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The time that passes is a frustratingly slow grind. No big plans or recipes, nor are there the usual assortments of imported drink, all replaced by laundry folding, floor cleaning and anything else I can direct my nervous energy towards until 6 o’clock finally rolls around. I don’t want to hear about the game or even think about it. My neighbor shares that he was able to wager on a -6 Pats/+18 Giants teaser…that makes it worse because then I start to think about how it’s come to this last day, and the perceived risk of that wager is so low…the WEEI crew has turned Patriots fan-dome into a neo-evangelical experience, with a victory today only the surest of sure things that there ever was or ever will be. You are damned for all eternity if the cocky swagger doesn’t appeal to you (unless you’re a player or a coach on the team of course), with doubt being the sin of eternity, never to be washed off, and never forgiven.

Things are going our way here in New England, and I’m very grateful for that.

4 games out west, 4 wins…spring can’t come fast enough.

I still like Petrobrazil (PBR), Oracle (ORCL), Gold ETF (IAU), Canada Nat’l Resources (CNQ), Resmed (RMD), Google (GOOG)

Keeping my eye on Transocean (RIG), Malaysia, Russia, Brazil, McDonalds (MCD)…

Good luck in 2008!

Hoping not to jinx anything, I’m now looking forward to what it will take for BC to earn a shot in the national title game. Clearly, they have to win out, which means winning games in Death Valley (Clemson) and Maryland. The Clemson game is going to be the most ominous, as we’ve beaten them twice in a row. An ACC title game would be vs. either Virginia or Virginia Tech.

The comeback win last Thursday taught me a great life lesson. When you’re recording one game on the DVR and watching another, make sure to schedule the box to record the program that comes on after the game as well. Throughout the night I was watching the recording of that game during commercials in the World Series, but since I had failed to record the program that came on after the BC-VT game, I was only able to watch up until halfway through the 4th quarter. Running to the computer after finding this out, I honestly figured they’d lost, but had hoped that they hadn’t been shutout. It turns out I missed the greatest comeback in the team’s history.

Heading into this week, I’m wondering how many years it will take before the Big 10, Pac 10 and Big East finally start having conference championship games. If SEC, ACC and Big 12 teams have to do it, then the other three conferences shouldn’t be getting over. That said, if Arizona St. makes it through these last four games undefeated, how can Ohio St. be considered more worthy of a slot in the title game? Hypothetically, if Kansas-BC-OhioSt-ArizonaSt all win out, the title game could be BC vs. Ohio St, which appears on its face to be very very very unfair. Likewise, if one of those four teams loses a game and LSU wins out, how can anyone pretend that making it out of the SEC with one loss is somehow less impressive than making it out of the Big 10 undefeated, never having to play a conference championship game?

I’m anticipating that if BC holds onto the #2 ranking and earns a shot at the title, there will be a #3 team that most of the college football world considers more worthy, and it will suck having to listen to it for a full month prior to New Years. The NCAA has to be hoping that there are only two undefeated teams at the end (sorry Hawaii, even though Boise St. beat Okahoma in a BCS bowl game to go undefeated last year, and in 2004 Utah decimated just about every team it played, “your kind” are second-class citizens.) I think it will most likely work out to something like 2004, when USC and Oklahoma played in the title game, while Auburn went undefeated and had to take a back seat. I think it’s wrong to exclude ANY SEC team that goes undefeated in the title game.

Anyways, I’m looking forward to Arizona St-Oregon in a couple hours, and the Seminoles are in Chestnut Hill tonight. The Celtics played defense last night. Peyton is in for a long, painful Sunday.   Read More

College Football – MLB Divisional Round

Those rare extended periods of seemingly historical events lining up one after the other, where the second you think it can’t get any better than it already is, something else happens…like Stanford converting a 4th and 20, then scoring to go up on 2nd ranked USC by a point with less than a minute to go. Oklahoma, Florida, West Virginia, Texas and Rutgers all lose last week. The ACC claimed one of those victims, with Maryland taking out Rutgers, but the most brutal ass-kicking of them all was South Florida over West Virginia. That game is one I saw, along with Auburn beating Florida (even the most passive football fan should never miss this annual matchup!), and the euphoria has carried over from 7 days ago, as 6TH RANKED Boston College took it to Bowling Green today, winning 55-24.

USC (2) has now officially lost to unranked Stanford, LSU (1) is down by three in the third quarter to a pissed off Florida team, and Wisconsin (5) already lost to Illinois. Simply put, Boston College is going to at least move up ahead of Wisconsin. Next week vs. Notre Dame, and after that it’s a bloodbath with away games at Virginia Tech, Clemson (in Death Valley, where they won in 2005), Maryland, at home against Florida St. and Miami. Right now, I’m worried most about Virginia Tech and Florida State, with Maryland as the trap game. If they were to make it through that run undefeated, then win the ACC championship game, there wouldn’t be any way the polls could rob them of a shot at the big game. No doubt, they will get robbed in the end, but I’m purposely denying myself a taste of that gruesome reality.

Al on 9/27: “As for the team coming out of the national league, I’m having a hard time figuring out how teams are going to hit against the Diamondback pitchers. If Webb is hitting on all cylinders, he can pitch forever, and their bullpen is better than anyone else’s, especially in the late innings with Lyon, Cruz and Valverde.“

The Phillies weren’t that good of a team, but Chicago had a roster that looked to be built for October. In game one there was a meltdown of sorts, with their most dominant reliever Carlos Marmol giving it up in the 7th, first with a solo homerun, and then two more hits plus a walk for another run. That ended up being the difference, along with Ted Lilly not earning his money in game 2. The Diamondbacks are the most dangerous team besides the Red Sox. I think that’s going to be the world series matchup, and if I had to take one pitching staff or other other, it’d be hard not to take Arizona’s.

The pitching staff for Colorado came out of nowhere, so it seemed. I’m not entirely sold on the concept just yet. Likewise the brilliant future of Joba Chamberlain. It would have been easy to include one of him all covered in buzz-plague from last night, but it’s not the rookie’s fault the Yankees are down 0-2. Once again there are playoff games at stake, and once again Alex Rodriguez can be struck out with three pitches he’d have been able to handle back in September. Luckily, I’m a Red Sox fan.

Anyone who has followed this race down the stretch, you know what I’m talking about.  They’re up 2-0 on the Dodgers late in tonight’s game, and if they win, they’d still be a game out of the wild card spot with both Philly and San Diego ahead of them, though it would be 10 wins in a row!  The Mets are fading in this last week, and could lose the division to Philly, as their one game lead isn’t looking solid at this point.  If I had to pick one of those four teams in a seven game series, I’d go with San Diego, but at this point, my heart’s with Colorado. 

As for the team coming out of the national league, I’m having a hard time figuring out how teams are going to hit against the Diamondback pitchers.  If Webb is hitting on all cylinders, he can pitch forever, and their bullpen is better than anyone else’s, especially in the late innings with Lyon, Cruz and Valverde.  I won’t get into predictions from the American League just yet.  Manny and Youk are back now, Gagne managed not to blow a 6 run lead tonight (actually struck out two in a row to end an inning with runners at the corners), Okajima is still a question mark, Dice-K seems worn out, Lugo & Drew are hitting right now…in the American League, with the four teams that are in, I’d take Josh Beckett in a game seven start over anyone.  I’m not sure Boston’s bullpen is even better than the Yankees’ now.  Joba Chamberlain is for real, and in spite of our success vs. Rivera in recent years, it’s still a bad feeling knowing your team has to score a run off of him to tie up a game.  He’s one of the only guys I’d ever pinch hit a righty in place of a lefty. 

The magic number is 2, and it looks like the Sox are going up against the Angels.  Like I said, the NL is wide open, and I’m pulling for Colorado to make it in. 

The Celts got smacked around once more by the ping-pong curse, and so the #5 pick on Thursday night is what we’ve ended up with after posting the 2nd worst record. As depressing as it was to watch the western conference scoop up two more top picks, the upside to all this is, at least it’s not 2006! This #5 pick in particular is worth something. The Boston Globe has a piece on Al Thornton and also a slide show with all of the possibilities for the Celts in this draft (there’s an obvious error on the first page).

One option was to trade the pick, Theo Ratliff and Gerald Green to Phoenix in exchange for Shawn Marion, and out of the 15 or so they have for you to vote on at the end, it’s the one I chose. When the results show up I’m once again ashamed to be a member of ‘Celtic Nation’, as out of 9000+ votes, “Trade Paul Pierce” ends up in third place with over 12%. I’ve been calling people idiots for years now when they say this, and have realized that Pierce needs to learn how to fly in order to please the hoopleheads.

There was a time when I’d have a definite opinion about who we should pick, and a month ago I was all about getting Al Thornton, the senior out of Florida St. Then a couple of weeks ago I decided we needed the best defender available, which would most likely be Corey Brewer out of Florida. At this point my only conviction is that Ainge cannot not draft the Chinese guy. In this draft class there is one way in particular to ensure a stomach ulcer , and taking him at #5 would be just that. For the love of God (or Joseph Smith if it helps you see the light) Danny…turn this pick into a player who can earn 20+ minutes a night the second he walks onto the floor.

And then FIRE DOC RIVERS ALREADY, with the plan being to lure either Rick Carlysle or Jim O’Brien back to Boston. The team then learns how to earn minutes on the defensive end, get stops in the 4th quarter and get past the first round of the playoffs. I think it can all happen as long as there’s no Chinese guy at #5, and…well, at least if Danny doesn’t screw up the first part, it’ll only be a matter of time before Doc proves once again that he’s not cut out for this. (Bill Simmons on the draft)

Last night he was sprinting to his right after a gaper, and with the wide angle about a half a second off of the bat, it looked like he’d never be able to get there. The play ends up looking like so many putouts made by the Red Sox center fielder this season, only here he ends up stretched out completely parallel to the earth below, exerting every bit of energy he possibly could to meet that ball at the spot where its journey ended. The diving catch I’m describing from the 5th inning of last night’s game is one of the most beautiful plays I’ve ever seen. He simply cannot catch up to that ball in time…even in the replays it looks like an uncatchable ball. What makes it even more enjoyable though, is seeing Alex Cora within the frame of the field level shot of the catch, raising his right arm to signal an out before Crisp has even gone into his dive.

That angle in particular should make this one an automatic #1 top play on Sportscenter today – since there wasn’t any golf on television to knock it down to #2 – and Boston retains the best record in baseball for another day. As strong up the middle as any team in baseball, with Crisp giving Grady Sizemore a run for his money out in the field, it’s certainly a good time to be a Red Sox pitcher. Ten years ago the Sox never would have acquired a player with the attributes that Crisp possesses, and these plays he is able to make would have gone for extra bases, resulting in at least 3 extra games in the loss column by this point in the season. There’s no video that I know of available for embedding along with this post – MLB being the idiot fortress that it is – so you’ll either have to take my word for it or CLICK HERE – and select “Crisp’s diving catch”.

After tonight, I’m sure it’s in there somewhere…

As NBA commissioner, David Stern has made sure that the kids understand how vital it is to have a pair of his player’s sneakers. He’s promoted the game for years now as if every single fan out there is a kid who wants to be like Mike. Diluting the value of a franchise’s players, while risking serious injury, he has made it a point to ensure that a tired batch of meal tickets get embarrassed annually in some international tournament that nobody in this country even gives a shit about anyway. And then to compensate for the fact that his product consists of a couple hundred young millionaires, many of whom grew up on some very mean streets, he has introduced “mandatory minimums” and kept them in place year after year, in spite of the arbitrary way they have helped to ruin entire seasons.

The Phoenix Suns, their fans and also fans like me, who deserved better this year, can all attest to this. I was sitting in a hotel room in Venice, CA in 1997, when Stern’s brainchild turned an assault of a point guard by a power forward into the worst miscarriage of justice his leadership had yet to produce. PJ Brown chucked a much smaller Charlie Ward into the stands behind one of the baselines, and somehow the Knicks ended up being the team with 4 players suspended. Rules and discipline had nothing to do with the decisions that were handed down, but rather the general mindset of this man and how the natural physicality and raw emotion of this great sport of basketball offends him so much, that whenever anything bad happens, all you can hear is “Shakedown!” as prison warden Stern puts the organization on high alert, with guards swapping out rubber bullets for the real deal should any of the inmates happen to step one foot over one of those painted lines on the floor.

That’s who he is and that is what his influence has created here. So 10 years later another power forward decides to take out his aggression on a point guard, and again the natural instinct of a couple of players to stand up for their teammate caused them to take a single step onto the court from the bench area. Neither Diaw nor Stoudamire got close enough to the action to even spit on anyone involved, and both moved back onto the sidelines. There was absolutely no malicious intent on the part of a single player on that court, besides of course the one that initiated the violence in the first place. Nonetheless, mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines are not something that can be overruled by a lower court, and in a situation where David Stern must choose between the game of basketball or a Napoleon-moment for himself, he always chooses wrong.

Indeed, the arbitrary authoritarianism Stern embodies is the essence of how the NBA treats both its players and its fans these days. They are big young guys full of adrenaline, and we are all young, impressionable and bound to learn our most valuable life lessons from a sport we watch on TV. The players are necessary to have a sport in the first place, but in Stern’s mind if you don’t keep them on a short leash, one of these nights they’ll end up somehow causing an entire arena to collapse. What will America think of the sport then? 25,000 fans died because the commissioner wasn’t willing to institute gag orders and mandatory minimums…’they’d tear me apart in the papers’! So the fines are handed out for anyone that even thinks something negative towards the league or its proud ruler, and the lines on the floor of this bloc are there for a reason.

Same goes for draft picks! Unlike every other professional sport on the planet, the NBA doesn’t grant the worst teams with the opportunity to draft the best players coming out of college that year. The draft order is decided by a lottery. This year that lottery managed to give the three teams with the worst records the 4th, 5th and 6th picks respectively. Somehow this nonsense adds value to the sport in Stern’s mind, as do the mandatory minimums and filling up the USA teams with stars who need the off season to rest. And so, the fans of a city like Boston, Milwaukee or Memphis end up lingering in the ether a year or two longer, or perhaps forever if the FUCKING PING-PONG BALLS DECIDE that’s the way it should be. Like there isn’t enough injustice in this world already.

I couldn’t help but think of the film Dirty Dancing, when news of his ‘confession’ hit the wire. It’s the scene right after Baby providing the alibi for Swayze, admitting that she’d been sleeping with him when the wallets were stolen, only to find out that they fired him anyway. “So I did it for NOTHING?” She cries out at the injustice, and the hefty price she paid for doing the right thing. Does anyone think Giambi wasn’t feeling those very same emotions yesterday and the day before? The Yankees were using his confession to void the stupid contract they signed him to, and the vultures were already nibbling at his flesh.

First impressions of someone like him or Bonds copping to the fact that they used steroids and HGH, for me are like learning that OJ was writing a book about how he killed his wife and Ron Goldman. Though Giambi isn’t as much of a villain in all this as he’s made out to be by the sporting press. After reading a couple articles on him yesterday, it seemed to me that the press had once again lost itself somewhere up its own ass. Case in point: Giambi’s ‘apology’ is full of holes.

There’s a giant disconnect here when it comes to the impact all of this has had on the game of baseball…basically none that I can see (perhaps being part of Red Sox Nation keeps me blind to the outside universe), but for the players it has absolutely had an impact. For the most part they’re a group of lying cocksuckers, for whom the millions of dollars they’ve made over the years doesn’t provide enough comfort to make it possible for them to simply tell the truth. Mark McGuire is perhaps the worst of them all, with the hero-status he achieved in breaking Marris’s record, and that neck of his resembling an unnatural phenomenon rarely found outside of professional wrestling.

He, like Rafael Palmerio, lied to Congress and to all of us. The lust for a lasting positive persona in the world, a reality only to them and the collections of idiots still out there who can’t put two and two together, is apparantly the vice that drives their ongoing delusional behavior. But to be fair, if I were in their shoes, with Pete Rose still kicking around in the world, it wouldn’t be something to look forward to once the truth was finally out there. Painful and shameful and hasta la vista Cooperstown…there is still something to be said about the actual reach of all this, and the fact that no one player deserves to carry the load for everyone. By every account I’ve seen, the use of drugs was widespread within every clubhouse in baseball.

With that in mind, I honestly admire Giambi for coming clean and at least not treating us like we’re idiots. For one player who used the stuff to win an MVP, a home run record or the ability to pitch effectively with a 50 year old body (ahem…Roger), to finally man up and say it, may constitute a reason to hope for the best as this debacle continues to unfold. Because soon enough, Bonds will be one away from tying and then breaking Aaron’s record, and I’m not going to lie and say it won’t matter to me that he cheated. It will. I’ll be pissed off that the guy was able to walk out of the bank holding bags of stolen cash, stroll right past the police and just keep on going. We’re all suckers the day he passes Aaron, and judging by the state of our culture in the year 2007, Giambi will end up being a sucker, while those mentioned previously will ride their silence and false statements into the Hall of Fame.

That sucks! Giambi should be applauded for admitting that he used. I don’t care that he’s a Yankee. I admire his courage. He didn’t do the right thing for a while, but he did do the right thing the other day, and that’s worth something. It should be worth something to all of us. He didn’t have to say it, but he did anyway.

After Ted Johnson and Roman Phifer retired, the middle linebacker spot alongside Teddy Bruschi was a noticeable weakness in the Pats defense, on the run in particular. Monty Beisel and Chad Brown were both flops, and while Mike Vrabel’s transition to the middle helped a great deal, his talent as an edge rusher being removed from the equation had an adverse affect on the bottom line. During this period, Tully Banta-Cain was able to get a lot more reps and did indeed emerge as a starting NFL linebacker, though only for a little while, as he is now a 49er. The first piece that appeared to fit perfectly within the scheme was Junior Seau.

His ability to angle and time his attack was what allowed him such success in spite of his age, and in witnessing his ability to improve with every game, it was clear that Seau naturally embodied the the mix of toughness and intelligence needed to excel in Belichick’s defensive scheme. It seemed obvious to me that he had plenty left in the tank, and so today’s news confirming his return to New England for another year was more comforting than surprising. We have our 1st and 2nd down inside linebacker to play beside Bruschi once again, and with Rosevelt Colvin, Mike Vrabel and Adelius Thomas all healthy and in the mix, it’s looking to be a long year for opposing offenses…quarterbacks especially! Though what I’m mostly impressed by when it comes to Junior’s game, is his insatiable lust for disruption.

This influx of disruption is why I’m equally as excited about Seau coming back as I am about all ‘The New Patriots‘, and can hardly wait to see him right up on the line that first time, reading the snap count, blowing through the offensive line and smashing his first running back in the mouth for a loss. This play in particular probably equaled a killed drive per game last season. Combine that with the level of energy Seau brings on the field and on the sideline…it’s the kind of thing that makes my head gush serotonin. Which it is right now, just from thinking about it! (Source)

Key point to walk away with: Randy Moss will get most of the press coverage in terms of players brought in for the super bowl run this year, but the re-signing of Junior Seau may in fact prove to be more crucial to our success than the trade for Moss OR the signing of Thomas. At the end of the season we’ll see if I’m right.