Friday, August 7, 2009

Losing the arms race

Not too long ago, when they were full healthy, the Boston Red Sox had the best and most feared starting rotation in Major League Baseball. The combination of Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and Tim Wakefield were dominant in the first half of the year, with Beckett and Wakefield getting the nod for the All-Star Game.

Lester was just as good, and offseason acquisition Brad Penny was a serviceable starter who could get through at least six innings and give the team a chance to win. If that wasn’t enough, John Smoltz was getting back into form, and Clay Buchholz was always an option. Boston had a plethora of pitching, and fans prematurely had the Sox in the World Series. The ramblings of “How are you going to beat them in a playoff series with this rotation?” were plentiful.

Typical Red Sox fans. If we’ve learned anything from the first half of this decade, it’s that the Sox jump out to big leads in the AL East only to succumb to the Yankees in August and September. I attended the fifth and final game of the “Boston Massacre” in August 2006. The teams were 1.5 games apart at the start, and the Yankees led by 6.5 when they left.

The point is, the Yankees were, and are, too good not to make a run, and injuries were bound to strike down the geriatric Red Sox. Wakefield is nursing an injury, and Daisuke Matsuzaka won’t be back until September. Penny hasn’t been nearly as good as he was earlier in the year, and the Smoltz experience is reaching the end of the line. When push comes to shove, you can't make chicken salad out of ... well, you know how it goes.

If Boston wins two games in this series (Beckett tonight and Lester on Sunday), it’ll be a moral victory. And that's all we can really hope for.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Fired-up Fielder

I woke up this morning half hoping that the lead on SportsCenter would be a bench-clearing brawl between the Dodgers and Brewers. The stage was set. The previous night, Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder was hit by a pitch in the ninth inning of a 17-4 Dodgers win. Instead of charging the mound, Fielder charged the Dodgers clubhouse, but was denied access and went on a profanity-laced tirade to voice his displeasure.

It's easy to say that Fielder was out of line, getting hit, whether intentionally or not, is part of the game, blah blah blah.
But here's why I'm backing Prince (aside from the fact that he's a Brewer):

1. The pitch, supposedly, was payback for the Brewers grazing Manny Ramirez two innings earlier. But when Manny got hit, it wasn't a purpose pitch. It was an inside pitch that got away from Brewers reliever Chris Smith and hit Manny in his hockey goalie-sized jersey.

2. If you give the Dodgers the benefit of the doubt and assume that Smith did try to hit Manny, fine. But get your retaliation the next inning, not two innings later. If you're out with some friends and a guy from another group comes up and smacks you in the face, you don't wait half an hour then ask one of his buddies to step outside.

3. Fielder and Guillermo Mota, who hit him with the pitch, were teammates last year in Milwaukee. Undoubtedly that added to Fielder's frustration.

Mota was ejected after the pitch, but that obviously wasn't good enough for Fielder. In one of the few things that one could hear between the bleeps during Fielder's failed attempt to infiltrate the Dodgers clubhouse was his intention to hit Mota "with my (bleeping) fist!"

Unfortunately, he didn't get the chance. And Ramirez was out of the lineup on Wednesday (he did pinch hit in the seventh, but with runners on base in a three-run game, the Brewers weren't going to throw at him). So the Brewers didn't get a chance to retaliate for the retaliation.

But, I suppose they did get the last laugh in this whole fiasco. The Brewers beat the Dodgers 4-1 on Wednesday to take two out of three in the series.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The stories behind the story

On Monday, a story ran — written by yours truly — in The Daily News about Mary Garrett and Morgan McKay, two local golfers who made a hole-in-one on the same hole on the same day at Jamestown Golf Course.

Turns out, I made a slight error in the story, claiming that Bill Lyons was one of Garrett's witnesses and not Jack Lyons. Well, Mr. Lyons was kind enough to give his take on the shot:

"We all teed off and landed on the green — it's a short hole," Lyons wrote to me in an e-mail. "We looked for Mary's ball, but it was nowhere to be found. Strange because there is no rough or high grass on the fifth hole. Bill Young putted for a birdie, and in the hole was Mary's ball. Our jaws dropped and the celebration began.

"She is a real dignified lady, and was gracious enough to buy us a cold one in the clubhouse. We told her to retire the ball never use it again."

The fifth hole at Jamestown, which, for ladies, is a 100-yard shot, has some history when it comes to aces. In another e-mail, Lisa Pritchard wrote about her father, Frank Pritchard, who passed away this past March. Turns out Frank Pritchard made his first hole-in-one on the fifth hole at Jamestown, and asked that a bench be placed near "his hole." Since then, a few others have made their first ace on the same hole.

"I like to think my dad had something to do with all this good karma!!!" Lisa wrote.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Barros on Bird

At the Basketball City Summer Youth Camp at Salve Regina University on Monday, former Celtics guard Dana Barros was asked myriad questions by the kids attending the camp. One questioner asked if Barros knew Larry Bird. Barros and Bird were in the NBA at the same time, but Barros didn't join the Celtics until after Bird retired.

Barros, though, said he not only knew the Celtics legend, but the two used to have impromptu shooting contests during Bird's stint as a team executive.

"He used to come to practices and we used to have shooting games for money all the time," Barros told campers. "I used to take his money all the time."

Barros went on to sing Bird's praises as one of the great players of all time, even though Bird wasn't a high-flying, fast athlete like Michael Jordan or LeBron James.

"Larry Bird was probably the slowest player ... had a two-inch vertical leap, but put numbers up across the board," Barros said. "What LeBron does now, Larry Bird was doing for 10 years straight."

Later, Barros gave Bird a little more credit for his hops ... or lack thereof.

"Maybe three (inches). I'll give him three," he said with laugh.

Not unlike Bird, Barros didn't have the prototypical NBA body, but Barros stressed that basketball success isn't always the product of physical domination.

"It's not height, it's heart," Barros said. "And Larry Bird is a classic example."

Monday, August 3, 2009

Remembering Bo Jackson's greatness

When I was a kid, there was nobody on the planet cooler than Bo Jackson. I idolized the man. I read his book, "Bo Knows Bo," had his Nike sneakers and even attempted to emulate the things he did on the football field and baseball diamond.

In a way, I feel that my generation was given the shaft when it came to Jackson, who suffered a severe hip injury during a 1991 playoff game that ended his football career (he was able to play a few more seasons of baseball before retiring in 1994).

Generations before us can talk about Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle and tell stories about how far they hit the ball. They can remember watching the matchups between Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell and recall just how great Johnny Unitas was.

Bo Jackson was supposed to be the player my generation told stories about. "Man, Bo had his run where he bowled over a linebacker at the goal line." Or "Bo once ran up a wall after tracking down a ball in center field."

Sure, our generation had Michael Jordan and Wayne Greztky, but there wasn't a man in professional sports who could excite viewers as much as Jackson. Whenever he touched - or hit - the ball, something great was bound to happen.

Taking a look at his career numbers in both sports, and he was no more than pedestrian. In four seasons with the Raiders, Jackson rushed for 2,782 yards and 16 touchdowns. He was slightly better on the diamond, hitting a career-high 32 home runs in 1989. He also struck out a league-worst 172 times. Jackson made one Pro Bowl and one All-Star Game (he was named the MVP). There may not have been more of a high-risk/high-reward kind of guy in pro sports.

Numbers aside, though, no player had more jaw-dropping moments in a shorter amount of time than Jackson, who has since entered several business ventures since retiring. Indeed, there wasn't a cooler man on the planet.