Went to Boston tonight for Game 5 of the Celtics-Bulls series and without a doubt it was one of the most memorable sporting events I’ve ever been to. Overtime, down to the wire, comeback from 11 down. It was fantastic, and I’m hurting from it right now. I’ve got a headache and my throat’s sore, but I don’t care. What a night.

I’ll try to get a full rundown in later. Celtics 106, Bulls 104, OT, that’s going to be with me for a while.

Is there anything better than unexpectedly coming up with tickets to a game that you had no plans to attend? I think not.

Such was my luck on Wednesday. Late on Tuesday night I logged onto Facebook to check messages and such, to see who had picked their Top 5 people they wanted to punch in the face and bands that they’d seen live and such, and my friend Kevin (an actual friend too, not just some random person added as a “friend” on FB to try to bump the number over 500) had posted that he had two extras for the afternoon game on Wednesday. He had attended on Tuesday night, but due to the rain out he wouldn’t actually get to see the game.

He wanted $70 for the pair of tickets, which was an awesome price seeing that they were face valued at $85 per. I made a quick call to Eagle One to see if he wanted to go, and got the response I expected, “what do you think?”.

Thankfully with the schools being on vacation this week the sports calendar has been pretty bare. Falmouth High had just one scheduled game, on Nantucket, and there was no Mashpee games. Since Tuesday’s action had been totally washed out, that meant Rich would have spent the majority of the afternoon twiddling his thumbs between writing game stories.

Sure I had to spend more time writing on Wednesday evening than I had planned, leaving my viewing of the Bruins-Habs game to brief glimpses over the shoulder, but it was totally worth it.

The seats were fantastic, about 20 rows up from the field, just to the left of home plate at the outer edge of the screen. I’ve had better seats at Fenway, but not much. They were definitely in the top 10.

But the true highlight for me was just seeing the ballpark again, and being there for a game. Fenway Park is my absolute favorite place on earth. I can’t think of a place I’d rather spend an afternoon. If I knew I had just one day left to live, I’d probably want to go to Fenway. Actually, I know I would.

Walking up the ramp and seeing he field for the first time every year is a joy. Standing to cheer when an opposing batter has two strikes and urging our guy to get strike three is just fun. Jeering an opposing pitcher with 35,000 other people and making him throw balls, like we did to one of the Minnesota relievers in the latter innings, makes you feel like a part of the action.

I could go on and on.

My next trip to Fenway, which is actually a scheduled one, is sometime in July. That may be the greatest day of my life, and I have no idea who’s pitching, nor do I care.

In July I am taking Rye, my seven-year old son, to his first game at Fenway. He’s been to one big league game before, but he’s never seen one at the old park in Kenmore Square. He’s never walked up that ramp and seen that beautiful outfield or the huge wall in left. He hasn’t experienced the thrill of watching one of his heroes hit one over that wall. He hasn’t been fully indoctrinated into the experience yet. Sure he’s watched on TV. Tonight he wouldn’t go to bed until the Sox got the final out in the ninth, which was annoying for his mom and pride-inducing for me. That day though will be one we never forget.

Of course if we fall into tickets before July it might happen sooner. You never know when you’re going to get a pleasant surprise. If you know anyone that has extras, the management at Maclone’s Musings are always accepting gifts.

I’ve expressed my love for my TiVo and my DVR (yes, I have one of each) for years and years in this space. They’re the best, you watch stuff when you want to, fast forward through the stuff you don’t care about (commercials, slow innings, talking heads, etc.). DVR technology is one of the best inventions of the last 20 years, right up there with cell phones, flat screens and Under Armour cold weather gear).

I use the box whenever there’s a big Pats or Sox or Celtics game on, and even the Bruins during the playoffs. It’s great for sports because you can do your own instant replays, play it slow, double speed, you name it. I could go on and on.

But there’s one problem with the TiVo, having to avoid the score of a game you plan to watch later. It’s a problem dating back to VCR’s, but it wasn’t quite as prevalent back then because that was our parents taping games and they weren’t able to keep the display from flashing “12:00.”

On Saturday afternoon I had to photograph a wedding, so I wasn’t going to be able to watch the Celtics playoff game. I figured that I’d be so busy at the wedding that I’d never have a chance to notice a score and when I got to the reception hall it became apparent that this wasn’t the type of group that was going to ruin it for me. It wasn’t full of diehard sports fans, so I felt safe in my assumption that I’d make it through to 5 PM without finding out. I’d even went as far as to make sure that the iPod was hooked up in the car so I wouldn’t have WEEI spoil it for me when the job was done.

The wedding went very well. We had great weather, an adorable couple and plenty of great moments to shoot. On top of it all an old friend that I hadn’t seen in more than a decade was the DJ. As Ice Cube once said, “It was a good day.”

After wrapping up the job, and saying goodbye to my old friend, I headed over to Starbucks to grab an Americano for my decompression. As I usually do, I spent a minute or two jabbing with my friend Kate that works behind the counter, telling her that I couldn’t wait to get home to see the game, that I had TiVo’d it and had done everything in my power to avoid the score. As I was pouring the half-and-half into the venti cup, I turned back to her and said, “I am beat, I can’t wait to get home.” That’s when my other friend, or maybe ex-friend now, John came from out of the back room at Starbucks and said “Well at least you didn’t have to watch the Celtics game. That one hurt.”

D’oh.

Kate and I both led out groans when he said that.

“Oh, you didn’t know,” he said sheepishly.

John then went on to tell me about Pierce missing the free throws and the Bulls winning in OT.

I got home and hit the delete button. Then I watched the Bruins on live TV. They went and ruined the Canadiens night worse than John ruined my late afternoon.

It’s hard not to be a little depressed about the Celtics right now. I know that the news about KG being done for the year isn’t what put Danny Ainge into cardiac arrest, but the timing on the general manager’s heart attack sure was strange, wasn’t it.

It’s hard to be optimistic about the C’s chances now. Sure they can beat Chicago in round 1, and I think they will. They might even be able to sneak through the second round, but after that it’s going to be close to impossible.

I was listening to Bill Simmons’ podcast today and he’s got a great point when it comes to a Boston-Cleveland series and that is that it’s just too much to ask of Paul Pierce to have to guard LeBron James for seven games and carry the team offensively. If he’s going to have to be the shutdown – or since it’s LeBron, let’s call it the containment – defender, then you just can’t expect him to put up 30 ppg as well. It’s got to be one or the other, but the problem is that no one else can match up well with LeBron. Ray Allen can take him for spurts, and Rondo can too, but neither of those guys are going to be able to cover him for four quarters. Allen’s not quick enough to stop LeBron off the dribble and Rondo’s too small and they’ll post him up all day.

And the loss of Garnett is huge for another reason, he’s the soul of that team. He’s the one everyone feels accountable to. He’s the one that says ‘jump on my back boys, we aren’t going to lose.’ Sure Pierce might score the dagger points, but Garnett’s contributions go a lot further than just numbers. He brought an edge to the Celtics that was immeasurable.

Down the stretch the C’s went 18-9, which is pretty darned good. They played a lot of close games, and won them. If Leon Powe and Stephon Marbury can step things up, they’ve still got a chance. It isn’t over, but the future doesn’t look as good right now as it did at the same time a year ago.

Repeat after me, “it’s only seven games, it’s only seven games, it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay.”

Now take a deep breath.

I wouldn’t just reach for the panic button just yet. Let’s examine what’s happened so far. Josh Beckett was awesome, then adequate. Jon Lester has been bad (and he’s killing my roto team). Daisuke had a mediocre start. Wakefield was okay and Penny was pretty good actually. The bullpen hasn’t been bad. The bats have been pretty silent, except for Kevin Youkilis.

That about sums it up. The Sox pitching staff is way too good to stay this bad. I know that sounds simplistic, but sometimes the easiest answers are the simplest ones. Those starters can pitch, well except for Wakefield, who doesn’t pitch as much as toss. They’re going to be better.

Jed Lowrie going on the DL isn’t good at all, especially with Lugo on the DL, but it does give us a chance to check out Nick Green and see what he can do. If nothing else the kid plays hard, and you’ve got to like that. If Lowrie will be back in two weeks, I think the team can survive a stint by Green, and who knows maybe he’ll throw a Gehrig-to-Pipp action at us. You never know.

The schedule has been tough for the Sox. They opened up against two very good teams and had a west coast trip right off the bat. The schedule for the first month isn’t that kind, as they have to go back out west again in May, but then after that they’re done with the left coast for the rest of the year. You pay early, but make up for it later, that’s not a bad thing at all.

I’m not going to get really worried just yet. You shouldn’t either. It’s way too early for real concern.

I turned on the Celts-Cavs game just a few minutes after it had started to find that C’s already down like 20-points. What the heck? I came back later and it was 30.

No big deal, they got killed in Cleveland in what amounted to a completely meaningless game. The Celts were going to be the No. 2 seed in the East win or lose, and they didn’t have Kevin Garnett.

Cleveland should be happy about blowing out their chief competitors for the conference title, but should they really be getting jiggy wit it on the sidelines during timeouts? LeBron and company were dancing during timeouts and mugging for the cameras, which was being shown on the JumboTron in the arena, which sure looked like fun to them, but the Celtics looked pretty ticked off.

Do you really want to inspire the team that stands the best chance of keeping you from reaching your goal? Well, that’s what the Cavaliers did. Ray Allen had some tasty quotes about how he’ll remember this, and Paul Pierce can be counted on to bring his ‘A’ game when the teams meet in the playoffs … and they will, you know it, I know it and everyone else knows it too. And let’s not forget the sidelined KG. No one takes an affront to his teammates as personally as Kevin Garnett. If he could have gotten away with it I’m sure that he would have walked across the court into the Cavs huddle and slapped Varejao across the mouth. Actually they all probably would love to do that, but KG would lead the charge.

That’d be a fun carnival act to see the Cavalier take up during the offseason. He could open a booth and let people slap him across the kisser for a buck or two a pop. I know I

I know it’s been a while, but there’s good reason for that. The Enterprise web site basically got very, very sick and we weren’t able to have anything online for a while. It’s back in a limited capacity right now, and let’s just cross our fingers that it will be around for a while.

It’s funny because even my dad called to ask why the blog wasn’t around. Of course I know the real thing he wanted to know was why he wasn’t able to check on the town meeting stuff on the main web site, but it’s nice that he at least feigned some interest in my opinions on sports. He’s a good guy like that.

So while we were away I picked the winner in the NCAA office pool, and made $0 for my efforts. My buddy Akku gave me the entry fee and then asked me to fill out a bracket for him since he didn’t have any time to do it himself. Since I love filling out brackets, I figured it’d be fun.

My strategy for Akku’s bracket was simple, any game that I was up in the air about on my own bracket I went the other way with. Wouldn’t you know that I nailed three of the final four (the most of anyone), and had UNC winning it all. How about that? For my efforts I got a free Coke Zero from his White Hen, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

In the meantime I’ve been assigned the Mashpee sports beat, along with Falmouth. It’s been downright crazy. Dan Crowley, my sports boss, and I have always referred to the spring season as “The Beast.” Well The Beast is rearing its ugly head as the games pile up and all seem to happen at the same time. On Thursday I had 11 games going on at the same time. I made an appearance at three and got usable notes at most of those, but not a ton of substance.

Right now I’m watching Sox-Angels from the left coast. Wakefield is doing his usual scare-the-heck-out-of-me thing, walking people, putting knucklers in the dirt and allowing extra base hits. Chone Figgins just jacked a double to give California/Anaheim/LA the lead. Oh well, it’s still early in the game, bu with Easter this weekend I don’t know how late I’ll make it into this one.

Happy Easter to all of you reading this. While I typed that sentence the Angels just scored two more.

Tonight was a night that many a bracket went busto. I’m really happy for Villanova, they’ve been a legit sleeper all year long and I’ve got two friends that went there, Mr. Megan and Craz-arian, so good for them. Elite 8 is no joke and they beat up on Duke pretty good. With a miracle I might be watching them in person Saturday. I aint counting on it, but i’m hopeful for a miracle. If anyone has any tickets they don’t want, you know where to reach me (sports@capenews.net). Me and a certain 7-year old would certainly be happy to take them off your hands.

As for my chances of winning the office pool, well that went to nil. I loved Memphis all year long and thought that they were the best team in the tournament, but Mizzou took a page out of Dwayne Johnson’s book and laid the smacketh down. Even the money I could be saving by using Geico couldn’t make me feel good about that right now.

But, hey, it’s tourney time and you’ve gotta love tourney time, even when your bracket goes busto.

Sorry for the lack of posts of late. I’ve been made the Mashpee guy, along with my Falmouth duties, and the workload is a bit more than usual. I’m getting to it all, but the posts for the spring may be a little more spaced out as I’m going to be a bit busy going back and forth and to and fro.

By the way, if you want to win a basketball championship at any level, your team has to hit free throws. It’s a must. Just ask Memphis. Two years in a row their inability to hit freebies has cost them dearly. They’re not called “free” for nothing. They’re not contested, unless you count the fans with the balloons behind the basket.

It’s that time of year ago when Eagle One and I try to sound like we know what we’re doing when it comes to picking these things. Take all of this with a grain of salt, but these are our predictions. Know this, we love this stuff and we can’t wait to watch the games. Friday night, at the Eagle’s Nest, Two pizzas, some sodas and some hoops. Good times ahead …

Midwest Bracket

Eagle One says: As much as everyone loves Morehead State, I’m leaning towards Louisville in a nail-biter. Not a lot of games that I love, but I’ve got two decent upsets, with No. 12 Arizona beating No. 5 Utah and then No. 11 Dayton topping No. 6 West Virginia. And I’m not a homer, I’m taking USC to beat BC because I just don’t think that BC is gonna get it done and they’ve been too up and down. Call it a hunch, call it what you want, call it my big toe throbbing.

Maclone: There’s two games that I love, BC-USC and Ohio State-Siena. I think both of those games are gonna be a lot of fun to watch, and I am a homer, and I think BC has gotten up for the big games, so I’m taking the Eagles there. Ohio State has made a fan of me just because of clubtrillion.com, which you should check out if you haven’t before. Other than that, I’m pretty much going straight with favorites in this one, and think Arizona will lose to Utah because it’s been a tough year for John McCain and I don’t think it’s going to get any better.

Our Sweet 16s: EO: Louisville, Wake, Kansas, Mich. State. Maclone: Same.
Our Elite 8s: EO: Wake, Kansas. Maclone: Louisville, Kansas.
Champ: EO: Wake; Maclone: Louisville.

West Bracket

EO Says: UConn’s got a pretty easy march to the Elite Eight, there first three games don’t include any heavy lifting. As long as they stay off too many meds and Jim Calhoun doesn’t have to take an unscheduled pay cut they should be just fine. Frank Purdue and the rest of the Purdue Boilermakers will be crying in their chicken because I’ve got Northern Iowa with the big upset in the 12/5 game. The MVC produces a bracket buster every year and that trend goes on. Other than that it’s pretty straight forward although I’ve got the 9 and 10 seeds winning, but those are pick-em’s anyways.

Maclone Says: This bracket is about as exciting as watching a watching Dick Vitale go through his voice warm-up exercises. Sure it’s something you don’t see every day, and it could be memorable, but there better things to do with your time. The lineup of games just isn’t sexy, kind of like Vitale. Other than Maryland winning, which like EO said is a pick-em, I got all favorites. As for the second round, that’s when it gets exciting. I’m looking forward to Marquette-Mizzou and Maryland-Memphis, those are going to be great matches.

Our Sweet 16s: EO: UConn, N. Iowa, Marquette and Memphis. Maclone: UConn, Purdue, Mizzou and Memphis.
Our Elite 8s: Both: UConn and Memphis.
Final Four: EO: UConn. Maclone: Memphis.

East Bracket

EO Says: I got a shocker coming out of here, but we’ll get to that. This might be the toughest bracket, along with the south. Pitt and Tennessee march and then the rest of the favorites as well move in round one. But in round two, I got the darlings that are Villanova saying it ova and the Dookies moving on.

Maclone says: It aint ova for Nova. The Cats are tough and they’re going deep, but unfortunately Pittsburgh is just too solid this year. They’ll win the region, but the region is not easy at all. The Colonial has been a great conference of late (hello George Mason) and I think that VCU pulls off the upset over UCLA, which has a lot to do with the fact that I think that the Pac-10 played like a pretty good high school conference this year. They’re soft and they don’t play anybody. Actually west of the Mississippi you’d be hard-pressed to find a legitimate contender. It’s pretty much by the books after that, although I think Nova beats Duke in the sweet 16 because it seems like every year Duke finds a way to lose a game it should win during the second weekend.

Our Sweet 16s: EO: Pitt, Xavier, UCLA and Duke. Maclone: Pitt, Xavier, Nova and Duke.
Elite 8: EO: Xavier and UCLA. Maclone: Pitt and Nova.
Final Four: EO: UCLA. Maclone: Pitt.

South Bracket

EO Says: Long live the big ugly red thing, Western Kentucky’s mascot, which is the best mascot in college sports. That’s my lone first round upset, but I love those guys. The top four seeds all march on and it’s all about North Carolina and Tyler Mans-boro. I also think Syracuse goes deep.

Maclone Says: For once in his life, Eagle One nailed it on the head. WKU is my favorite upset special in the first round, and I’ve also got Temple, the 11, beating Arizona State. Again, I think it’s been a long year for John McCain. Other than that, though, I love UNC in this bracket as long as Ty Lawson gets his foot right. Even though the Tar Heels are playing Radford, out of the mighty Big South (sorry, that’s my conference) I think they’ll survive if he sits. The one team that’s hard to figure in this bracket is Gonzaga. They’ve been the darlings for so long that I think they’ve gone from underrated to overrated and they could get beat early. Let’s see if Akron can zip them up. I’m on the fence, but EO says I have to make a decision and since I don’t think they can beat Carolina anyways, let’s take the Zips.

Sweet 16: EO: UNC, Gonzaga, Syracuse, Oklahoma. Maclone: UNC, Western Kentucky, Syracuse and Clemson.
Elite 8: UNC and Syracuse.
Final 4: UNC (both).

Final Four Thoughts

EO: Why are they having the Final Four in Detroit. Who would want to spend a vacation in Detroit? It might be the most depressing city in America right now. Unless you’ve got a gun and bullet proof vest and a way out of town, and a fifth of whiskey to wash away the blues, there’s no reason to be there.

As for the games, I think UNC dominates UCLA and advances easy and I think UConn kills Wake Forest.

In the title game, it’s Tyler Mans-boro and the Heels winning 80-73.

Maclone: Yeah, I’d rather spend the weekend doing my taxes on Riker’s Island while getting a vasectomy than going to Detroit again. I spent one evening in the Motor City going to a Tiger’s game and am happy to report that every car that was parked in the “private parking lot” had our own personal street person to take away the cans. He asked to share a beer with us, and we had to do this for fear of being attacked. I was happy to leave the city alive.

I think the team that’s leaving with the trophy, and their heads on a swivel as they exit on the arena, is going to be Memphis. I think they are just too talented and athletic and that this is their year. They’ll win the game between the two slickest head coaches of all time (Calipari v. Pitino) in the Final Four and edge Carolina, who will beat Pitt by about 10.

So that’s our take. Enjoy the games, and realize that every word you just read will probably be null and void come Monday because of the total unpredictability of this tournament. And I love it.

I’ve got a shamrock stamped on my right hand, a Ireland Rugby jersey on and I wore my green Red Sox hat today. Also I headed to Liam Maguire’s in downtown Falmouth this afternoon with the family, Brown Dog and Crazarian. Good times.

Tomorrow’s bracket day at The Musings, which is something I always look forward to. I love March Madness and cannot wait for the tourney to begin. I watched nearly every game I could consume over the weekend and got my start tonight when Liberty won in the CIT over Rider. We’re in the Elite Eight baby (so what if they only invite 16 teams, we’re in the battle to be No. 98 baby).

Whoever allowed the Chicago Bulls to wear green uniforms on St. Patrick’s Day against the Celtics needs a smack. How the drunks at the bars are keeping up with the action is beyond me. Everytime I look up I think that the C’s have scored, yet somehow they’re in the middle of a one point game right now.

Also wanted to send a little love to one of the greatest poker accomplishments that I’ve ever seen. Some guy from Germany, who goes by the screen name Boku87, took action that he could turn $100 into $10,000 in just 15 days, never playing a sit-n-go tournament that cost more than $16 to enter. During that time he played over 7,000 games, playing up as many as 52 games at the same time, and got the job done, in 14 days. Not only did he collect the $9,900 he earned, but he also won something like 35K on side bets against people that didn’t think he could do it. If I ever had to play that many games in two weeks I’d be asking to be put out of my misery by the third day, it’s just too much time in front of the computer, and it can’t be good for you. The dude must have a computer for a brain, but he got the job done and it’s impressive.