Archive for April, 2009

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.