- should Marion and Stoudemire give Nash some of whatever All Star bonus they get in their contracts to Nash, lol? Time will tell on Amare, potential is way high, slasher, runner type though, not necessarily a complete player.

Carlos Boozer* - 25 yr old having break out year, nice story, time will tell

Allen Iverson* - 31 yr old, dominant scorer that had to overcome weak teammates for many years. Did make many better with play, good playmaker. Poor career shooting percentage, too much of a burden offensively though. Will be interesting when healthy how mix with Anthony works. Has opportunity to change career perception.

Dirk Nowitzki - 28 yr old, very good scorer, rebounder. All around clutch player. In prime, could likely end up as one of top 10 at position.

Tony Parker - 24 yrs old, nice improvement last couple of years, not great assist stats yet but nice player.

Carmelo Anthony** - 22 yrs old, great scorer, starting to show good signs of complementing that with assists. Such incredible upside if he keeps extending beyond scoring. Plays smaller than 6-8

Josh Howard** - 26 yrs old, stats continue to climb each year, nice player.

Ray Allen** - 31 yrs old. Considered deadly shooter, but at 45% career hard to swallow. Nice scorer and makes good amount of FT attemts (and made) for a shooting guard. Good player, not sure where he will rank all time though?

Mehmet Okur** - who?, sorry, 18 pts per game is nice but nothing stands out here.

Would love to see challenges to these observations. I will admit I am not currently a big NBA fan. It is a shame but my feelings about the NBA are similar to what I hear EVERYBODY saying. The demographic of the fan has changed in the last 10 years, the NBA doesn't appeal to the average American anymore and I don't think David Stern realizes it.