Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Easiest job in the world? I'm guessing copy editor at ESPN.com. Here's the Boston Bruins current roster.

The B's apparently have not one, not two, but three players from a country that hasn't existed since 1992. I suppose that it was technically their birthplace, as they were all born before the split. But still...

He Couldn't Get Any Lower

Or could he? I had to read the article to be sure.

Because what ESPN.com said happened to Lawrence Taylor could be taken in more than one way.

That's low, man.

Overrated

I'm not a big fan of taunting. I'm talking specifically about sports fans taunting opposing players, coaches and, worst of all, fans. Although I do tend to frown upon taunting in regular life too. ("You call yourself a cabby? Any idiot knows you take 10th Avenue. STUCK in TRAFF-ic!" [Clap. Clap. Clapclapclap.] "STUCK in TRAFF-ic!" [Clap. Clap. Clapclapclap.])

I think it shows an ugly side of human nature that people would take more pleasure in the downfall of another than they would take pleasure in the achievement of their own team. As a born-and-bred New Englander and longstanding member of Red Sox Nation, I hate the Yankees as much as the next guy. But when the Sox beat the Yanks, I'm happy that the Sox beat the Yanks. I'm happy for the Sox. I'm not as concerned that the guy wearing pinstripes feels personal shame and humiliation.

So, I'm not really into the chants of "Yankees suck". Partly because it's so patently untrue that the whole enterprise smacks of wishful thinking and is therefore more than a little bit pathetic. The Yankees are, historically and currently, the least sucky team in the history of professional sports. Why else would we bother hating them? And "Jeter swallows" is downright offensive. I will say no more on it, lest it be dignified. (As if such a thing is possible.) I'd rather cheer my team on than attempt to degrade another, no matter how much I don't care for them.

Which brings me to today's real point of contention, chanting "o-ver-rat-ed" at a team that is being vanquished by another, presumably underrated, team. This is taunting, of course. But, even more than chanting "[the other team] sucks", it paints the chanter as a bit ignorant and as someone who is actually dissing his/her own team.

Listen. If the other team is overrated, that means that they're not really as good as the conventional wisdom holds. Which means that when you're chanting that the other team is overrated, you're really demeaning your own team. "Hey, those guys really aren't all that good!" So, now you're crowing that your team just survived a squeaker with a team that isn't very good? What does that say about your guys?

Wouldn't it be more uplifting to say, "You guys are a very talented assemblage of physical prowess and game management. And the team for whom we cheer has defeated you, making them even more awesome and reflecting their glory on us who wear the same colors as we cheer!"

I reckon that doesn't make much of a chant.

That Was One Hell of a Hockey Game

I like how the Boston Globe shows us the scores of the most recent games played by the local boys and their next opponent. It allows us to recap the recent history of rivalries and jog our fond memories of the last time, say, the Celtics played the Grizzlies. Good times.

Remember that freaking awesome B's-Canadiens game last time out? That was a statbuster.

I remember they pulled both goalies early in the first period. Everyone on both teams got hat tricks. It was a major boost to the local millinery economy. Let's do it again, B's!

Belichoke

This was one of the most humiliating losses in New England sports history. And no one should have to tell you that that's a pretty high bar to jump.

I won't be the first to say it and you can be certain that I'll be far from the last. But I'll say it anyway.

WHAT THE HELL WAS BILL BELICHICK THINKING?

Okay, technically, I do know what he was thinking. He was thinking that all my offense has to do is get two yards on this next play and the game's over. But if they don't, Bill? Then you have problems. And everyone in New England cursing you out for weeks, possibly years, on end.

Ordinarily this situation (4th & 2 on your own 28 yard line) is a no-brainer. You punt. You simply punt. There isn't even anything to consider. Even if you're fairly confident that you can get those two yards, the potential downside is too horrifying to risk it. The only reason Belichick would go for it would be to keep the ball out of the increasingly dangerous Peyton Manning's hands. But if you're concerned that Peyton Manning can take the ball 70 yards on you, shouldn't you be even more concerned about leaving him only 29? Huh?

It also sends a terrible message to your defense. Boys, we can't trust you to keep a team from going 70 yards in under two minutes and driving it all the way into the end zone. How pathetic is that?

The Pats had already done some dumb things in the game. They tried to sit on their lead (which, truth be told, should have worked) in the fourth quarter. And they blew two timeouts in bizarre fashion, which precluded them from challenging the spot on The Play of Stupidity. Although they probably would have lost the challenge anyway.

But another play that no one is mentioning in the shuffle was almost as important. Here's the situation. Manning and the Colts are storming down field in what looks like an inevitable touchdown drive. Their first play is an easy 15-yard pass to Reggie Wayne. On 1st down from the 14, Manning hands it off to Joseph Addai. He zips through a giant hole and looks like he's headed for the end zone. Vince Wilfork and Ron Brace make a herculean effort to drag him down at the 1. Great play? Maybe if there were only 5 seconds left. There is 1:20 left on the clock. This is important.

If Addai scores the touchdown, the Pats have 1:10 or so (after the kickoff return) to try to get into field goal range. Even with no timeouts, it's possible. After the tackle, the clock runs down to 0:36 before the next play starts and when the Colts finally punch it in there are only 16 seconds left.

Now, I'm sure some will say that you never let someone score on purpose. You give your defense a shot at stopping them. And yes, they may have stopped them. But Belichick already made it quite clear that he didn't think he could stop Manning from gaining 70 yards. Why would he think he could stop him from getting 1?

This is a game that was in the bag. That isn't smart analysis. It's just a fact. There is no excuse for losing this game. Give credit to Peyton Manning for taking full advantage of the Pats' terrible decision-making and execution in the fourth quarter, which they started with a 17-point lead. Even with that, not any schmo could have pulled this out. It took a superstar. But the Pats should have known better than to give him the chance. Shame.

59-0

It's been a gruesome week for New England sports fans. We've had a splendid decade up to now so it's tough for us to complain about anything for a while. But the Sox made us remember what it was like to be a Sox fan pre-2004 in last week's Game 3 vs. Los Angeles. (That was Spanish for "The Angels", by the way, not English for "Los Angeles", the city, where the Angels don't play.) 9th inning. Two outs. 6-4 lead. Bases empty. 0-2 count on the #9 hitter. One strike away from getting back in the series. Oh, and on the mound is a guy with a lifetime playoff ERA of 0.00. Howzit end?

Yep, feels like old times. Painful.

We tried to make ourselves feel better by switching to the Patriots game. Hurray! A 10-point lead at the half! The Pats are back! Oh, no.

That's what it used to be like to be a Pats fan too.

So thank you, Patriots, for giving us a good old-fashioned ass-whupping yesterday. 59-0! What was that score again? 59-0.

I just need to type that again. 59-0.

One more time. 59-0.

"Yes!" you say. A shutout! Okay, yeah. A shutout is, like, 10-0. Or 13-0. Usually when you score 59 points, the other team scores 35. But no. The 0 is great but it isn't exactly the number that pops out at you, is it? It's the one that starts with 5 and ends with 9. Okay, have to do it again. 59-0.

The box score at halftime was already absurd. 45-0. (An NFL record, by the way.) Tom Brady with 345 yards and 5 touchdowns. We didn't even want them to come out for the second half. Really, nowhere to go but down. Seriously. I mean, think about what would have happened if the second half wasn't a letdown. If they just equalled the first half, the score would have been 90-0. Brady would have destroyed the single-game passing records with 690 yards and 10 touchdowns. Impossible!

So, all they really had to do was not suck in the second half. Well, they outscored them 14-0, mostly with backup QB Brian Hoyer making sure Brady didn't get cheap-shotted out of the game for no reason.

A letdown? Yeah, but who's complaining?

Oh, and by the way, the Titans two quarterbacks combined to complete 2 of 14 passes for -7 yards. Yes, that's negative. Wow. They completed just as many passes to Patriots players.

Feeling better about this team, we are. Please, Patriots. More of this.

PYSBRIoM: Doug Glanville

I was cool to this guy's blog at first. Who needs another ex-jock yapping about a game that he never was a superstar at in the first place? I can be judgmental. This is where I am deficient. To my credit, I did come back and read it every now and then. I like to give people a reasonable opportunity to win me over. This is where I am not deficient. Glad I did.

Doug Glanville knows the game and he knows how to write. Just as importantly, he's the rare smart jock whose intelligence and interests range well outside of the foul lines. I've been watching baseball (and reading about baseball) for many years. But there are very few writers who can hold my interest on the topic. There is the occasional Roger Angell, who isn't really a baseball writer but a writer who happens to write about baseball. Or revolutionary stat geek like Bill James.

But Glanville has won me over with his clear-headed and informative bits about baseball culture and the real struggles and concerns of the human beings that play the game. His current piece is about why players should bother showing up when their team is clearly going nowhere. Believe it or not, they should. And Glanville will tell you why. He gives even longtime fans new things to think about.

Insensitive Asshole Wins Golf Tournament

This is pretty much the definition of bittersweet.

Virtually unknown professional golfer comes out of nowhere to capture his first major tournament. Sounds pretty sweet, huh? Yay, Stewart Cink!

But no. The whole week everyone was watching 59-year-old has-been (and not-really-expected-to-be-at-his-age) Tom Watson, who had been leading for most of the week at this year's British Open. Piss on this story if you dare. Nobody who was not related to another golfer in the tournament wasn't rooting for the old dude to reclaim his former glory.

He didn't. And all he had to do was make par on the last hole, even after Sink birdied it. Nope. Didn't happen. Well, there was still a four-hole aggregate playoff. Oops. The geezer really croaked on that one. Oh well.

How much does it suck to be the guy that wrecked the feel-good story of the year? I bet the first-place money helps. But still.

Thanks for winning, you big jerk.

It's the Only Thing That's Free in the Sports World

The Los Angeles Lakers had no business winning last night's Game 4 of the NBA Finals. No business. People say this kind of thing all the time. "Shoulda done this... Shoulda made that... Shouldn'ta let 'em do the other thing..." But really. No business. The game was over.

Here's the situation. You need this game to tie the series at two games each. Your team has a three-point lead and possession of the ball with fifteen seconds left in the game. You pass inside to your big man who gets fouled in the act of shooting with 11.1 seconds left. Game over? Game over.

Now, all the big man has to do is make one of two free throws to make it a two-possession game and end it. Said big man is a 50% free throw shooter. Which is terrible. But really, just make one and we're done here.

Big man misses both. Okay, still we have a three-point lead. The only way the other guys can tie and send the game to OT it is to make a three-pointer. How do you stop that? Well, good defense is one way. Another way is to foul the other guys before they get into a shooting situation. Duh. Worst case scenario: they make two free throws and you get the ball back and then they have to foul you blah blah blah and then the clock runs out.

So what happens? They inbound the ball. You get back on defense. Your guy guarding the man with the ball doesn't foul him but sets up to defend two feet behind the three-point line! Guess what happens.

There is simply no excuse for losing this game. None. The Magic should be ashamed of themselves. Even with their atrocious free-throw shooting (they missed fifteen overall and seven in the fourth quarter alone) they still had the game locked up and they played stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

I can't even watch the rest of this series.

Which, it looks like, will now have just one more game.

Idiots.

The NHL Goes All to Hell

Now they've really done it.

The Pittsburgh Penguins, in their insane lust for power, have made a bargain with... ooh, I can't say it.

It all seemed so normal at ESPN.com.

Celtics looking old and glum. The usual hirings, firings and trades. But wait, what's this in the Headlines section?

Pens turn to whom? SATAN? Oh no. For shame, Pittsburgh. Is winning really worth your immortal soul?

Okay, okay, I'm probably only about the eight gazillionth person to make fun of this guy's name. Even Yahoo Sports thinks it's funny. Don't believe me? Check out the URL to his profile there. And it's pronounced shuh-TAHN. I guarantee you he will never play for the Devils. That would be just too too much.

Will and Grace

I've noted several times that as much as I disagree with George Will politically, I do respect him. And when he writes about baseball, I downright love him. He has great knowledge of the game's history, rules and arcana, and he's a fantastic writer.

He has a terrific piece in today's WaPo about umpires, which I can't recommend highly enough.

The whole thing is great but this particular bit is priceless.

"Sport -- strenuous exertion structured and restrained by rules -- replicates the challenges of political freedom. Umpires, baseball's judicial branch, embody what any society always needs and what America, in its current financial disarray, craves -- regulated striving that, by preventing ordered competition from descending into chaos, enables excellence to prevail."

I'm swooning. Enjoy.

Coach Cal Likes Him Some Bluegrass

'Cause it's really green.

A little over a decade ago, John Calipari put UMass basketball on the map. With the help of current NBA star Marcus Camby, he took a program that was strictly local and made them, briefly, a national power. After a few exciting NCAA Tournament experiences, they got all the way to the Final Four in 1996. Although, due to some hanky-panky involving Camby and some overzealous agents, they were stripped of their appearance after-the-fact. Which is like getting your marriage annulled. The official papers say it never happened, but everybody knows better.

Coach Cal split right before that particular piece of shit hit the fan to coach Memphis. He's done pretty well there too, taking the Tigers to the Final Four in recent years and making them a national power, albeit one that can't make a free throw, clutch or otherwise, to save its life.

Now he's bolting for Kentucky and a whole pile of money. It's kind of ridiculous that the NCAA still likes to pretend that it's a loving caring organization that functions like a souped-up PE class for the future doctors and lawyers of the world, when at its high end it's basically a professional sports organization that doesn't have to pay its talent. Oh, yes, free education blah blah blah. Like all of those freshman who play one year at OSU or Kansas and then bolt for the NBA. I'm sure they're using their education well.

So, without paying the players, there's plenty of scratch left for the coaches. And Cal is going to be making close to $4M a year to mold fine young men into Wildcats. While they cut the women's soccer team due to "lack of funds". Wonder where they went.

UMass, meanwhile, has sunk back down to their prior level of irrelevance. They made it to the NIT final last year, and then they had another coach bolt on them and started really sucking again. Former UMass coach Travis Ford is now happily coaching at Oklahoma State, who happened to make the big tournament this year. Hey, it worked for Cal.

I'm Not as Mad Now, Unfortunately

So, the NCAA Tournmanent kicks back into gear tonight. I feel like I should be more excited about it than I actually am. As we get deeper into tournaments, the excitement is supposed to build. Now we're getting down to the nitty-gritty, with only the best teams vying for the top spots. The wheat has been separated from the chaff. That's good, right?

And for me, personally, this should be more exciting. For the first time ever, my bracket is actually in contention. (This is in no way due to any act of prognostication genius on my part. I picked only one team seeded lower than 4th for my Sweet 16, and that was #5 Purdue. Whoopee. My success is due entirely to cowardice. But hey, it worked.) So what's the issue?

I'll tell you. The tournament gets less interesting as it goes along because it gets less crazy. There's a reason they call it March Madness. It isn't because we all can't wait to see two big-conference teams squaring off in the championship game on a Monday night in early April when we'd rather be watching the newly-minted baseball season. It's because we love those first four days in which 48 of the 64 teams get knocked out in an orgy of hoops hysteria. It's a feast, particularly the first round, with 16 games on each day. 16!

The possibilities of those first two days are fantastic. Everybody's bracket is a potential winner. And is this the year that a 16-seed finally beats a 1-seed? And the fact that there are usually four games going at once means that if you're watching a dog from Boise, odds are CBS has something good ready to roll over in Dayton. And hey, you dopes! Why are we watching this game when the other game is so much closer and only has 1:27 left in it? Come on!

Then it's over. The George Masons and the Davidsons of the world eventually turn back into pumpkins and the North Carolinas and the UConns take their rightful place at the top of the heap. The level of play may be higher but it's just not as much fun. Oddly enough, focusing on only one game at a time seems like a letdown, even if it's a better game.

So go, all of the other teams in my bracket. At this point in the tournament you'll need to be twice as good to be half as interesting.

A Curt Meditation, Entirely Lacking in Schilling

So pitcher Curt Schilling has announced his retirement. To which the response would be, "He wasn't retired?"

I've always had mixed feelings about Schill. He was inspirational in 2004. The bloody sock game was one of the highlights of Red Sox history. And he said he was coming to end the World Series drought for the Sox and he did. Bravo, Mr. Man.

On the downside, right after the 2004 victory he went right out and started shilling for George W. Bush's election. (Not re-election, mind you. He lost the first time, as we seem to forget.) This is his prerogative, of course. I can't stand it when people say that Bruce Springsteen and the Dixie Chicks should just shut the hell up and sing. Schilling had every right to speak his mind. But it made me like him a lot less. Call me petty. That's politics.

Also, guess how much he made last year. "Wait a minute," I hear you saying. "He didn't pitch last year." Nope. But he banked $8 million for not pitching. And this was not the tail end of a multi-year contract. He signed a one-year deal, knowing full well that he may never actually suit up. Is this his fault? Hell, no. If you told me you'd give me $8 million for not pitching, I'd ask where to sign. But still, it rankles.

So hasta la vista, Curt. Thanks for the great stuff. We won't be calling though.

The Future Is Now, and It Shoots 33% from 3-point Range

It's finally happened. Images have been coming to us from...THE FUTURE!

A picture of NBA star Sam Cassell has recently emerged showing how he will look seven months from now. It's downright eerie.

Apparently, in the future, recently-traded reserve Cassell will return to the Celtics. And pose for a photo!

Next, photos of Barack Obama's seventh State of the Union address and Brad Pitt as an actual old man.

This Man Is a Hall-of-Famer!

Yeah! Jim Rice! It's about time, BBWAA.

Jim Ed was my favorite player when I was a kid. His career stats don't look all that impressive compared to some of the bloated figures from the steroid era. But from about 1977-1983 he was the baddest badass in all of baseball. No one was more feared.

He's been considered a marginal choice for the Hall by some, but for those of us who remember what he could do (and, okay, grew up in New England) he should have been picked long ago. His prickly relationship with sportswriters certainly contributed to the delay.

Congrats, Jim. It took way too long, but the plaque's finally going up now and it's not coming down.

Playoffs Schmayoffs Dismayoffs

As much fun as it was watching the Patriots scrape out an 11-5 season after Tom Brady bit the dirt in the first quarter of their first game of the season (compounded by a whole pile of other injuries), it's going to be correspondingly unfun not watching them in the playoffs this weekend.

Some people hem and haw and say "They deserve to be in the playoffs!" and "The system is unfair! It should be changed!" I'm not into that. Everyone knows the rules going into the season. You have to either win your division or be one of the next two best teams in your conference. Didn't happen. Do they "deserve" to be in the playoffs? Without question. They're way better than most of the teams that are still alive. Is it unfair that they aren't in the playoffs? Absolutely not. They simply didn't qualify. Dem's da berries.

But, just to get it out of my system, here are some stats for ya.

4/12: Number of teams in playoffs with a worse record than the Pats out of total number of teams in playoffs. Three other playoff teams went 11-5.

1: Number of games more than the Patriots that the New York Giants won this year. The Giants. Yes. 12-4. Where are they now? Why, not only in the playoffs but with home-field advantage throughout. Ha!

4: The tiebreaker that lost it for the Pats. Tiebreaker #1 is head-to-head (1-1). Tiebreaker #2 is division record (both 4-2). #3 is common games (both 11-3). #4 is conference record. Miami was 8-4 and the Pats were 7-5. You may as well flip a coin. Wait, that's Tiebreaker #12. Oh, well.

10-6: The Giants' record last year, when they won the Super Bowl. Also the Pats' record the first year they won it. Also the record of the Vikings this year. The Vikings? Division winners. Playoff-bound. Had a better record than...

9-6-1: Eagles. Playoff-bound. Wild card, even.

9-7: Cardinals. Playoff-bound. Division winners.

8-8: Chargers. Playoff-bound. Division winners. 8-8? 8-8! The Cardinals could have finished 8-8 and won their division too. And almost did.

And by the way, the Chargers and Cardinals compiled those records in really crummy divisions. Although the Chargers did beat the Patriots this year. (But the Cardinals beat the Dolphins, and the Chargers were a better team, really. Ecch.)

The Patriots would have been fun to watch in the playoffs, what with Matt Cassel figuring this game out and all. Alas and alack, we'll get to watch the stellar Vikings-Eagles matchup and the highly-anticipated Falcons-Cardinals contest. It's annoying, but those are the rules.

We can whine all we want, but it all would have been immaterial if the Pats had just beaten the Jets at home in November.

No Fine Lamer

New England Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker seems like a decent fellow. And he's having a heck of a year. When I saw the brief headline "Welker fined" on the ESPN website, I thought "How surprising. Welker is not the type to get into a fight with anyone. I wonder what he did."

Oops. Here's what he did that was so horrible.



He made a freaking snow angel after scoring a touchdown. He didn't hit anyone. He didn't threaten anyone. He didn't get all up in anyone's grill and say anything about their mama. He didn't even point at anyone and say "Your skills as a professional football player pale in comparison to mine! Enjoy the taste of this!" He just made a snow angel.

Come on, NFL. This is stupid. You're draining the life out of your sport with these lame-ass rules meant to prevent people from "taunting". I'm against taunting too. But there's a big difference between taunting an opponent and simply expressing joy at one's own accomplishment. If you can't see the difference, well, enjoy your $10,000. Which, by the way, was assessed after Welker's team was already punished by having a 15-yard penalty thrown at them. Excessive? Yeah.

Your Baby Doesn't Love You Anymore

That's right, Roy. It's over.

Well, the Sox came up a bit short last night. They had their chances, most notably in the 8th inning, when Joe Maddon used 5 pitchers to get 3 outs and the Sox left 3 men on base with 0 runs scored. The 9th seemed like an afterthought with the bottom of the Sox lineup batting.

Oh well. I don't feel as bad about it as I might. Maybe because we've already had some fun in the past few years and the Sox have a bunch of nice young players (and a whole lot of money) that will keep them competitive for the foreseeable future.

It's distressing how many runners they leave on base (they had the "advantage" in that department of shame 8-3 last night and left 12 on the night before, although they managed to win that one in spite of it) but the bottom line is that they just got beat by the better team. And it was kinda fun. Except for Games 3 and 4, and the first 6 1/2 innings of Game 5, which were torturous.

I almost would have felt bad for the Rays and their (newfound) fans if they blew this series after the absurd lead they chunked in Game 5. I'm not into schadenfreude. Even for Yankees fans, believe it or not. (Well, maybe a little for Yankees fans.) So the Sox' losing spared me some guilt. But I would have found a way to live with it.

The Rays, as much as I've hated to let the thought creep into my natural-order-loving brain all year, are a really good team and they earned it. Hats off to Maddon and to Matt Garza for pitching a phenomenal game.

Not sure if I'll be taking sides in the World Series. Lots of people want to see the team that beat their team lose to feel some kind of revenge. I've always been more of the opinion that you want that team to go all the way. That way you can say "Well, our guys lost to the champs. It may as well have been the finals."

Unless it's the Yankees, of course.

They're Alive!

Holy shit!

Saying that the Sox snatched victory from the jaws of defeat last night does not do the game justice. They were just 7 outs away from elimination and losing 7-0. They had been outscored 29-5 at home in over 2-24/27 games. They had nothing going for them. Nothing. A rerun of the utter shame of the previous two games. At this point they were just trying to avoid being shut out at home in the playoffs for the first time in 90 years and get ready to tip their hats to the Rays, who, credit where it's due, have been outstanding.

Then Dustin Pedroia knocked in a run with a single. Yippee. One fewer point of shame in this game. But, then...

Big Papi, 1 for 16 in the series and more accurately referred to as Big Poopi, went kablammo to make it 7-4. Huh? Do not do this to us, Sox. Do not. Do not get our hopes up.

Next inning, J.D. Drew knocks a two-run shot over the right-field fence to make it 7-6. At this point, we somehow knew that this was going to happen, even though they were still down and now only 4 outs from elimination.

Coco Crisp had one of the best at-bats I've ever seen (10 pitches!) to stay alive and knock in the tying run with a base hit.

They got into the bottom of the ninth still tied, thanks to a timely double play in the top half with two runners on. And J.D Drew came through again with a line drive single to cap off the most holy-motherlovin-crap-I-can't-believe-what-I-just-saw game we're ever likely to see.

This would have been amazing if it were just a regular game. The fact that this was an elimination game and the Rays had the champagne ready and the lockers covered with plastic just sent it into the stratosphere.

I'm sure that Rays fans are now feeling like we did in 1986. But hey, they're still up 3-2 and they get to go home (not that home is all that nice, but still, home) and face Josh Beckett, who in the playoffs so far has been about as steady as an epileptic with PTSD and a few bong hits in him.

The Sox still have an enormous uphill battle. But even if they can't get there, this was freaking awesome.