Story lines

There are some interesting story lines developing around sports right now. Some short term, some long term. I wanted to look at some...

Short term...

The Orlando Magic are one blown alley-oop away from being up 2-1 in the finals. Can they actually come back from down 2-0, or are they just making the NBA finals interesting?

Can the Penguins actually go into Detroit and pull off the upset?

Longer term stories to watch...

At some point this season the Yankees are going to win a game against the Red Sox. It could be tonight, it might not be until the next series. But will the Yankees inability to beat the Sox early in the season come back to haunt them late in the season? And on the flip side, how much could this early dominance by Boston play into the team winning the division?

Is David Ortiz actually showing signs of breaking out of his slump? He's riding a seven game hitting streak, and has had hits in 9 of his last 12. Even though it's the only time this season that he's had a hitting streak last more than three games, he hasn't exactly been tearing the cover off the ball. He's had only one multi-hit game in that stretch, and is 10 for 48 (.208) - even if you just look at his seven game hitting streak, he's a respectable 8 for 29 (.276), not exactly tearing the cover off the ball, but better. Right now it's a more compelling story than the Red Sox trials and tribulations at short stop. Will he or won't he?

As bad as Ortiz has been at the plate, Chien-Ming Wang has been worse on the mound for the Yankees. How far can they expect to go with a completely ineffective (defective?) Wang. They're already keeping their fingers crossed that AJ Burnett and Joba Chamberlain can stay healthy, what is their future (this season) going to look like if they have to rely on an imminently hittable Phil Hughes? And how long can Andy Pettitte go, with batters hitting over .280 against him?

I can't help but think over on the gridiron that the Patrick Pass signing was more or less to add depth at the position for training camp. Does he have a shot at the team? Sure, but I would be surprised if he were on the roster on opening day. Honestly, I would be surprised if he made it to the final cuts. It should be interesting to watch.

Of course, there's always the question of Tom Brady's knee, and how he will respond in game situations. A lot of people are talking about early season issues due to shaking the rust off, and while possible, I think Brady will get the time and reps to do that during the preseason games. What people aren't talking about is how the Patriots' schedule might impact their high-octane offense.

After the bye week in 2007, on the team's way to the only 16-0 regular season, the Patriots played seven consecutive cold weather games, four of which were in Gillette, the rest of which were at the Meadowlands, at Buffalo, and at Baltimore. In the coming season, after the bye the Patriots will play nine games. Four games are at home - Miami on November 8, the Jets on November 22, Carolina on December 13, and Jacksonville on December 27. Of those, only the Jets game starts later than 1:00, and the Miami game is early enough in the season that the weather may or may not be a factor.

Of the other five games, one is in Buffalo, three are either in domes or stadiums with retractible roofs (Indy, New Orleans, and Houston), and the other is in Miami. With about half of their remaining games being played either indoors or in warm places, the Patriots offense has a chance to really light things up...assuming Brady is perfectly healthy.

Outside of New England, these are the things to watch -

The play calling of the new staff in Indianapolis. This is going to go a long way towards determining where the Colts end up this season. Will it be a seamless transition from last year? Do all the coaches have a good instinct for the right defense at the right time? Will they find they have the right people at the right positions?

Is Rex Ryan the right man for the job in New York, and are they really going to make any noise with their current quarterback situation?

Can Chad Pennington stay healthy for the entire season? Pennington has struggled his entire career to put together back to back healthy seasons. When healthy he's a top ten QB in the league - no, he doesn't rack up big statistics, but he's smart and doesn't turn the ball over a whole lot, and wins, even with sub-par talent. If Pennington can't stay healthy, the Dolphins have no chance. Healthy, they can still get to the playoffs.

How is the Buffalo soap opera going to play out? Sure, they managed to get an extra weapon in Terrell Owens, but he's paired with, easily, the worst quarterback of his career (after dealing with Jeff Garcia, Donovan McNabb, Drew Bledsoe, and Tony Romo), and they open the season without their star running back for three games. If the team starts off 0-3 or 1-2, what's the likelihood that Owens will hold his tongue? The Bills are on the verge of becoming the AFC East's Bengals, or Raiders.

Speaking of the Bengals, after admitting to the press that he mailed it in back in 2008, are there any teammates that are going to trust Chad Ochocinco?

How's Jay Cutler going to fare without any legitimate, top-flight receivers?

How are teams like Denver, Cleveland and Kansas going to fare under their new regimes?

Will Lance Armstrong be ready for the Tour de France coming off his injury?

Off-hand, those are just some of the ones I can think of. Should be a fun year.

Catching up, yet again

As you might be able to tell, I have been busy lately. I have about a half dozen story proposals or so floating out there with various magazines, have been working on home improvements, looking into going back to a staff position somewhere now that my youngest daughter is closing in on two - all of that has taken away from my time here at TAF. There have been a lot of things to comment on that have come and gone in the five days since my last blog post. Here goes...

Overall, I have no vested interest in the NHL finals and little more than that in the NBA finals this year. At least if Carolina had made it to the Stanley Cup round of the post season on the ice, then I would at least have a former New England team to root for, but we have the Penguins and the Red Wings. Eh.

Over on the hardwood...well, let's just say that the entirety of my interest there would be in seeing the Lakers lose. I don't think it's going to happen now that Los Angeles is up 2-0, but I would love to see them lose.

The Lakers are one of those teams that I love to see lose, they're up there with the Yankees, Cowboys, and Raiders. Being a Patriots fan, some might be puzzled that I haven't picked division rivals like the Jets and Dolphins, or even the rival Colts, but there's something different with them.

If the Raiders went 0-16, I would enjoy that, and while I kind of rooted for the Dolphins to match that mark two seasons ago (but only when they were in the 0-13 territory), I much prefer it when the Jets and Dolphins are decent for a couple of reasons - one: better games. Two: I much prefer seeing those teams come close and get knocked out at the hands of the Patriots then to watch them struggled and be eliminated from contention before Halloween.

Speaking of football, I didn't like Peyton Manning's public criticism of the new coaching regime. I don't know if it was more a reflection of the new staff still finding its feet, or a reflection of how spoiled Manning has been due to virtually no coaching defections during his career. In theory, there should be little to no change in how the Colts play the game since the entire coaching staff was there under Tony Dungy, but there's no telling if Pete Metzellars is going to be as good at coaching up line men as Howard Mudd - yes, he did well in the middle of the year taking over for Mudd when Mudd was dealing with health issues, but how does he do starting with a free-agent rookie from scratch like Mudd did with Jeff Saturday? He may be fine, but we just don't really know.

On top of that, the team has new coordinators for pretty much the entire team - offense, defense, and special teams. The play calling will be different. Maybe better, maybe worse.

My guess is that the team shows some growing pains, but they miss the playoffs as a ten or eleven win team, finishing behind the Titans again in their own division.

The Colts enter the season not unlike the Patriots. While the key question for the Colts is "how the is the coaching staff going to perform," the Pats are rolling the dice on the rebuilt knee of their all-pro quarterback. If Brady can play without the knee getting into his head, he should be the same guy they've always had back there. With a very likely revamped and improved Jets defense in week two, the Ravens defense in week four and the Titans and Bucs all in the first seven weeks of the season, fans of the Patriots will find out quickly if Tom Brady is thinking about the knee, or about completing passes.

While the Pats defense was shaky last season, I'm less concerned there based on the moves the team has made, leaving the biggest question on the offensive side of the ball.

Over on the diamond I can't say that homer that David Ortiz had gave me any sort of hope that he's breaking out of that power slump. Big Papi just barely cleared the wall right at the Pesky Pole. In any other ball park that hit is a long single or maybe a double, but certainly not a home run.

Jon Lester's near no-no, however, might be cause for hope. I'm still reserving judgement on the Sox lefty for at least another two starts (he's failed to put together more than two good starts in a row, in spite of leading the team in innings pitched), before I say that he's turned the corner, but things have been encouraging lately.

Through his first eight starts Lester was 4-2 with a 6.51 ERA. He bottomed out in starts five and six, pitching a total of ten innings while giving up 13 earned runs over the two games. It was his worst two game stretch of the year, beating out his first two starts in which he pitched eleven total innings while giving up eleven earned runs.

In the four starts since, Lester has pitched 27.1 innings, gone 3-1 with three quality starts, all the while logging a 2.64 ERA. His next best four game stretch ran from his start on April 19 and ran to May 4. During that stretch he went 2-0, and gave up 10 earned runs over 26 innings for a 3.46 ERA. Like the recent stretch, Lester had three of four quality starts. So, yeah, I'm going with a wait and see approach on the Sox lefty.

While Lester has certainly had his issues this season, and almost all of the pitchers have faltered badly at one time or another, they have all been better than Daisuke Matsuzaka, who has struggled in just about every outing.

For all of Lester's issues, the Left is averaging 6.1 innings per start. Tim Wakefield and Josh Beckett are also averaging 6.1 innings per start. Even the oft maligned Brad Penny is pushing 5.2 innings per start, an average that would be higher were it not for two rough starts in his first three of the season in which he pitched for a grand total of 5.2 in those two starts. The Dice-man? Just a shade under 4.2 innings pitched per game. Yes, that includes a one inning/five-earned run fiasco of a start, that without he is averaging 5.1 innings per start and still has the highest ERA of the starters at 5.88.

While Matsuzaka's stats, sans the one terrible start, is only slightly higher than Brad Penny's 5.85 (overall), and slightly lower than Penny's IP per game, it might do better to look at the number of quality starts each of the Sox starters has turned in...

Matsuzaka - 0 for 6_00.0%
Masterson - 2 for 6*_33.3%
Lester - 6 for 12_ 50%
Penny - 6 for 11_54.5%
Wakefield - 7 for 11_63.6%
Beckett - 8 for 11_72.7%

*One note on Masterson's six starts - his first two starts he failed to go a full six innings, both times leaving after only 5.1 innings, but also leaving the game after giving up only one earned run. During Masterson's run of six starts in place of Matsuzaka, Masterson was 2-2 with a 4.59 ERA while averaging just under six innings per start. How long do they go with Matsuzaka in an effort to let him get his feet before they make a switch to Masterson, Buchholz, Bowden or someone else? How much time does their monetary investment in the Dice-man buy him?

Mass-destruction and a fond farewell

The last time any region has experienced a decade with as much dominance over the professional sports scene was probably in the 1960's when Massachusetts saw titles in the NBA practically every year, closed out the decade (1969-70 season) with a Stanley Cup, and sent the Sox to the 1967 World Series and the Patriots to the 1963 AFL Championship (both lost).

From 1961 until 1970 the city was home to nine titles in the big four of professional sports...of course eight of those came from the Celtics.

With the '08 baseball season in front of us still, we're looking at three more seasons before the end of the decade (starting from '01) and Boston already has six titles spread over three sports.

While there were more titles in the 1960's, by virtue of where the titles have come from - the Patriots (3), the Red Sox (2), and the Celtics (1) - and how much of it happened.

Consider - since 2001 the Patriots finally rose to prominence, becoming the most dominant football team of the decade, winning three Super Bowls, appearing in a fourth, and amassing the two longest regular season winning streaks in league history including the only undefeated 16-game regular season.

Move into baseball and you have the Red Sox who have swept their National League counterpart in the World Series twice - the first of the Championships after turning the table on the arch-rival Yankees. En route to delivering their first Series Title since 1918, the Sox became the first team to ever overcome an 0-3 deficit in the ALCS and had a hand in dealing the worst meltdown in the history of the post-season to their rivals. It was a thing of beauty. Add to all that the fact that the Sox are the only team to win two since 2001 and the Yankees are 0-2, it's only icing for the members of Red Sox Nation.

That brings us to the Celtics.

For the better part of the decade the Celtics have been awful. I mean, brutally bad. Not Knicks bad - they weren't carrying either the payroll nor the highly touted talent - but they were scraping the bottom.

In delivering this year's Championship, the team was part of the NBA's biggest turn around ever, extended their league leading number of championship banners to 17, and prevented Phil Jackson from passing Red Auerbach as the coach with the most Championships. Putting together this season's edition, Danny Ainge positioned the team to compete for the rest of the decade.

On the periphery, taking the place of previous Boston area teams that got to the Big Dance, but not able to seal the deal has been the New England Revolution. The Revs have been the runners up to the MLS Cup four times ('02, '05, '06, and '07).

Of the six major league sports now represented in Boston (including the Major League Lacrosse Boston Cannons), New England/Boston has made appearances in the finals of five of the leagues, missing out on only hockey. The Cannons lost by two goals in the 2004 championship game.

In the combined seven seasons since the inception of the 2001 seasons there have been 41 potential titles (hockey missed one due to labor strife). The teams from the Boston Bay area has had teams compete for 12 of those (29.3 percent) and won close to 15 percent of the titles.

By any account, those are impressive numbers.

Speaking of impressive numbers and the post season...

While he hasn't officially announced retirement, Curt Schilling is done. His shoulder is cooked.

It's been a fun ride while it's lasted. I haven't always agreed with Schill's opinions - but as someone who makes his scratch as a reporter, I can tell you, he's a reporter's dream. An absolute quote machine and a clutch performer.

He's the sort of person that I think I would not get along with in a personal relationship - but he'll always get a pass for bringing Boston their first World Series title since Babe Ruth was on the team.

I wish him well recovering from his shoulder surgeries and in whatever his subsequent career is.

East Coast Bias

There is, quite often, an accusation leveled at the national sports press of an East Coast bias in the corps' reporting.

There is probably some truth to favoritism of the East Coast teams, not because of proximity to the New York offices of Sports Illustrated, or the Connecticut offices of ESPN, but because the teams on top of the pile draw the most attention. East Coast teams in the major team sports, except for basketball, have won or represented more than half of all championship contenders for an extended period of time.

Starting from the low end of the totem pole, over the last 14 seasons in the NHL the East Coast has been represented in 12 of the 28 potential contestants for the Stanley Cup. Teams from states that abut the Atlantic (in the US) have represented six of the sport's winners. Those totals go up when eastern Canada is in the mix.

Since the Bills started their run of four straight appearances in the Super Bowl there have been 34 teams that have vied for the Lombardi trophy. Twenty teams from the states on the Eastern Seaboard have been among the 34 fighting to raise the silver trophy each January or February and nine of the winners have been from the East.

Since 1994 in Major League Baseball 14 of the 26 teams that have made it to the 13 World Series held over that span. Nine of the winners have been from the East.

Out of the 44 pro championships noted above, 24 have had a champion from the East - 54.5 percent of all the winners. Forty-six of the 88 contestants have come from the East accounting for 52.3 percent of the teams represented in the games. The teams have won at a rate of 52.2 percent.

In recent years divisions like the NFC West and the NL West have cycled into down periods, sometimes producing division champions that barely breaking a .500 winning percentage.

A simple rule in sports has always been that winning garners attention. The more you win, the more attention you get. It is why great players on bad teams have difficulties with Hall of Fame recognition.

There are players and teams off the East Coast deserving of attention, but until the winning percentage swings the other way, the focus is going to stay on the old powers like New York and Boston.

The 360

The Sparta of America.

I'd like to be able to say that I came up with that...the Sparta of America.

It is a great description. But I have to give credit where credit is due. Thank you for that one Frank Deford.

As for the number?

53 players on the Pats
25 players on the Sox (not going with the 40 man roster)
15 players on the Celtics
22 players on the Revolution
24 players on the Bruins
25 players on the Cannons (Major League Lacrosse)
99 players on Boston College Football
97 players on Harvard University Football

Of the above, only the Cannons (5-7) have been unsuccessful during the most recent season. Others might have fallen short of expectations, but this is what each of the following has done in its most recent or current season -

Patriots - Season in progress, 12-0 with a chance at an undefeated season.
Red Sox - Won the World Series for the second time in four seasons, sweeping the National League Champion Colorado Rockies.
Celtics - Season in progress. With a newly minted "Big Three," the C's are 15-2 and on a blazing 72 win pace. Paul Pierce, rejoice.
Revolution - Four the fourth time in six seasons, the New England entry to Major League Soccer ended their season in frustration on the pitch in the league's championship game.
Bruins - After a down season, the Bruins are in sixth place in the East, a respectable 14-9, and only three games behind first place Ottawa in the win column. If they keep up their current pace, they will finish 50-32 and in the playoffs.
Cannons - See above.
BC Football - The Eagles finished up a solid season with a 10-3 record, including a loss in the ACC Championship game against Virginia Tech. While knocked out of contention for the national title, they still have a chance to bring home a bowl trophy and run the 2007 record to 11-3 if they can beat Michigan on December 28.
Harvard Football - The 8-2 Crimson went 7-0 in the Ivy League and handed 9-1 Yale their only loss of the season while bringing home the IL Title.

Of the teams that have pretty much wrapped their seasons - Sox, Cannons, Revolution, Eagles and Crimson - Boston area teams have appeared in league championship games four times (out of five), and brought home two titles. Of the remaining teams playing - the Patriots, Celtics, and Bruins, all are likely to at the very least make the playoffs in their respective sports.

The combined record of these teams for the 2007, 2007-08 seasons is 176-96,with 7 ties, which translates to a .631 winning percentage...even with the Cannons losing record thrown in.

Has any other city experienced this sort of success in the athletic arena? Ever?

Say it with me Boston sports fans...

WE

ARE

SPAHTA!

Philosophical sports question of the week...

If a Major League Baseball player is a "major leaguer," and a National Hockey League player, is in the "big leagues," and a player in the National Football League is a "pro," then does that make a player in the National Basketball Association an "associate?" Too WalMart?