Observations

Not a reflection on the team, per se, but is it just me, or is "D-Backs" a little too close phonetically to "d-bags"?

What a weird twelve months of Boston sports - the Pats win 11 games and miss out on the playoffs on the final day of the regular season. The Red Sox go to game seven in the ALCS before being eliminated. The Celtics and the Bruins make it to game seven in their respective semi-final series. That's a whole lot of close, but no enchilada.

What's the common thread there? Injuries to key players.

Phil Kessel and David Krejci both scheduled off-season surgery the minute the Bruins were bounced from the playoffs, and Aaron Ward played in spite of a broken orbital socket. The Celtics played without Kevin Garnett or Leon Powe, the Sox went deep into the playoffs with injuries to David Ortiz, Mike Lowell, and Josh Beckett. None of the teams was hit as hard as the Patriots, though, which made a run at the playoffs without starting corners, down to their third string OLB on the right side, at times down to their fourth running back, and of course, sans Tom Brady.

What do they do if any of these teams remained healthy? Sure, it's irrelevant, but it's fun to speculate.

It was nice to see Ortiz finally hit a home run, and what's more, he hit it to the deepest part of Fenway.

Is Brad Penny hitting his stride? Since a somewhat rough outing on April 28 when he gave up seven runs in 2.2 innings (only 4 earned), Penny is 2-1 with one no-decision in for starts, has a 4.26 ERA, while averaging 6.1 innings per start, and has a strike out to walk ratio of 3 to 1 while holding opponents to no home runs during the stretch.

Contrast that to his first four starts during which he was 2-0 with two no-decisions, averaged 4.1 innings per start, had a 8.66 ERA and a strike out to walk ratio of just around 1 to 2 while giving up five homers in the four games.

Sure, Penny hasn't been dominant, but those last four games he's started putting up numbers that are solid - the sort of numbers that could keep him in the rotation if he keeps it up.

Where to start...

Okay, so I've been incommunicado for a couple of weeks - that doesn't mean I haven't been paying attention.

Mixed in with all the articles - magazines, the Brewing News and such - there have been a couple of weeks of interesting New England Sports. Jason Bay is tearing it up for Boston, a wounded Celtics team is looking like they might arrange for a date with the Cavaliers, the Bruins are fighting their way out of a hole, and our old friend Manny is being Fe-Maley.

I don't know what's going on with Red Sox pitching, but Josh Beckett looked better in his recent outing against the Rays than he has all season, but he still had the rough inning. Well, rough-ish. Somehow, in spite of less than sterling starts to the season from Beckett, Jon Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Brad Penny, the Sox still have managed to win 20 games, good for second best in the American League and tied for the third best record in the majors.

Currently de-facto Ace Tim Wakefield, yes, you read that right, is leading the team with 20 percent of the team's wins and a 2.93 ERA. Mixed in there Wake has had the pitching staff's only two complete games.

One of the other encouraging things about the Red Sox - even though they have played almost 25 percent of their games without Kevin Youkilis, with David Ortiz batting a measly .224 and Jason Varitek picking up where he left off last season with a rousing .227 average, the team is second in the majors in RBI's and runs scored in large part to Jason Bay who leads the team and is second in both the American League and the Majors with 34 RBI's. Bay is also tied for third in the AL with nine home runs. Bay hasn't done it without help.

He's been helped by a now healthy Mike Lowell. Lowell is second on the team with 28 RBI's and six home runs.

Good to see in the absence of a functional Big Papi.

Speaking of Papi, it seems I'm not the only one who doesn't buy his former battery mate's explanation for utilizing a female fertility drug/hormone. It seems almost no one believes that Manny was taking HCG to increase his sperm count. An aging slugger whose production had slipped for two and a third seasons before forcing a trade, suddenly goes on a freakish tear with his new team at an age when no one (that isn't juicing) has ever gotten better.

Do the math.

I'm not saying it isn't possible he was juicing before last season - hell, it would certainly explain some of the boneheaded mood swings and inexplicable behavior.

It took long enough, but it was nice to see the Bruins finally show up for another game in their series against the one-time Whalers. Hopefully it's not to late.

Is it just me, or are the Celtics like a zombie movie at this point? Bodies keep going down, but they just keep coming and coming and coming. Who would really have believed that Glenn "Big Baby" Davis, Eddie House and Rajon Rondo would be the weapons other teams had to account for?

I'm still not convinced that the Celtics have the horses to make it to the finals, but I don't know that I would be all that surprised if they do. Chicago pushed them to the brink, Orlando had a chance to stick a dagger in them and couldn't.

Each series thus far the experts have predicted the Celtics' demise due to match-up issues. If they survive Orlando the talk is going to be about how the Celtics are old and tired from their long series against Orlando, and their even longer one against the Bulls. They will talk about who defends who and how the Cavs have been rested and how they have been destroying their opponents. And all of it will be true - they should cause match-up problems with the Celtics, and they should be Boston handily.

I'm just not convinced it's going to happen that way.

I'm not saying that I think the Celtics are going to make it to the finals. I think it's unlikely, particularly given the team's injuries. But I don't think that it's going to be the cakewalk that Cleveland's first two series have been.

The Cardiac Kids

I'm not a big basketball fan. I don't watch a whole lot of it until the playoffs come around - and even then, I watch a whole lot less than most basketball fans.

That said, with the exception of the one blow-out win, the Celtics aren't making this easy on their fan-base. Through five playoff games the Celtics and bulls have played four overtime periods following the end of regulation three times. In all but one game the margin of victory has been three points or less. I could be wrong, but I would venture to say that this hasn't ever happened before in a contest between the two and seven seeds in the NBA playoffs.

There's a chance that the results would be different if Kevin Garnett were on the floor, but with the way the Bulls are playing, I'm not convinced that would be true. Maybe one of the other close games swings in the favor of the Celtics, but I don't know that they would have opened up a big lead on Chicago even with the big man in the middle.

Over on the diamond -

So the Sox were handed their first loss in eleven games. Not surprisingly, it came during a Brad Penny start. Penny failed to make it out of the third inning, giving up seven runs (four earned), which has put him on a pace for roughly one earned run per inning worked.

One has to wonder how many more starts Penny will get before he gets yanked from the starting rotation.

The Penny signing I still maintain was a smart signing. For his career he has generally had an ERA between 3.00 and 4.75 and over the course of the previous nine seasons has averaged 10.5 wins per season. That included last year's off year when Penny had an ERA over 6.00 and started fewer than 20 games for the first time in his career.

Additionally, Penny signed a small money contract of $5 million that can earn an additional $3 million in performance bonuses: $500,000 each for 160 innings or 55 games as pitcher, 170-65 and 180-75; $500,000 for 190 innings or 35 games finished, and $1 million for 200 innings or 50 games finished. Right now I would say odds are he won't earn those incentives unless he turns it around soon.

My guess, if he struggles through his next four or five starts, and Daisuke Matsuzaka comes back strong, that Penny will end up on the DL with "arm fatigue" like Matsuzaka did and that Justin Masterson will get a few more turns in the rotation.

Bon Voyage, Ellis Hobbs...

I sincerely wish Ellis Hobbs the best as he moves onto a new career in Philadelphia. Hobbs will be remembered by many, quite unfairly, as being the goat in the Super Bowl against the Giants. At the end of the game, Hobbs - playing with a pulled groin and a badly damaged shoulder - was asked to cover Plaxico Burress on the game deciding play.

Twice earlier in the same drive, however, Asante Samuel screwed the pooch...badly. Samuel had a game-clinching interception go through his hands on one play, and was the cover guy on David Tyree on the helmet catch. Samuel can be seen in certain angles on the play jogging behind Tyree rather than running with him. Had Samuel been where he was supposed to be, it's unlikely that Tyree would have come down with the ball on that third down play.

Good luck Ellis, you played hard for us and your kick returns were things of beauty.

And a final gift for my football fan readers -

Cashing out

It was a metaphorical jolly stomping in the Fens - an early season referendum on the moves made by Yankees' GM Brian Cashman.

The Sox beat the Yanks in every conceivable way over a three game stretch - out-slugging, out pitching, and just plain out-executing the highest paid team in the majors. The Yankees, with over $200 million in annual salary (since the start of the 2005 season the Steinbrenners have spent over $1 billion on the team and seen their record slide) - again - the Bombers are off to a 9-9 start, have the worst bullpen in baseball, and have the worst overall ERA of any pitching staff in the majors.

Here's what else $200 million has bought New York -

A team outscored 25-16 in three games by their arch-rival.

A team that saw 11 runs and two leads evaporate when the bullpen entered the game.

A team whose second biggest free-agent pitching acquisition was smoked for eight earned after being spotted a 6-0 lead.

A team that saw home stolen on them with two outs in a close game. Let's face it - that last one shows a complete lack of respect for the Yankees. There's no aura left, they're just another team.

And to compound matters - the Red Sox don't even have the second highest payroll in baseball - they're fourth (and a lot closer to being seventh than they are to being third). They lost ugly, are unable to hold a lead, and just look brutal in the field (great play at first by the sure-handed Mark Texiera, huh?).

Anyone else wondering which Celtic team is going to show up for game five? The one that's shot ugly in the close games, or the one that dismantled the Bulls on their home-court in game three?

Kudos to the Bruins for moving on. It would be nice to see Boston land the Stanley Cup before the end of the decade to get that final jewel in the championship crown for the big four. They do it, that will mean that between 2001 and now the city will be home to three Super Bowls, two World Series, an NBA (I still think a second one of these is unlikely this year) and an NHL championship. Not bad.

Back again...

So, after a weekend at the 'rents house with all the siblings and assorted nieces, and a week wherein I've been working on an article for a local business magazine, I finally have some time to look at some of the current sports stories...

Boy did the Sox, and the bullpen need that start from Tim Wakefield. Wake had the knuckleball working so well he took a no-hitter into the eighth only a day after Terry Francona was forced to use six relievers due to the fact that Daisuke Matsuzaka couldn't get past the first inning.

While it was good to get the win, I think whether the team won or lost was irrelevant. The fact that Wake gave the team a complete game, however, was huge, and needed more than anything else.

If the Celtics don't get a reasonably healthy Kevin Garnett back...well, let's just say I don't see the team making it to the finals. They got absolutely waxed by the Cavaliers, and eked out a win against a far inferior Sixers team. Playing like that right now could get them ousted in the first round.

That's one hell of a schedule that the Patriots are facing this season. Based on their opponents' records from last season, the Pats have the third hardest road to the post season based on strength of schedule facing only two teams that had a sub-.500 record last season, and only two other teams that had a record as bad as .500.

That said, I would like to note that, for all of that, the strength of schedule as a metric for the difficulty of season means nothing at this time of year - zip. nada. zilch. There are plenty of fans that buy into, though. Last season the Pats started the season with the easiest strength of schedule based on the fact that the teams they were facing were 99-157 in 2007 with games against only 4 of 2007's playoff teams. Those same teams improved by 24 games last season to reflect an aggregate record of 123-133 with games against six of playoff teams, including contests against both of the Super Bowl contestants. That moved the Patriots into the middle of the pack in regards to strength of schedule by the end of the season.

Tidbits

Evidently pharmacists in the Dominican are disputing A-Rod's claim that the steroid he used can be obtained over the counter in the DR. Additionally, according to a New York Daily News report, two reporters sent to the DR pretty much were able to obtain Durabolin immediately after getting off their flight.

The reporters went into the first pharmacy, were asked for a first name, and then spent about $20 to get their steroids.

Considering reports regarding a steroid trail from Mexico into San Diego (in relation to the Chargers), I'm surprised, given MLB's efforts over the last two seasons, that baseball's franchises continue to send players for winter league games to Mexico, or any of the Latino countries where obtaining these drugs is so easy.

Hopefully David Ortiz is being completely straight regarding banned trainer Angel Presinal. As much as I agree with Dave over at the Coffin Corner that Ortiz's call for a year ban on users makes it appear that he's likely to be clean, I disagree that his stats have stayed on an even keel throughout his career.

Everyone is quick to point out that he became a monster once in Boston and he was a full time player, but he did have two seasons with the Twins in which he played in at least 125 games and logged at least 400 at bats. For those two seasons Ortiz averaged 15 home runs and 69 RBI's. Over a 162 game season that projects to roughly 20 homers and 85 RBI's.

While the wrist injury he had last season was reminiscent of the one that Nomar had - one of the connective tissue, and an odd one at that - I don't believe that Big Papi has been juicing, but anecdotal evidence isn't good. He's linked with a trainer who's a known supplier (and should know better than to train where this man works - it's not like he doesn't have the money to have the option of training elsewhere), he had a freak injury of the connective tissue - the tendon sheath in his wrist - which is the sort of injury that could be indicative of steroid use, and his production spiked when he moved to Boston with his homerun total spiking by 55 percent when he moved from the Twins to the Sox, and more than doubling his final Minnesota HR total within two seasons, and knocking in 64 more runs within two years of his departure from the Metrodome.

The flip side - Ortiz was 26 in his final season with the Twins, just beginning to enter what is universally held as the prime of his career, the time when most players stats would spike. If you account for a 25 percent increase just based on entering the prime of his career, he would have hit about 25 homers and knock in about 93 runs. A look at Ortiz's stats also shows that he did have, on average a 35 to 40 percent increase in at bats - that would account for up to an additional 8 homers and 17 RBI's bringing him into the 30's and about 110 respectively, and I haven't even figured in the Fenway factor. So, no, I do think he got there naturally - but he really should be aware of appearances of impropriety in relation to the juicing issue.

Given that Kevin Garnett's injury is only a muscle strain and he should be back with about 18 games left in the season, i don't think Garnett's injury is necessarily a bad thing for the Celtics. If the team wins half the games he misses, that means he comes back and the C's have lost four games. At worst that will drop them to the three seed in the East. I don't think going .500 over the next eight games is an unrealistic expectation, and I don't think being the three seed is a bad thing for them.

Based on current standings, even if they lost the four games, they could only fall to the third seed if Orlando goes 7-1 over that same stretch - so it's more likely that the worst that would happen is that they end up in the second seed by no more than two games with 18 to go and a rested Kevin Garnett in the line-up.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

My heart goes out...

This story will make sports fans optimistic about the future, and bring a tear to the eye of anyone who has even half a heart beating in his or her chest.

We, the sports-obsessed nut-jobs of the blogosphere spend a lot of our time talking about the subjects of the day - steroids, HGH, rules violations in search of that elusive edge - the list goes on, and it gets less and less positive with each passing month. Hall of Fame arguments used to be based solely on statistics. Now the question of "if they didn't juice, would they have gotten in? Should we put them in anyway?" haunts every HoF vote. People talk about tainted championships, and history books are rewritten by iconoclasts, tearing down players such as Babe Ruth, once held in such high regard that he was almost thought of like a deity in the sport. Now he was a fat, drunk, womanizing baseball savant.

Sports heroes are torn down with a regularity of an iconoclast on an all-bran diet.

Every now and then a story hits the national wire that gives me hope - not for national sports, but most definitely for athletes at other levels of sport. I touched on this about a year ago when I wrote the following -

If you want to look up to athletes, to put someone on a pedestal and use him or her as an example for your kids - look to something, someone a little more obscure.

Look to the Ironman Triathlon Championships. Not to the top finishers.

Look to sister Madonna Buder, an amateur athlete who finished the event for thirteen consecutive years (missing last year's cut off by mere minutes at the end of the cycling stage), breaking her own record each of those years as being the oldest woman to complete the event. Or take John Blais, a man with ALS who completed the Ironman in 2005 in order to raise awareness for the disease. He was in a wheelchair by the 2006 event and didn't live to see the 2007 Ironman. Then there was a competitor in this year's event by the name of Scott Rigsby, a double-amputee who lost both of his legs below the knees. How about Charles Plaskon, a blind 64-year old finisher? Or the story of Dick Hoyt, which you really have to see to believe? Really. I can't do him justice.

There are plenty of athletes out there deserving of that pedestal, for any number of reasons. Just try not to forget that the pros are human too, and generally willing to do whatever it takes to stay at the top of their game. The people I mention above are human as well, with human failings like the rest of us. However, unlike the Clemenses of the world, they're not doing what they do for money...or even personal glory. They see the mountain in front of them and see something to accomplish.

Then there are the teenage athletes that get sportsmanship, that understand it so much better than so many of the adult professionals. There were the high school girls in Washington last year that each gave their medals to the girl who finished a place ahead of when the first place runner was erroneously disqualified.

And now there are the high school basketball teams in Illinois and Wisconsin that did the right thing simply because they knew it was the right thing to do. It wasn't about winning. It wasn't about the letter of the law. It was about doing the right thing by a player on a rival team - the fact that the player was a rival was immaterial. The fact that he was grieving, that he needed to play - that's what was important.

Go to the linked story. In a time when we here Manny Ramirez and Scott Boras whining about his contract, or lack thereof; when we're getting disingenuous apologies from steroid users and half excuses that just open the users up to more questions (A-Rod, I'm looking at you); when some of the biggest names in sports are involved in criminal proceedings (Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, the ongoing saga for Michael Vick); when professional sports are filled with me-me-me players (Terrell Owens, Chad Johnson) that are so self-centered that their teams suffer; when any number of other offenses are committed in the professional athletic community, the story of Johntel Franklin of DeKalb should be required reading.

If you have not read his story, do so now. Don't wait. Please.

Thoughts and opinions

Proportionately speaking, no two teams in any professional sport have dominated their league the way the Lakers and the Celtics have. This latest meeting is the 62nd NBA Championship and at the end of it, no matter who wins or who loses, the two teams will combine to account for 50 percent of the league's titles.

To put that into perspective - the next two teams with the most titles, the Bulls and Spurs, combine for 10 total titles.

Counting each conferences' entry into the finals as a separate entry, the two teams account for 49 of 124 possible appearances in the finals.

No two (professional) teams in the Unites States account for as large a percentage of finals competitors.

Even if you wanted to be anal and discount the five wins as the Minneapolis Lakers, that's still 27 championships and 43 appearances.

Just going Super Bowl Era alone, there are no two teams that even come close to approaching the 50 percent mark in combined titles. Of the 103 World Series played, the Yankees and Cardinals combine for around 33 or 34 percent of the titles at 36 combined. The closest is in the NHL where the Canadiens and the Maple Leafs make up 37 of the 83 titles that are held by teams still active in the league (in other words, there are teams no longer in existence that hold titles that would push it to 92 titles since the 1914-1915 seasons).

That's domination.

One last basketball observation - I would like to see the Celtics win, however, I don't think they will. How I hope I'm wrong regarding that.

Required reading...

Peter King's Tuesday Morning Quarterback, essentially his mail bag for his Monday Morning Quarterback column at si.com should be required reading this week for everybody. If you haven't read it, you should.

His readers, for the most part, are responding to his Monday column dealing with Aaron Kampman and the tornadoes that tore apart Iowa last week. They are some of the more eloquent and touching letters I have seen from any columnists' fan base, and deserving of both our time and consideration.

Three for four...

Winning a championship is an exceedingly difficult feat on any level of sports. Even getting to the big game is a chore.

Last year, after an undefeated season, the Patriots lost in the Super Bowl. To stress the "any level" point - the Aussie rules team I play on was bounced in the national tournament one game shy of the championship match after an undefeated season.

Boston teams are three for four in just getting to that championship game, with only the Bruins not making it quite as far as the other three. And they still made it to the post season.

Right now the teams are one and one, waiting on the Celtics to see if that winning percentage jumps to .667, or drops to .333.

Composure

When I coached I was adamant with my kids - don't bitch about the officiating. Period.

I didn't want to hear it, and the officials sure as hell didn't want to hear it. I used to tell the kids that complaining about the officiating was the coach's prerogative - because, while annoying, I could live with it if I garnered us a 15-yard penalty. If one of my players cost the team by getting a 15 called on him for complaining to an official, then he was getting benched.

I only note this for Rasheed Wallace's skewed grip on reality as demonstrated in his profanity laced tirade about the called penalties and people flopping all over the place in Wednesday's game.

It's funny in as much the Pistons were regularly mugging Paul Pierce and not getting called. The refs gave the Pistons a gift flagrant against the C's P.J. Brown early in the game. The Pistons went to the line for 38 foul shots to the Celtics 30.

Wallace is only the tip of the ice-berg.

Detroit has made it to six consecutive conference finals. They've been there before. Which is what makes Wallace's teammates whining about the pleasantries between him and Kevin Garnett before and after each game puzzling.

While I'm sure they think they're trying to set an attitude throughout the team - all they're really doing is creating (at least the appearance of) a rift in the locker room.

Do his teammates really think that Wallace isn't playing his ass off from tip to horn? Do they expect him to put up Kevin Garnett numbers? Do they think that he should be able to completely neutralize Garnett? Garnett, the defensive player of the year, hasn't been able to neutralize Wallace.

The things happening in the Pistons locker-room are not indicative of a team that thinks it's going to win. Rather, it's indicative of a team looking for a scapegoat...reasons why they lost, rather than preparing for a game to win.

Don't get me wrong. I still feel as though Detroit is an extraordinarily dangerous team to the Celtics, and that they have a very good chance of winning given the fact that the Celtics have demonstrated time and again in these playoffs that they just don't have the cajones to go for the jugular when they have their opponents' backs to the wall.

But this is ridiculous.

Through every level of athletics I have participated in, I have had friends on opposing teams - youth, high school, college, club. On every level I have talked to those people before and/or after the games. Sometimes I've gone and a had a beer with them afterwards. Never have I gone easy because they guy I was against was someone I knew. If anything, I've typically been more intense if I've been matched up against a friend.

And I'm not getting paid.

I have a hard time believing that Wallace might be going easy on Garnett just because they're friends.

Catching up with a busy weekend

But first, more pics of Isiah Thomas in his new roll as Milton Waddams for the Knicks...


Stupid is as stupid does...

So, the Rocket is back in the news, this time for an alleged 10-year extramarital affair that started when he was 28 and the other woman was 15. Roger Clemens' attorney released a statement, not denying a relationship with the now washed up 32-year old country singer, but denying that the relationship was of a sexual nature.

Clemens might be telling the truth here, however, there are a number of things that just don't pass the smell test here.

I want to address some of those things.

First - I spent five years as a teacher at the high school level, and in the 22 years I have spent as a martial arts instructor, I have been friendly with a number of teenagers. I have mentored several of them, but have spent no time with any of them outside of a classroom setting (except in the very rare case in which I am friends with the child's parents - which has always been the case before I had the child as a student). I would not call any of them a sustained relationship over a ten year period, no matter what my age.

Second - What ended the "platonic" relationship after ten years? Sure, I have friends, going back to elementary school, whom I don't talk to or see as often as I once did. But I would not describe those relationships as ended at the time we stopped talking as often.

Some of those friends I talk to once a year, sometimes less, and see those people even less frequently, but they're still people I consider to have a relationship with. The relationship hasn't ended. Just changed.

As for women with which I had physical or romantic relationships - yeah, most of those had definitive endings complete with hostilities and cessation of interaction. Some I can pinpoint the dates on, if I really went back to think about it. None of those were platonic.

What I have to ask at this point, would any of this have hit had it not been for The Mitchell Report?

Two by Two

The Celtics stomped on the Atlanta Hawks in the first two games of the playoffs, winning by an average of 21 points in those two games. The Hawks have been slightly better than the Celtics for the last two in Atlanta, averaging a seven point margin in their wins.

I mention this for the following - the series returns to Boston for game five.

A basic fact about the two teams -

Through the season and including the playoffs, the Celtics are 37-6 at home and 31-12 away. Atlanta, is a respectable 27-16 at home. In 43 road games the Hawks have only won 12 - or to put it another way; Atlanta has won a little better than one in every four road games while the Celtics have lost a little less than once in every six games at the Garden.

Unless the Hawks can rise to the occasion and steal one in Boston, the best Atlanta will do is make a respectable showing by forcing the series to seven games. I just have a hard time seeing the Hawks taking one on the road.

Panic attack

The Sox have lost five in a row to slip into second place, mere percentage points behind the Rays and Orioles. The skid coincides with a flu that has run through the Sox clubhouse, forcing the team to start Jon Lester on three days rest (for everyone knocking him - yes it wasn't a great start, but he still gave the team an opportunity to win, giving up four earned in five innings - the same number of runs the team put up over the same number of innings). The bullpen screwed the pooch, and the offense went away.

A pretty good description of what has happened with the team during the skid.

In the next game, rookie Justin Masterson spun a six inning gem, giving up one run. The offense was decent, scoring five runs over the course of the game, but the bullpen gave up six over the final three innings.

Even Tim Wakefield qualified for a quality start, making it through six innings and giving up only three earned runs against the Rays, Clay Buchholz gave up two runs in eight, and Beckett only one earned in seven. Even when the Sox put runs on the board, the hitting failed in the clutch.

All that noted, it's way too early to panic. Sure, JD Drew has reverted to 2007 Drew, but he's not the only one to have disappeared at the plate. For the most part, David Ortiz hasn't shown up yet, and only Julio Lugo and Dustin Pedroia got hits in the Sunday night game that made the Rays' James Shields look like the second coming of Nolan Ryan. The night before only Drew, Coco Crisp, Jed Lowrie, and Jacoby Ellsbury hit the ball. This won't last.

It's the end of April. It is way too early to panic.

Remember when...

Welcome to my little nostalgic trip down memory lane in professional sports -

Remember when covering the courts was synonymous with covering basketball, not football?

When you didn't need a degree in chemistry to follow home-run chases?

Or have a degree in law to follow the NFL and NBA?

When hockey was relevant?

When NASCAR wasn't?

When the MLB All-Star Game was a good game because players had pride in the way they played - whether the game mattered or not?

When the Eastern European Olympic squads were vilified for their steroid use while American athletes were supposedly winning cleanly?

When athlete's hat and shoe sizes didn't mysteriously increase due to using "flax-seed oil?"

When basketball was still primarily a team sport?

When Al Davis still knew football?

When Matt Millen still had an untarnished legacy in football?

When Bill Belichick was the head coach that would ever only be a great defensive coordinator?

When 49ers-Giants was the NFL's marquee match-up?

When Pete Rose was a sure-fire, first-ballot Hall of Famer?

When you heard James Earl Jones deliver this line, "America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come," and some naive part of you actually still believed it?

when you could actually turn on ESPN expecting sports, MTV expecting music, and CNN expecting real and relevant news?

When the big scandal in sports usually involved Yankees pitchers swapping families?

When the Orioles were a contender?

When the term doubleheader meant that you were going to get to see two games on one ticket?

When going to the ballpark on the major league level cost less than $15.00 for bleacher seats a dog and a beer?

When it was hard to get into a Redskins game in DC?

When pitchers regularly started 35 to 40 games per season and it wasn't unusual to have between two and three starters with anywhere from 15 to 25 wins each?

When sportscasters didn't feel the need to turn every player's name into a nickname while showing highlights?

When George Michael was the man and The Sports Machine was the show to watch for the week's wrap-up of sports news?

Cleaning out the cobwebs of the mind...

What are the biggest off-season questions in the NFL? I'm not sure - but I think we're looking at...

Who will take over the Chargers, and will they be the same next year? I'm betting that they'll be good, but not the same.

What does Randy Moss think that being a petulant trouble-maker of a child will get him in the NFL? He has killed his trade value, and most scouts seem to think he's too far gone to be the play maker he once was. I'm sure somebody will take a flyer on him - talent always gets a second chance, but he needs to understand that his next chance is probably his last.

Can Ben Roethlesberger resurrect his career? Honestly, I was never that sold on him to begin with.

Same with Eli Manning who spent the better part of last season regressing.

What does the Patriots brain-trust feel is the biggest problem to address in free-agency? I have been reading a lot of pre-draft about the Pats drafting a line-backer in order to infuse the position with some youth, but that hasn't been Belichick's way. Sure, they have drafted five or six during his time, but none have stuck. They like to convert defensive ends or bring in veterans. My bet is that they make a hard run at Adalius Thomas of the Ravens.

Can the Colts repeat? I think there are going to be too many key free agent losses due to the fact that they have a lot of players going to free agency and not anywhere near enough cap-room to keep them (for example, I have a hunch Dominick Rhodes will be on another team come training camp). They'll make the playoffs, but I would be surprised if they made it all the way to the Super Bowl.

Which coaching change this off-season is most likely to result in a Sean Payton-Saints/Eric Mangini-Jets type of season? I'm guessing the Arizona hiring of Ken Wisenhunt - providing he can straighten out the offensive line woes. Cam Cameron has too may questions at line, quarterback and running back, Mike Tomlin is coming to a team that played .500 ball as opposed to the Cardinals .312. Bobby Petrino also enters a better situation than Wisenhunt, although I believe he Cameron, and Wade Phillips in Dallas are the most likely to backslide by a game or two before showing any signs of improvement.

Trouble in Paradise -

Mariano Rivera is lobbying for a new contract from Boss Hog in New York and the greatest closer in Yankee history is not likely to get it. If there's truth to the rumors that the Yanks are positioning themselves to pursue Francisco Rodriguez in the next off-season, then Mo should be ready to follow up on his threat to play anywhere.

With a starting rotation likely to consist of Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte, Chien-Ming Wang, Carl Pavano and whoever they can plug in, Brian Cashman has to be sweating a little. Pettitte and Mussina are near the end of their careers, Pavano hasn't been healthy since Montreal and their ace looks like it might be Wang. Not exactly a front four that will put the fear of the baseball gods into most of the American League.

Basketball and the Rainbow Connection -

Tim Hardaway is an idiot. If he wants to be homo-phobic, fine. I don't even mind that he's upfront about it. Hell, I'll be the first to defend his right to be a bigot. But advocating somebody lose their job due to their sexual preference (which he did) is no better than advocating that they lose their job based on their skin color. Way to set the Civil Rights movement back by about 50 years.

For those of you that missed the report, here's a snippet from the AP story -

"You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people
and I don't like to be around gay people," Hardaway said. "I'm homophobic. I
don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United
States."
Hardaway also said if he did find out that a teammate was gay, he
would ask for the player to be removed from the team.
"His words pollute the
atmosphere," Amaechi said. "It creates an atmosphere that allows young gays and
lesbians to be harassed in school, creates an atmosphere where in 33 states you
can lose your job and where anti-gay and lesbian issues are used for political
gain," Amaechi said.
Meanwhile, the NBA banished Hardaway from all-star
weekend in Las Vegas because of his anti-gay remarks.
Hardaway, who played in
five all-star games during the 1990s, was already in Las Vegas and scheduled to
make a series of public appearances this week on behalf of the league.
"It is
inappropriate for him to be representing us given the disparity between his
views and ours," Stern said.

Peter's Friends...

For all the moaning about the "mistake" the Patriots made in letting Deion Branch go in the trade, it is interesting that Peter King at Sports Illustrated had this to say in this week's Monday Morning Quarterback column -

"10. Seattle (10-8). Just a guess, but my feeling is the Seahawks would rather have the 22nd pick in the draft, plus the $7 million-a-year cap dollars it paid Deion Branch, back right now. Instead, New England sits there with two first-rounders, the rich getting richer, and Seattle is out of the draft business until late in the second round come April."

That's kind of a backhanded way of saying, "maybe we (the press) were wrong about Branch's impact."

Down to 181.5. aiming for 179 by next monday and 170 by the end of February.

Considering the results of last year's trades (Hanley Ramirez, Cla Merideth, etc.), I think it's wise of Theo Epstein to nix a trade with any team looking to plunder the Sox top prospects in order to unload an aging superstar with a bloated contract. I mean, the Sox don't really want to become the Yankees, do they?

I don't even really follow basketball, haven't in years. I look at the standings now and then, but there isn't really a team out there I root for. That being said, this year the Atlantic Conference in the East is bad - I mean really bad, like on a biblical level sort of bad. Currently the two best teams in the AC, New Jersey and Toronto are each a game under .500 with only 22 wins with less than half a season left to play. To put that in perspective, in the East alone Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Indiana, Washington, and Orlando all have better records.

In the West - Utah, Denver, Minnesota, Phoenix, The Lakers, The Clippers, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston all have better records. In a 30-team league, there are 15 teams with better winning percentages.

If division winners were not automatic locks to get into the playoffs, if playoff contenders were based on record alone it could be feasible that both teams could miss the playoffs as Golden State is only a half game behind the Nets and Raptors and Miami, Portland, and New Orleans are all within five games.

One Helluva Football Weekend...

Wow.
The clock struck midnight yesterday on the Cinderella Saints as Chicago overcame a rough start by Grossman to lay down a serious spanking on New Orleans. While it ends possibly the most compelling story in the NFL this year. It opens up a different, yet compelling storyline which I will touch on momentarily.
First - the marquee match up of the weekend; Colts-Pats.
I heard a lot of people last week questioning how the Pats were going to keep pace with the Colts in the Dome, but I kept saying that this was going to come down to the last possession, and it did.
Brady made an uncharacteristic mistake in the last minute of a game, and the colts DB, unlike the Chargers DB did the smart thing after intercepting Brady. He sat down, eliminating any possibility of a game-changing turnover that would give the Patriots another chance.
Yesterday we watched two AFC teams play in a hard fought game that was really a tale of two halves.
The Patriots dominated the first thirty minutes and the Colts the second. Unfortunately, from my standpoint, the Colts made one more play than the Patriots did when it counted.
I commend the Colts for making the necessary adjustments to get the job done.
However, I do have to say, I have heard a lot of talk about how with a win in this round Manning gets the monkey off his back. I disagree with that. The knock was that Manning couldn't win the big one...he still hasn't. That happens in two weeks. A lot of pundits sound like they're ready coronate the Colts as the winners of the Super Bowl, and while I think that's likely, I also know that in 2001 everyone was ready to coronate what appeared to be a more talented Rams team as the Super Bowl winner. I'm not quite ready to discount Chicago.

The new compelling, yet-not-quite-as-compelling storyline in the NFL. Only because Chicago played earlier in the day yesterday, Lovie Smith became the first black head coach to reach the Super Bowl. With the Colts victory, Dungy became the second black coach to make the big game - one that will be played during the first weekend of February - Black History Month. Somehow appropriate, I think. I will address more on this later, including some important points about professional sports and its roll in the Civil Rights Movement.
A brief note on my conscious choice to not call Dungy and Smith African-American. It is a silly PC term for the overtly sensitive, and not terribly accurate. I had a professor in college, Jenny Shute, who was born and raised in Africa, yet was paler than Bill Belichick. She was arrested and exiled from her home in South Africa for fighting to end apartheid.
While I claim Irish and Italian heritage, in the end I am American. Not European-American, not really Irish-, or Italian-American either (though I do prescribe to those terms for simplicity's sake). But the fact is neither of my parents were born or raised anywhere other than in the United States, and technically, that makes me nothing other than American. We have a need to classify ourselves and to belong to groups, but, unless somebody is trying to offend (and I could get into some very Klan oriented language here to make my point, but won't) being offended about being called black as opposed to African-American is just silly.

Parcells has resigned - with Terrell Owens coming back, is that really a surprise.

JD Drew clarification - I think what you're likely to hear, probably this week, is that Drew was signed for the previously agreed on $70 million. However, what will be downplayed is the medical language/clause that will allow the Sox to get off the hook for a significant portion of that money should Drew's health become an issue.

Happy trails Christopher Trotman Nixon and good luck in Cleveland. Right field won't be quite the same without you...and don't take this the wrong way, I enjoyed watching you play, but realistically, right field hasn't been the same since Dwight Evans headed for Baltimore.

Two weeks from today we enter what I call The Black Time. It is the time between football and baseball when all there is left is basketball and hockey. I don't think basketball has been all that entertaining since about 1994 (however, I did enjoy the finals three years ago between Detroit and Los Angeles) when the game became less about team than it did about finding a star with just a bunch of guys. Hockey...well I never thought much of hockey from a broadcast perspective in spite of playing street hockey for eight seasons growing up. During The Black Time, I will be looking at some of the sports that I believe deserve more attention than they're getting, and speculate on some of the reasons that these sports are struggling.