Archive for August, 2008

Ask yourself this question: will the Red Sox win the World Series?

If you answered ‘yes’ you probably own a Red Sox Nation card and believe that JD Drew is in the discussion for league MVP this year.

Now ask yourself this one: will the Red Sox make the playoffs?

That’s a murkier proposition, and right now my answer is leaning towards no. There’s just something not right about the Red Sox this summer. The pitching is good enough to almost get you excited, but then it seems like someone new gets hurt every week. Beckett is the latest victim of the injury bug and we’ve seen Wakefield and Colon on and off the DL all summer. Clay Buccholz lost his mojo and had to be sent to the minors. Dave Aardsma is hurt.

Daisuke has a lot of wins, but he’s not exactly someone that gives you tons of confidence when he’s out there. The only guy that seems to be can’t miss is Lester, and he got lit up the other day.

Then there’s the lineup. Say what you want about Manny, he offered a lot of protection for Ortiz. Without him other teams can pitch around Papi a bit more safely. Youkilis, Pedroia and Bay have been great, but Ellsbury’s been horrid, Lowell’s hurt, Drew’s hurt, Varitek, with the exception of the last week, has been dead weight at the plate.

Basically the Red Sox are mediocre at best. They’ve been a .500 team the last couple of months. Unless they get really hot over the next month there’s no way that they’re catching Tampa, as crazy as that sounds, and they’re in a race with Chicago and Minnesota for the wild card, and that’s not gonna be easy either.

The next couple weeks will be interesting for sure. I just have a feeling they’re not going to be very rewarding.

It’s 1 AM on Saturday morning and somehow I got hooked into the men’s soccer gold medal game. It’s so weird with the Games on the other side of the earth, this is a pretty big world-wide game, and it’s played in the middle of the night. I’m sure, though, that there aren’t too many sleeping Argentinians right now. In Nigeria they all probably woke up very early for this game, which will put a cramp in your weekend, but it’s the gold medal game.

I realized the problem with TiVoing these things yesterday. I was all jazzed up because I had taped the US Men’s basketball game and was looking forward to watching it. The game had started at like 8 AM, so I put it on around 10ish, and then logged onto ESPN.com out of habit, and there was the score and the result. Well that was a waste.

I still watched a good portion of the game, though, and I just love how the “Redeem” team is playing. Dwayne Wade, Melo and Chris Paul are awesome, and I have a new appreciation for the greatness of LeBron. He might be one of the youngest on the team, but he’s clearly the leader and the heart and soul. And, most importantly, it matters to King James and you can tell. That’s all we ever really wanted out of the men’s hoop team, was a little class and a lot of desire. This edition gets it, and it’s great. Heck I’m not even booing at my TV when Kobe touches the ball, and it is so weird to have to root for a team that he plays for. I personally can’t stand the guy, so to have to cheer for the Mamba is not easy, but it’s for the good of the country I guess.

I’ll be glad when these Olympics are over, though. I really didn’t think I cared all that much for the, but I’ll admit that I’ve gotten pulled in by them. I’ve watched so much and it’s great that they’ve got a few other channels with stuff on so you don’t just have to watch whatever’s on NBC proper. The reason I’ll be glad when they end is that I’ll have time on my hands again and be able to sleep a little earlier. All the stuff that’s on late at night has been pretty captivating.

Like I said, it’s the middle of the night and I’m watching Argentina celebrate the game’s first goal at 1:17 AM. It’s nuts, and it’s fun, although I can’t stand the Argentina crowd’s incessant music. It’s non-stop and repetitive. It’s like the Hades soundtrack.

Well that’s it for now, gotta figure out what time to set the TiVo for so I can see the men’s basketball gold medal game. I’ll have to remember to stay away from the computer.

Tiger’s the man, absolutely. He’s not a deity though.

Okay, I wanted to get mad about this commercial. There are things about it that are just a bit over the line for me, but it’s still pretty cool.

A few things you should know about me. One, I am a Christian. I make no apologies. If you’re not a believer, that’s cool with me. I think Jesus is cool, if you don’t, we can talk, but we don’t have to fight.

Second, I think China is evil. It’s easy to forget that the place is as bad as it is when Michael Phelps is piling gold like Fort Knox and the Redeem Team is doing so well and the Jamaicans are having so much fun being faster than everyone else. But, the games are still in China, and the government there is not good.

BEIJING - Chinese customs officials confiscated more than 300 Bibles on Sunday from four American Christians who arrived in a southwestern city with plans to distribute them, the group’s leader said.
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The Bibles were taken from the group’s checked luggage after they landed at the airport in the city of Kunming, said Pat Klein, head of Vision Beyond Borders. The group, based in Sheridan, Wyoming, distributes Bibles and Christian teaching materials around the world to “strengthen the persecuted church,” according to its Web site.

The group arrived in China on Sunday and had intended to distribute the Bibles to people in the city, Klein told the AP in a telephone interview while still at the airport.

“I heard that there’s freedom of religion in China, so why is there a problem for us to bring Bibles?” Klein said. “We had over 300 copies and customs took all of them from us.”

The move comes as China hosts the Olympics in Beijing, where false media reports last year claimed Bibles would be banned from the games. The state-run China Daily reported last month that 10,000 bilingual copies of the Bible would be distributed in the Olympic Village, which houses athletes and media.

Wow.

For three years and 11 months we don’t really care that much collectively about sports like swimming. Sure the diehards do, but the bulk of the populace spends as much time thinking about swimming as they do shoelaces.

But then the Olympics come around and its cool for a few weeks. But this time around it became THE thing to watch, and for one reason, Michael Phelps. The man is amazing.

I got into sports writing because I love watching athletics, especially big games. Put me at Little League championship game and I’m into it. Men’s softball. Field hockey. If there’s a trophy on the line, I’m into it.

Something like what Phelps did though, that goes beyond. There will be so many adjectives thrown about concerning his feats this week, and they’re all deserved. Eight gold medals, seven world records, that unbelievable come back last night. It’s phenomenal, which makes sense because he’s a phenom.

After these games end swimming will go back on the back burner in America. It will get the type of coverage that the rest of the fringe sports do. But Michael Phelps will always be a star and we’ll be seeing plenty of him in commercials and the like for the time being.

What he did may never be matched. What he did was simply amazing. What he did was something truly special.

We were honored to get to watch it.

I went to the movies on Friday night with every intention of buying a ticket for Star Wars: Clone Wars. The funny thing was, I wasn’t excited about it at all. That had never happened to me before, with each of the previous six Star Wars installments I had looked forward to going into the movie, although that excitement seemed to drop with each movie.

I think I was going more out of a sense of obligation than excitement or want. I wanted to want to go to the movie. I wanted to enter the Star Wars saga again for two hours and have a good time.

To get ready for the movie I decided to see what the uber-Nerds over at Aint It Cool News had to say. I found reviews by four different people, all of whom love movies and were raised on Star Wars like me. The reviews could not have been worse. They were curse-laden diatribes about how the movie was pointless and poorly done. The only thing that I garnered was that I probably wasn’t going to enjoy it all that much.

So fast-forward to about 9:45 PM and I got to the Regal Cinema in Mashpee with money in hand. I was about to buy my ticket for Star Wars but called an audible at the last moment. Why am I bothering? I kept asking myself that. So I bought a ticket for a movie I wanted to see instead, Pineapple Express.

I’m glad I did. Instead of putting myself through a long cartoon that I probably would not have liked all that much, I enjoyed watching Seth Rogen and James Franco channel Cheech and Chong. I’m not a stoner in the least, but I like a good comedy and these two were outstanding. The movie was ridiculous, and we all need a little ridiculous in our lives from time to time.

I won’t bother with a full review because it’s not the type of movie that you break down. I’ll tell you that Franco was about as funny as he could be and Rogen was Rogen. If you dig Judd Apatow movies, you’ll love this one.

Me, I knew going to the theater that I like Apatow movies. I wish I still loved what George Lucas was putting out.

So I was in the office this afternoon talking with Estah, who also has a blog on the web site here and she totally expected that I’d be glued to the Olympics, which apparently she is TiVo-ing at a maddening pace. She was surprised when I said ‘no.’

It’s just not programmed for guys. Sure it’s athletics, but the bulk of it is aimed at women. It’s a little after midnight right now, which means about 9:45 on the west coast, and what’s on? Women’s gymnastics. And they’re women only by name alone. These are little girls out there and you feel wrong looking at them in those outfits. Maybe it’s because I’m a dad, but I’m not into seeing these 16-year olds in those duds. And would someone please give them a cheeseburger. Some of them look so malnourished I keep expecting to see Sally Struthers come on the screen and tell me that for the price of a cup of coffee I can help the Chinese gymnastics team make it through the hard cold winter. Lyra thinks the Chinese girls look like they’re so underfed that they’re starting to have receding hairlines.

And they’re apparently supposed to be 16 to compete. Out of the mouth of my wife, not me, “they’re 14 at the most. They don’t look like they’ve hit puberty yet.”

Other than Michael Phelps, who is unreal, there isn’t much I’d care to watch so far. I think it’s funny that a wrestler threw away his medal today, and I guess in a “let’s all rubberneck the freeway pileup” it would have been interesting to see that weight lifter blow out his elbow.

I would have watched the USA hoops team today, but the game came on at 8 AM. What the heck? The men’s soccer team has apparently been knocked out, but if I could find an interesting game there I’d watch that. Heck I sat down and watched a half-hour of the Ivory Coast team a day or two ago.

But we just don’t get much guy stuff to watch. And it’ll be no better when the winter Olympics return in a pair of years. Why? Because all they show at night is figure skating. Sure it’s sports, but they program for the ladies. Thank goodness for the internet and the upstairs TV that gets NESN.

If you happened to throw on the Sox game late yesterday you must have been a bit surprised to find a football score. I turned it on in the second inning and thought that it was a replay of a past classic game and that they were in a rain delay or something. It was 12-2 at that point.

Twelve runs? Huh?

And it just got weirder. A friend of mine I was with said “this is going to be one of those 18-16 games.” Mike could not have been more off. Come on, it was obviously going to be a 19-17 game.

Had they blown that game, and they almost did, we may never have heard the end of it. WEEI would have callers that were lining up at the Tobin.

It was a big win, and the next few weeks are huge for the Sox. They need to win the division, and here’s why. If they end up as the wild card team they would face Anaheim in the first round, and they want no part of the Angels. And the Rays right now are finally showing some chinks in the armor. Longoria is on the DL and so is Crawford. Without those two guys the offense is going to suffer, so the Sox have a big chance to make up some ground and get the division lead.

Now’s the time.

Well, even though it’s bright and sunny right now, the Cape League in their infinite wisdom rained out today’s game. Talk about screwing up my day tomorrow, but whatever.

Anyways, since yesterday was the Road Race, I didn’t see the unbelievable Olympic relay swim team’s victory over the French, who were apparently talking smack prior to the race. Imagine that, rude Frenchmen. Woulda thunk?

So if you haven’t seen it either, check it out below. It’s an unbelievable final 20 meters.

It’s a big game, Falmouth v. Hyannis for a trip to the playoffs, or at least a trip to the play-in game tomorrow, so we’re gonna live blog tonight. Why not, right?

Issues that we know will be on the table tonight. 1) This game is big, but neither team is playing very well. Who wants it? 2) Is God Shammgod the greatest name in the history of sports? Is it World B. Free? Is it Chris Muafatumafala (or however you spell it)? And so, so much more.

7:06: Bill Bussiere is very happy. The Mets©, at least that’s what they’re called tonight, just captured the Commissioners’ Trophy. Job well done to the most affable GM in the league. Apparently the award was not judged by follicle count.

7:16: One inning in the books, no runs to speak of. The Commodores had two long outs in the top of the first from Coleman and Pollock. The Mets© went down 1-2-3, all K’s as Alex Wilson looks pretty good right now.

7:27: Whether or not the Mets© make it into the playoffs they’ve still had a very noteworthy season. Official scorer, Assistant GM, longtime employee and dater of a girl that is way out of his league, Will Bussiere, just informed me that the team has set two team, and league records this year.

First, third baseman Chris Dominguez (Louisville) tied big leaguer Frank Thomas, who played for Orleans, for most homers in one game during the wood bat era. Dominguez, who just laced a double over David Gustafson’s head, smashed three against the Commodores during a game in July.

Also first baseman Ben Paulsen has not committed an error all season. If he makes it through tonight’s game, and I probably just jinxed him, he would go the whole year without a miscue, which is pretty darn good. Coming into tonight’s action he had handled 398 chances without a mistake. He’s got one tonight so far. His next one is No. 400. Not too shabby.

7:45 Good second baseman talk for the Mets©. I complained that Matt Nuzzo got the start tonight over PJ Jimenez at second. Jimenez is a recent arrival from my alma mater, Liberty, and he’s on fire at the plate.

Okay, he’s 2-for-5 on the season, but hey that’s still .400. Nuzzo played two years for the Commodores and has seemingly been in the Cape League for seven years. How much eligibility do you get anyway?

8:15: I am the biggest media star in the world, maybe not, but I just spent an inning with John Cabral on the Mets broadcast. We then sung happy birthday, badly, for Chris Blake his partner. In the past few days I’ve written about the team, blogged about the team, done a game on TV and on the internet radio. Smoke signals are next.

By the way, the Commodores just took the lead, 1-0. Joey Wong squeezed in a run to give the Commodores the game’s first run. The team also just went to the bullpen. Rex Brothers, the left from Lipscomb is in for Alex Wilson. The starter worked four decent innings, but ran into some trouble in the fourth before he got out of a bases loaded jam.

Also, the Braves are winning 2-0 in Wareham. We could be headed to a play-in game tomorrow night.

8:30: While the game flies along we would be remiss if we didn’t get the press box’s apathetic view of the Favre saga ending. Basically we feel that a reign of terror over at ESPN and Sports Illustrated is finally coming to an end and America is being released. Who knew that Eric Mangini would play Jack Ryan in this passion play, freeing the hostage.

We are all quite pleased that we won’t have to get up-to-the-second reports any longer on whether or not Favre’s reporting to camp, or how Mike McCarthy feels about it all, or how the Lambeau faithful are clamoring for No. 4. It’s over, and we’re all relieved. And, I refuse to read the 10,000-word account of Favre’s text-messaging with Peter King at SI.com tomorrow. When did Favre become such a good text-messager anyways? Is he a quarterback or a junior high student?

8:40: Tie game. The aforementioned Mr. Nuzzo just shot the gap with a double to right-center to plate Casey Frawley all the way from first base. Frawley was flying around the bases. We’re knotted at 1-1 now. And we just found out that Wareham pulled to within a run, 2-1.

8:47: From the only in the Cape League Dept. There’s a large dirt hill over on the right field side of the field, way out of play behind where most people are sitting, and a large group of kids just discovered it. They’re playing King Of The Mountain. None of the participants appear to be any older than maybe nine years old, and they’re all determined to win. If only we had a steel cage. Someone’s going to get hurt, but watching it is a joy.

9:05: Top of the ninth, still tied up. No one wants to win this game it seems. We could be here a while. Milk was a bad idea.

9:23: Joey Wong just had the at-bat of the Cape League season to put the Commodores ahead 2-1. Bases loaded he saw three straight balls, then a called strike before fouling off four straight. Wong finally won the battle with CCBL reliever of the year Russell Brewer and drew a huge base on balls to plate the go-ahead run. Helluva an AB. Wong was pumped up on his way down to first.

The Commodores just went up 3-1. Trevor Coleman hit a ball deep into the hole at short where Casey Frawley went to his backhand, but was tardy with his throw to second. Mike Thomas scored on the play and the Commodores have some much-needed insurance.

9:30: Looks like we’ve got a play-in game. League MVP AJ Pollock just greeted new pitcher Andrew Caraway with a double to the gap in right-center, two runs scored, it’s now 5-1 Falmouth in the top of the ninth. Bourne is still winning at Wareham in the ninth, 2-1.

9:39: It’s a final, Bourne won, 2-1, the Commodores just finished off the Mets, 5-1. Playoff game tomorrow night at Fuller Field at 7. Until then …