It's funny to see the way professional sports franchises operate sometimes. The Celtics sinking ship let Sebastian Telfair go because his off court behavior gave them a convenient excuse to drop him without much fanfare. The Patriots reversed field on their operating mantra during this season's draft weekend, forsaking the traditional high character guys fans have grown accustomed to over the last decade and a half for riskier, sketchier players. The NBA equivalent of a chicken running around with its head cut off is trying to take the high road while the NFL's shining city on a hill is suddenly trying to recycle bad citizens. Funny, indeed.

Of course, we all learned recently exactly how significant the decision to cut Telfair is. Bob Ryan emerged from his lair and wrote yet another piece to kick a man while he was down. Anotine Walker, Butch Hobson and Nomar have all merited this treatment in the past, and now it's Telfair's turn. The only thing that amazes me in all of this is that it took an eminent basketball mind like Bob Ryan nearly 10 months to see the flaws in Sebastian Telfair's game.

I suppose I am being somewhat unfair to Mr Ryan and not presenting his entire argument, but this is my blog and I can say what I want. And anybody who has read any of my past material probably can anticipate where this post is heading. Cutting Telfair is just one more in a long line of spectacular personnel failures in this Celtic regime.

The Sebastian Telfair catastrophe is one more step Ainge has taken to step out from under the albatross that was the Antoine Walker trade. Ainge didn't like Walker's game, so he traded him to Dallas for Jiri Welsch and Raef LaFrentz. Jiri added very little value. And Raef's contract was such a nightmare that Ainge unloaded him for a glass menagerie of failure and helped enable Portland to pull off a draft day coup and land Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy.

In the end, I am somewhat disappointed that the Celtics have let Telfair go. He was paid too much, produced too little and served to remind the last few people that really care about the Celtics that the team was in the hands of incompetent morons. Every time he took the floor for the Celtics he was a walking dilemma. He either embodied the fact that the people running the team have no practical conception of how to assemble a basketball team or that the people running the team are deliberately assembling a bad team. Either way, it suited me.

And now the Patriots are rolling the dice with Randy Moss, who has promised to revert to the Randy of old. People can take that one of two ways. Randy Moss will either burn up the league, catching passes, scoring TDs and delivering in big situations or he'll burn down Gillette Stadium. I am more inclined to believe the latter than the former, although the fact that the CHB has thrown down a gauntlet on this deal makes me far less certain of that than I was at this time last night.

I am not now, nor have I ever been a Patriots fan. And even though reports have Moss wowing the assembled luminaries by clocking in at an impressive 4.29 in the 40, I do not find myself convinced that the Patriots are the prohibitive favorites in the AFC. I remember the old Randy from his days with the Vikings. Nobody could run like he did, catch the way he did or terrorize defensive backfields the way he did. But there was always something missing. I think it was courage.

At least, by that I mean the courage to go out and put everything on the line to win a big game. Say what you want about Terrell Owens being a miserable, selfish cancer. But let's not forget that he came back from a broken leg in a month and a half to play in the Super Bowl, signed a waiver and outplayed eventual Super Bowl MVP Deion Branch. And let's not forget that there is no moment like that in the Randy Moss highlight reel. There are no postseason moments in there at all.

That's the Randy I remember. As I talked to my man who is a Patriots season ticket holder, I couldn't help but think of the Randy moments I will never forget. And none of them involved that famous Monday Night game where he punished the Cowboys for passing on him in the draft.

No, when I think of Moss, I'll remember the day a dreadful Giants team earned the right to be destroyed by the Ravens. They shut out the Vikings 41-0. And in all of that, rumor has it Randy sulked all game and didn't perform because he was upset that the powers-that-be in Giants Stadium wouldn't let his kid on the sideline. Truly that is the heart of a champion.

Then there was the tail end of the 2003 season when the Vikings needed to beat the Bears in Chicago to clinch a playoff spot. The Vikings drove down into the red zone, in a goal to go situation, and they looked to Randy Moss on a corner route. The TD would give the Vikings the lead, which would have put them in prime position to make the playoffs. And what happened? Charles Tillman, an unheralded rookie at the time, took the ball away from Randy, who didn't put up much of a fight for the ball and the season, in the end zone. The Bears won the game, the Vikings got a jump on the offseason.

Maybe all the optimism is warranted. Maybe the Patriots can awaken in Moss the fire that never seemed to be there when it really, really, really mattered. Or maybe his production over the course of the regular season will be enough to get the team in prime position for a first round bye and home field throughout the playoffs, so it won't matter if he disappears in the playoffs. Or maybe he won't enjoy playing in balmy Foxboro in November, December and January. Not to mention trips to Buffalo or New York in the dead of winter.

If he is so fragile that he coasted through two dismal seasons in Oakland because he wasn't happy, what will Randy Moss do if he experiences any adversity in New England. Will Stallworth be able to play a full season and be productive? Will Kelley Washington play up to his potential? Will the fact that the Patriots did nothing to shore up a weak offensive line come back to bite this team when they have to play the Colts again this year?

Only time will tell the answers to those questions, and the other fascinating conundrum... can Teddy Bruschi and Mike Vrabel combine to form a serviceable linebacker since they have lost very nearly two steps at this point? And before any Patriots fan reminds me that Matt Light contained Shawne Merriman and was a Pro Bowl alternate last season, think back to how that line held up against the Bears and Colts last season. I think I have a better chance of smiling at the end of this season than Patriots fans do.

This draft was very compelling, and not just because of Brady Quinn's humiliating Green Room experience. It seemed to me like a group of teams got together to see who could make the most spectacular mistakes. Kansas City may very well have pulled it off, passing on Joe Staley to take a wide receiver when they desperately needed to replace Willie Roaf and Will Shields more than they needed a wide receiver. But I think Philly took the cake, trading down to the second round to take Kolb, who looked to have a big future in Canada.

Let's not leave Miami out of this, either. Going with Ted Ginn Jr. will come back to haunt them. They faced a similar situation as the Radiers did this season. Both teams made the wrong QB decision last season, Oakland passing on Leinart and Miami signing Culpepper over Drew Brees. This time out, Oakland owned that mistake and took Russell over Calvin Johnson. Miami didn't own that mistake. In fact, they made it again. Instead of taking Quinn, they took a college receiver who will have more impact returning kicks than catching passes and went with the Mormon Chris Weinke in Round Two.

We also have a tool of note segment or three before I wrap up tonight. First, to Chicago fans who are enjoying the fact that Pat Riley gave them an easy victory in their opening round series, here is an action shot of the broadcasters of the second team in Second City performing the song "Summertime Blues" at a benefit concert. I get the feeling that this song probably made things worse for any one who found themselves feeling any blues, regardless of the season.

There there is this ____________ on Myspace. I really don't know which insult out of my vast store of insults to apply here. This tool transcends words like spaz and dork and tool and fist magnet. Maybe it's because he's Australian. Maybe this is considered cool Down Under. Either way, you'll have to supply your own insult for him, I am just too baffled.

And finally, there is this loser having a go at the eating of meat. Apparently eating meat is not eco-friendly. Apparently it takes too much energy and produces too many carbons. Just for the sake of argument, I wonder how many carbons it takes to produce the synthetic protein supplements that vegetarians often take. Not to mention the fact that there would be a bunch of cows running around once people like me stop eating them. And chemical castration is ever so much more humane and natural than killing them outright and feeding them to people like me.

Orwell himself had very little esteem for vegetarians, whom he deemed "food cranks." In The Road to Wigan Pier, he wrote:

"This kind of thing is by itself sufficient to alienate plenty of decent people And their instinct is perfectly sound, for the food crank is by definition a person willing to cut himself off from human society in hopes of adding five years on to the life of his carcase; that is, a person out of touch with common humanity."

Eating meat is part of what it means to be human. My ancestors scratched and clawed and invented their way to the top of the food chain. And they didn't do it so I could eat lettuce and pop protein pills. And I wonder how much energy and how many carbons will go into caring for generations of vegetarians living to be 100 when all the meat eaters like me have kicked off from coronary thrombosis at age 60.

Like the good episodes of the Simpsons and Family Guy, the Miami Heat's title defense might as well be ancient history. Like disco and Vaudeville, Miami is dead. I know this because it seems to be the principle under which Jay Mariotti is operating these days. The sad thing is, under the Even A Blind Squirrel Finds A Nut Now And Then Theorem, he's right. Miami can't beat Chicago. And there is a villain in all of this most people might not realize - Pat Riley.

It's hard to criticize a coach with seven NBA championships on his career resume, but I think Miami might have stood a better chance of defending their title with Ron Rothstein still running things. I don't know how many times Chicago has to exploit the fact that Miami is not quick enough (or perhaps motivated enough) to rotate to open perimeter players before Miami tries something different. Even if it didn't work, it would have been nice to see Miami try different looks.

Also, every minute that Eddie Jones and Udonis Haslem occupy space on the basketball court has become an affront against the sport. Udonis Haslem has been outplayed by PJ Brown, which baffles me since Udonis Haslem is supposed to be a guy who brings energy and hustle to the defensive end of the floor and the offensive glass. Isn't that what PJ Brown made a living doing in the NBA for the last quarter century (deliberate exaggeration)? So Udonis Haslem is being outplayed by an older version of himself, who doesn't really enjoy a reputation as a savvy, heady player. At least not to the extent that it would justify the humiliating fashion in which he has handled Haslem. As for Eddie Jones, he looks like he aged four years in the last two weeks.

Dwayne Wade is pressing, and he's committing way too many turnovers to only score 21 points a game. Shaq is playing well in the first half, when he manages to avoid foul trouble. Too bad that he can't avoid foul trouble. Part of this is his fault for not adjusting to the way the refs are calling the game, and part of it is the fault of the referees for calling touch fouls that cut one way. Based on what I have seen to this point, I feel Shaq would be morally justified if he grabbed Ben Wallace and hammered him into the floor with his fist as though he were Spike (the big bulldog from Tom and Jerry) and Wallace were Tom.

And this brings us to Ben Wallace. If you've been following this blog since its inception, you may have noticed that I don't think much of Ben Wallace. I once called him the evolutionary Bill Russell, which believe it or not is an insult to Wallace and the way the game is played now. Ben Wallace is very nearly able to influence a game on the defensive end of the court the way Russell could because offenses stagnate to wait for a superstar to score and because the refs are immoderately inconsistent with the way they call games.

Ben Wallace is like Bill Russell in the same way a savage kick in the groin is like a steak dinner. When Wallace wants to shift position to front Shaq whilst defending him in the post, Wallace grabs Shaq and uses his body as a lever to get himself into position quickly. That's some good thinking, fine, practical application of physics, but it's not basketball. Russell played Wilt physically but cleanly. He'd be rolling over in his grave watching Wallace defend Shaq if he were dead.

I just don't see how the Bulls were able to handle the Heat so easily in the first two games when I look at the two teams on paper. I realize that Chicago is a better, tougher team than they were a year ago. They're younger and more athletic than Miami. Miami has been decimated by injuries all year, and now that all the pieces are back and in place (even though Wade's shoulder is not healed) they're out of sync. Shaq and Wade missed so much time that the team isn't sure how to play with the two of them on the court at the same time.

Miami wants to look to Wade the same way they did last year, but with 1 and 1/2 shoulders, he just can't be the same guy. So the rest of the team is torn. They're used to looking to him. They want to look to him, but they also know he's hurt and it makes them tentative. This tentativity (it's a word now, baby) cripples them in every phase of the game. I think they have the mindset that D Wade will save them on offense, on defense and in a fire should one break out ingrained so deeply that they can't get beyond it. That's why they're slow in rotations and a bit stagnant on offense.

Antoine and the second unit turned this game around tonight in the second quarter. They forced turnovers, they shot well, they played with energy and they took the lead from Chicago. Meanwhile, while the game started to get away in the fourth, Antoine was on the bench as Haslem failed to track open shooters on the break, failed to catch two Dwayne Wade passes which resulted in turnovers and generally removed objects from the table. Finally with 3:10 to go, Riley put Antoine back on the floor.

I can see a certain logic in making sure that he was fresh for the most important minutes of the game, but with less than five minutes to go, there were stoppages for a called team timeout and a TV timeout where Toine could have been put back in the game. I understand that a coach has tough decisions to make. Toine was excellent in the second quarter, but not so good in the third. But the Heat were down 0-2 in the series, taking on water as the Bulls ran off a 15-2 run.

By the time Antoine came back into the game, it was just too hard to come back. Antoine was called for a charge and a flagrant with less than a minute to go, which hurt more than it helped. The charge was his fault. The flagrant wasn't. I though as I watched the game that it was just a foul, Antoine didn't hit him harder than the situation required and he tried to hold Deng up as he fell to the floor.

Even worse, with 30 seconds to go and counting and down by five the Heat were trying to foul while the ball was on the perimeter to extend the game. And of all times for the officials to swallow the whistle, that's when they did it. For all the touch fouls that they've called on Shaq through the first half of games 1-3, this time the Heat needed to drop Luol Deng to the floor to get a call.

The kick in the ass of a flagrant foul in that situation isn't the two shots, because it was in the act of shooting and the Heat were over the limit at the time. Any foul but a technical would have been two shots at the time. Possession reverted back to the Bulls so stopping the clock didn't help even a little bit. Down by 5, with 18.7 seconds to go, it would have been a miracle if Chicago had found a way to lose.

Interestingly enough, Dick Bavetta was calling this game. For those who don't know, his presence at games which the home team desperately needs to win has been a staple of almost every suggestion that the NBA attempts to assist high-profile franchises survive and advance in the postseason Bill Simmons has ever made. And it just so happened that the officials swallowed the whistle when the home team with huge star power desperately needing a win tried like hell to foul on the perimeter, right up until the time that Luol Deng hit the floor.

Regardless of how a person wants that game to turn out, a foul should be called when contact occurs on the perimeter in that situation. Even though the flagrant foul pretty much turned out the lights on Miami Heat, not only for Game 3 but for the series, Luol Deng hitting the floor didn't need to happen. I don't mean to insinuate that Antoine Walker deliberately knocked him to the ground. Even if I thought he meant to do it, I probably wouldn't admit it here, since I have gone out of my way to defend him dozens of times.

Luol Deng is a big piece of the Chicago Bulls. I think Mariotti rushed to pronounce him a closer after only two stellar playoff games. I think he was phenomenal in Game One; he beat Miami by himself really (not because he didn't have help, but without his tremendous game, Chicago couldn't have won). And he was excellent again in the second game. He didn't have quite as good a game tonight, but he certainly played very well. If he got hurt in that episode, it would have reflected poorly on Walker and it would have crippled the Bulls hopes to beat teams like Cleveland and Detroit.

I think Mariotti rushed to judgment on the closer status (the article is on Deng, the closer crack motivated by the person on Around the Horn, both likely motivated by something like the impulse to apologize for this drivel in a normal human). I have two reasons for thinking that. First, Mariotti is a total douche, a miserable person and a terrible writer. Obviously that would amount to more than one reason if they didn't point to the simple fact that it makes me want to vomit when I find myself agreeing with him even on simple facts like water is wet.

The main reason is that I think a guy has to take a team to a conference finals at the very least before he can become a closer. After all, the Bulls are now on the verge of winning their first playoff series since Michael Jordan walked the Earth. I think that Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Kirk Heinrich and Andreas Nocioni have not earned the right to be called closers, even if they were cut up and recombined into some sort of Frankentool. How can you be called a closer when you have not, to date, even closed out one team?

And before any one who reads this decides to get in my eye (I expect some negative feedback, because attacking Mariotti has attracted positive feedback in the past but I've never done it while being hostile to a Chicago team), I admit that every single one of the players I just combined into a Frankentool is very good. But let's not forget that I'm not a Chicago guy and not a Chicago fan (I'm not sure how to categorize the strange emotional attachment to the Bears that developed during my efforts to help build and maintain the Bears bandwagon last season).

By the way, I am aware of the Michael Jordan "comeback" with the Wizards, I choose not to acknowledge it any more than I absolutely have to. I was never really a Jordan fan, though I did root for his teams against the Utah Jazz and the Lakers during the three-peats and always against the Pistons. While I am not a Celtics fan now, I used to be right up until Ainge mounted his one man crusade against a team that had made a conference finals appearance and a trip to the second round before he arrived even though it had hired him.

I haven't done this much explaining in quite some time, probably since the inaugural post or one of my apology posts. But this is a weird post. I don't know that I've been as critical of a team that I don't hate as I had to be with Miami tonight. It's just not easy being one of the appallingly few Antoine Walker fans from Boston. I think all of them are included in my original seven readers.

I apologize for the coherence of this post. I'm not even drunk. But with the Heat playing, the Sox playing the Yanks and now the Mavs deflating in Game Three in Oak-town, I haven't found time to eat yet. The blood sugar is a tad low, so I have to wrap up and get my grub on. Before I sum up as best I can the many, many, many threads of this post, I want to add my voice to the number of people lamenting the fact that the NBA gives out its awards so soon after the regular season. How can Dirk be the MVP and Sam Mitchell Coach of the Year when their teams are on the ropes?

And that brings me back in a very long, meandering, roundabout way to my point (such as it is). There is no way Miami should have found itself in this position in the series with Chicago. Yeah, Chicago is younger and more athletic than Miami. But Miami is seasoned, with players who should know by now how to come up big in big moments. If you had asked me before the playoffs started which series could come close to being a desperately poor man's edition of the Celtics vs. Lakers series in 1987, it would have been the Heat vs. Bulls. Alas, thanks to Pat Riley and his determination to hide Antoine on his bench as though Employee Number Eight were the light under the basket in an inversion of the Biblical original.

I'm not as depressed by the demise of the Heat and the defeat of the Yanks as you might expect. Maybe it's because there was just an excellent episode of South Park (the Junior Detectives episode, I highly recommend it). Maybe it's the fact that Jackass the Movie is on right now. Or maybe it's the fact that I have the John Wayne opus The Horse Soldiers waiting in my saved programs on On Demand. Or maybe it's that Dallas is on the verge of dropping Game Three to Golden State like an overly ambitious Tae Kwan Do novice missing with a big crescent kick and dropping like a sack of potatoes. Who can say? But at any rate, good evening.

I am not a nice guy, nor am I tremendously sensitive. But even I have limits, there were some lines that I never intended to cross in this blog. I didn't want to do this, but with the way Red Sox fans find the fact that Matsuzaka hit A Rod and Jeter so piquant, I felt it was time for me to send a more serious message of my own. So without further adieu...

GREAT MOMENTS IN RED SOX HISTORY #7 - 8/18/1967

On August 18 in the middle of the Impossible Dream Season of 1967, Tony Conigliaro came to bat against Jack Hamilton of the California Angels. Hamilton's pitch hit Tony C in the face, causing massive trauma. Tony missed the entire 1968 season. He won the Comeback Player of the Year award, which now bears his name, in 1969, but he was never the same. By 1975 he retired because his eyesight was deteriorating.

Bob Ryan wrote a piece on the tragic event last year on its 39th anniversary. I thought this particular paragraph was worth noting:

But Aug. 18 is always a somber date for me, and, I'm sure, for many others. Tony C is the greatest of all ``What-Ifs?" in Boston sports history. When he stepped into the box in that fateful fourth inning, he was 22 years old. He was the Golden Boy, en route to the Golden Career. Who among us wouldn't have traded places with Tony C?

I just don't see how a fan base which professes to possess a sterling knowledge of baseball history can in one breath lament the pitch that ended Tony C's career but still enjoy the spectacle of Alex Rodriguez or Derek Jeter being hit because they wear another uniform. If Roy Halladay had hit David Ortiz or Manny Ramirez or JD Drew this evening, Red Sox Nation would have deluged Governor Patrick's office with demands that he call out the state militia and declare martial law to punish the offending pitcher.

Is it a really a coincidence that Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield has hit more batters than any other pitcher in Major League Baseball since the start of the 2003 season? Is it a coincidence that the Red Sox seem to dominate this Sports Illustrated feature on basebrawls, including this shot of Pedro Martinez getting his just deserts?

Pitchers who have spent significant time on the Red Sox currently rank 2, 3 and 4 in active leaders in hit batsmen.

The guy who comes to me with his Red Sox information has an insufferable bravado he uses when he talks about Red Sox pitchers hitting opposing batters "by accident." He pauses, which would add dramatic emphasis if his rhetorical gifts measured up to his opinion thereof. And it's typical of Red Sox Nation's reaction to the bullying tactics of the Olde Towne Team. And if you don't believe me, look at this shot of the famous moment when Varitek bravely stood up to A Rod.

It truly takes a brave man to stand up to another man whilst wearing a mask, helmet, chest protector, shin guards and a big leather catcher's mitt. Just ask a Red Sox fan, and that fan will tell you how tough 'Tek is and how that moment was an impressive achievement.

Maybe I'm being a little too harsh in reminding New Englanders of a superstar cut down in his prime and dying before his time because he was hit in the face by a pitched ball. But that is the end result of throwing 96 mile per hour fastballs as you learn to pitch inside, or try to remind the world that you own the inside part of the plate.

I understand that pitching inside is part of the game. But I don't believe that the Red Sox make mistakes when they hit opposing players. I don't know much about baseball as it's played in the Japanese League, but I highly doubt that they only pitch to half of the strike zone in the Far East. I just find myself imagining that it's more than a little coincidental that the two hitters beaned by Daisuke Matsuzaka were either notoriously successful against the Red Sox (Jeter) or on pace to break all records for hitting in the month of April (A Rod) while he learned the subtle nuances of pitching in North American baseball.

I think we all know how Red Sox Nation will react should the next message pitch hurt one of their heroes. What I fear in this situation is that Red Sox Nation will show as much dignity as they have in all of this discussion of the A Rod and Jeter incidents should another unfortunate incident like this

befall and opposing player in Fenway.

Bad times. Bad times, indeed. The Yankees couldn't get it done against the Red Sox at any point this weekend. But if I had a choice presented to me over the weekend where the Yankees could have won all three of the games against the Sox but Dallas would win game one of the series against Golden State, I would have taken the Red Sox sweeping the Yankees.

I hate the Red Sox much more than I hate the Mavericks, but they have over one hundred and forty more chances to lose this season. The Mavericks are much closer to an NBA championship than I ever want to see them. I don't think Golden State has any kind of a chance to keep this pace up against the Mavs, but the longer this series last, and the more competitive the games are, the less likely the Mavericks are to be at full capacity against better and deeper teams than the Warriors down the road.

I just don't see why Joe Torre went to Proctor to start the 7th inning. I thought Pettitte could have gone another 9 pitches. I think Proctor has been overpitched more so than any other Yankee reliever (even though overpitched isn't a word). I was pretty impressed with Chase Wright, though.

It would have been nice if he hadn't let up that epic barrage of home runs, but I have to respect his poise and class. There is no way on God's Earth that a team could hit four consecutive homers against the Red Sox. After the third straight homer, that next hitter would be better served wearing a suit of medieval plate mail armor to the plate. One or another of the gutless frauds pitching for the Red Sox would throw at his head.

That is another instance for the hypocrisy and fundamental dishonesty of Red Sox fans to rear its head. When a Red Sox pitcher throws at an opposing batter, it's part of the game. When some opposing pitcher hits one of the Red Sox, it is time for benches to clear and the Olde Towne Team goes to DEFCON 1 like they saw missiles in a satellite photo of Cuba. One would hope that a team with the unpleasant memory of the incident that essentially ended Tony Canigliaro's career in its past would show more sensitivity, but then what do I know?

I was very impressed with the overall quality of the play in the Devils-Lightning game this afternoon. Outside of one ill-advised pass by Brodeur which resulted in the second goal for Brad Richards, he was great. I know that after he's won 3 Stanley Cups, climbed to second all time in playoff wins and shutouts, I'm not breaking this story to you. But it's also the second time I've mentioned the NHL in this blog so bear with me.

Two things that bothers me about the Devils going forward. First, three Devils had breakaway opportunities on which they did not convert. Second, I still don't know why Lou Lamoriello fired his coach and took the team over (again) in the last week of the season. Last year, the team was sputtering when he did it. This year they had 102 points and the inside track on the two seed in the East. But they have the best playoff goalie currently playing pro hockey anywhere out there. Outside of Patrick Roy, I can't think of another guy I'd rather have in net, including Hasek.

Finally, I felt badly for the villain from the Chris Tucker film Money Talks. He did every thing he could to get the Tampa Bay Lightning to stave off elimination today. They came out with good energy in the second period, down 1-0 against Brodeur, who was great in the first. They almost came back and won.

I find myself wondering whether Pat Riley wants to win basketball games. Things looked bleak for Miami when Shaq went to the bench with his fifth foul at the 8:35 mark of the 4th quarter. They certainly did not look like they were going to get a whole lot better when D Wade joined him after he was called for his fifth with 8:26 to play. One would have thought that things were going to fall apart for the Heat at that point.

Unfortunately for Scott Skiles and the Bulls, their road to victory was made considerably more difficult by one man. It was Antoine Walker, and the Bulls had no answer for him, as he led the Heat back to within two points with 5:17 to go in the game. Thankfully for Bulls fans, Pat Riley decided that it was time to bring Shaq and D Wade in off the bench at that point. Here is the full game play-by-play, in case you're interested.

I realize that Wade and Shaq absolutely must be on the floor at crunch time. I was looking forward to their return. I just don't think Antoine needed to go to the bench with his twenty when Shaq and Wade had been on the bench for three minutes of game play and three of the Heat (Eddie Jones, Udonis Haslem and Jason Williams) who also played important minutes had managed to combine to score fewer points than Antoine.

By the way, I would pay money to see Eddie Jones do Shakespeare before I paid money to see him play basketball at this point. I understand that Pat Riley has a man-crush on him, but enough is enough. He was done like dinner in the last days of the Clinton administration. Maybe Antoine would have scored more consistently in the regular season if he'd played more minutes. Just a thought. I am also working on the theory that he might have scored more consistently had I watched more of his games. But there was work to be done on the Bears bandwagon, and injuries from which to recover after each time it piled up into a trestle.

Chicago promptly went on a quick 5-0 run, until Shaq picked up his 6th, and Toine returned. Antoine didn't score another point, but finished with 20. His 3 point shooting on the day was pretty good, and he was perfect from the freethrow line for a change. And I would say that his defense did not suck quite as much as the other Miami players' effort on that end of the floor.

Antoine, on the off chance that some one in your entourage reads this and can pass it along, please stop playing hard. You have no right to remind Celtic fans that you were the last person that really wanted to win in a Celtic uniform. Stop showing up Danny Ainge. He does the best he can, and it's not his fault that he cannot run a basketball team. Stop making Bill Simmons look bad for saying that you're moving like Fred Sanford these days. It's not his fault he's a tool, and people seem to prefer his wife's writing to his. He and J Bug or Joe House or Fist Magnet will always have the time they routed Norv Turner from a $10 blackjack table.

And above all, stop playing hard because it encourages the lunatic fringe that wish Ainge had never traded you. Just think, on a day when the Red Sox played the Yankees, I watched the Miami Heat play a basketball game because I like Antoine Walker. If only we lived in a free country, then a grown-ass man could eat what he wanted and watch what he wanted and hope that Charles Barkley runs for President in peace.

You need to see this clip from the Detroit-Calgary game. I know I rarely talk about hockey in this space, and then it's usually college hockey, but this is strange. I am almost speechless. I've never seen a goalie get a game misconduct. I'm sure it's happened before, I just don't want to do the leg work since it's Saturday afternoon and googling hockey was pretty low on my to-do list for today.

It caught me by surprise because I haven't been following that series with much interest. I assumed that Detroit was up 3-1 based on the fact the fact that the score was 5-1 at the time of the incident and the Flames were that frustrated. I didn't realize the series was deadlocked at two wins apiece. There's still a game to play, that ought to be interesting.

I am going to watch the New Jersey game tomorrow afternoon, so I may have a thing or two to say about it. If there are any compelling moments, I may be doing some more writing on hockey as the playoffs progress. I do like the sport, it's just that I have no energy to hate the Bruins with so much devoted to hating the Red Sox and the Danny Ainge era of Celtic basketball.

Here is my conservative prediction for tonight's NASCAR race under the lights in Phoenix: a semi-literate moron will win. Of course since that cruelly insensitive epithet covers the entire spectrum of NASCAR drivers, I have a 100% chance of being right. And let me tell you, it feels good, for a change.

And it looks like the meek are going to inherit the earth today in Fenway, or at the very least a baseball victory. It's not every day that you can defeat a pitcher like Jeff Karstens. Red Sox Nation has a lot to hang its hat on today.

PS - There is a Springsteen reference somewhere in today's post. I wonder if you can spot it and tell me the song from which it came.

There are some things in life that come down to a question of perspective. For instance, one man's glowing tribute to a deceased icon from another team in another sport in another era can also be another man's shameless attempt to exploit a populace of sheep when the market for a given team's paraphernalia is saturated. Apparently every fan who wants them must already have all the pink shirts and red shirts and blue shirts that they could justify owning. So the Red Sox brass cooked up a blatant, disgusting sham of a tribute to Red Auerbach tonight.

Perhaps I'm too cynical, and I allow my hatred of the Red Sox to cloud my mind. Maybe that's why I think it strange that the Red Sox chose the night of their first home game against the New York Yankees to lament the passing of the greatest basketball mind since Naismith. I'm sure it was just coincidence that it should happen to be a Friday night and a national TV game. There is no way that this fine event could have any ulterior motive.

Giving the devil his due, I must congratulate whichever of Henry's minions was responsible for engineering and marketing this "tribute." Even I, believing it to be artificial and in poor taste as I do, think it was brilliant. Bringing the 16 banners from the rafters across town to adorn the Green Monster before the game started was the mot juste. I only wish that I and my small band of loyal readers were that clever and that shameless, maybe then I'd break the century mark for daily hits.

Fortunately for me, the universe has a way of evening the scales. Somewhere, I think Red might have cracked a smile about something that happened in Boston sports for the first time in years after A Rod took Big Schill deep in the 4th. It was also edifying to see Mientkiewicz advance two runners with a sacrifice bunt to help the Yankees manufacture their first run of the night. Up until Varitek tied the game with what I can only assume to have been Sammy Sosa's infamous batting practice bat and Crisp hit that triple, I was convinced that the bottom three in the Red Sox order would struggle to manufacture a case of athlete's foot.

Interestingly, down by 3 in the seventh, Francona elected to pinch hit Wily Mo Pena for Pedroia with runners on first and second rather than sacrifice to advance the runners. Perhaps Francona was thinking (assuming he can, in fact, think) that Petite was tiring. Unfortunately, that was not the case. He struck out Pena, and Proctor came on to retire Lugo and Youkilis. It is also possible that Francona may not have even known the situation. Or maybe he just had no confidence that the top of his order could drive in runners from second and third with one out should he call for the sacrifice.

I understand that one run one run isn't going to tie the game there, and it is now a moot point because the Yankee bullpen made the lead go away in the 8th. But at least it's more proactive to sacrifice and advance runners to second and third with one out than it is to sit back and hope for a big inning. But I blame myself for the 8th inning rally more than I blame the Yankees or credit the Sox. I jinxed the Yankees, because I had written this joke: "that rally just died in Jason Varitek's arms as though it were the 1980s band Cutting Crew" as he stepped to the plate. I feel like a tool right now, but I leave it in for the sake of intellectual honesty.

And Francona was lucky that burning Pena by pinch hitting him when he couldn't field Pedroia's position did not come back to haunt him tonight. The fact that it would have made infinitely more baseball sense to pinch hit Cora and have him execute the sacrifice or strike out like Pena did than wasting Pena in the first place did should temper the pride Red Sox Nation derives from tonight's comeback victory ever so slightly. I will concede that pinch running for Giambi made perfect sense right up until the point where a spare part from and made up of lesser spare parts unknown made the last out of the game batting fifth.

The Red Sox had no confidence going into that 8th inning. You could see Schilling's man-and-a-half sized ego deflate when A Rod hit his second. Personally, I think that it should have counted as a grand slam, even though only two men were on base at the time. After all, Coco Crisp managed to fall out of the field of play into the home bullpen, very nearly breaking his back in the process. The total, complete and utter humiliation for the player and the team in that one shining moment ought to be worth at least one additional run on the scoreboard.

Even in the ninth, when the Sox sent Hideki Okajima out to pitch to the heart of the Yankee lineup, it could not help but remind Red Sox Nation that Papelbon must be treated with kid gloves as though he were Samuel L. Jackson's character in Unbreakable this season. But Okajima rose to the challenge. He was a little upset with some of the calls that led to the Abreu walk. And maybe he had a point, but Abreu has a reputation for having a good eye, and reputation goes a long way. There was a time when Greg Maddux could bounce the ball like a cricket bowler throwing a googly and still get a strike call. That's the way it goes.

The guy I go to for my Red Sox information actually called me before the game to get in my eye about the green uniforms. His quote at the time: "Think Notre Dame." Of course, I didn't point out that Notre Dame hasn't exactly produced the desired result in their last few green jersey games (last year's game against Army doesn't really count). I was saving that for a big moment, like the second A Rod homer, but alas, he wasn't taking my call.

I do have to give him credit on one point, he said that he saw Schilling letting up at least five runs tonight. And he had that part right. He wasn't concerned when I spoke to him before the game, because Pettite didn't scare him. I guess he was right about that too, since Pettite was good enough when he had to be, but not exactly dominant over his 6 and 1/3 innings of work.

Even with the Red Sox having all the momentum because of their impressive comeback, this shapes up to be an interesting series for the Yankees. It is not going to be easy to win tomorrow or Sunday, with Karstens and Chase Wright making their Fenway debuts. Pettite came up big for them, and it would have been nice not to have wasted his performance. It would be nice to have the Sox lose two games this weekend and a sweep would have been awesome, but that's obviously impossible now.

I must say I wonder whether the artificial confidence a sweep for the hated Red Sox would instill in Red Sox Nation might have been worth all the bragging bravado I would have to endure. After all, sweeping that mighty lineup would not be a miracle (or even a fair sized country wonder to borrow an expression from Edwin O'Connor) with the starting rotation decimated by injuries to Wang, Pavano and Mussina. A comeback against Rivera is nice, and three blown saves for a closer of his stature is not exactly encouraging even if it is only April.

Rooting against the Red Sox is far more important than rooting for any one team. I will enjoy the inevitable collapse of this team with its suspect fourth and fifth starters, still not exactly proven middle relief and pathetic hitters manning the last third of the order. The bullpen held the fort and even chumps like Varitek, Crisp and Cora can't get out all the time. It is possible that I should be more repentant or keep silent, but I'm just not that kind of guy.

After all, I can't help wondering now that all the king's horses and all the king's men managed to put Humpty Dumpty back together again...how humble is Humpty Dumpty? I'm surprised he hasn't posted yet. I wonder, since my technical consultant tells me that a hit on this site has originated from a password protected area of wordpress (which supports his blog) twice in the past two weeks, whether he's waiting on me waiting on him?

Before we get to tonight's post, I want to address something that came up in the comments on my last post. An anonymous reader called me a blowhard. While I'm quaking with shame, I'm also wondering, how many cool people have made a habit of using the word blowhard. Without having done the necessary legwork, I can't go ahead and say zero, but I'm going out on a limb and saying that it's in the low single digits. By the bye, I am leaving the kobrakommander out of that particular generalization, as he quickly came to my defense and used the word blowhard in turning the anonymous comment on its ear. And now, on with the show...

GREAT MOMENTS IN RED SOX HISTORY #6 - 5/1/2006

I know I just did a GREAT MOMENT IN RED SOX HISTORY installment two days ago, but I've been planning on this one for a long time now. I've been waiting for the eve of the first Sox-Yanks series to remind Red Sox fans that they are hypocrites. On May 1st last season, Red Sox fans (with a few exceptions) showed themselves to be classless idiots when Johnny Damon returned to town for the first time in a Yankee uniform.

Some fans did cheer him when he returned, remembering his accomplishments as the catalyst for the championship team in 2004. The majority of the fans were not quite so nostalgic, however, and Damon was booed each time he came to the plate. Boston.com provided a slideshow to document fan reaction. It was not a particularly stellar moment for New Englanders.

Red Sox fans called Damon a sellout, a traitor and other names in that vein. I found it fascinating then, and I still do today. In the end, after all, it's not as though Damon was a Red Sox draft pick. He didn't come up through Lowell, Trenton and Pawtucket. The Red Sox signed him as a free agent because they could offer him more money than Oakland could. Oakland in turn got him via trade with the Kansas City Royals, who were forced to trade him because they couldn't afford to keep him.

Apparently, baseball is only allowed to be a heartless, bottom-line driven industry only so long as it benefits the Red Sox. Yes, the Red Sox stepped in and signed a player that other teams wanted but could not afford. But that's where the cycle was to stop. The Red Sox were supposed to be the other team to end all other teams, which would make them the mother of all other teams (the line comes from an episode of Becker).

Unfortunately, that's not the way it worked out. Even though the fans with the gruff, cynical, Puritan-inspired exterior hiding a collective heart of gold embraced their idiosyncratic caveman center fielder, Damon departed for the greener pastures of the hated Evil Empire. Suddenly, Red Sox fans were able to ignore the past and assume their favored position - victim of Yankee aggression. And at the end of the day, nothing riles up Sox fans like the chance to gang up on a convenient target.

This particular image from the slideshow captures the spirit of the crowd that night.

It is convenient to assume that Damon is a traitor and a liar and harbor for any of a whole host of dishonorable traits. It helps people look past the business practices of their own team management.

That's what bothers me most about Red Sox fans. They can ignore the fact that Damon left two other teams before he left Boston because he is a mercenary player in a mercenary business. Red Sox Nation can somehow delude themselves into thinking that theirs is the only organization worthy of loyalty. New Englanders can look at a chart displaying the payroll figures for every team and see only the gap between the Yankees and the Olde Towne Team. They never seem to notice the two dozen odd teams in their own rearview mirror.

Red Sox Nation has an incredible gift for swallowing the propaganda that comes out of the team owners' mouths. How many asked the team if it did all it could to keep Damon? How many asked themselves exactly how loyal they would be to a baseball team if there were a question of $3 million per year in the balance? How many have wondered whether team management has a long term strategy other than simply trying to out-Herod Herod?

At this point, after more than two decades of living in the Boston area, Red Sox fans have begun to remind me of the citizens of Oceania from Orwell's classic 1984. The team sits in the center of the web, like the Ministry of Truth, revising its own campaign of misinformation each time a situation comes up (like Damon leaving for the Yankees) so that no matter what has happened the team tries to get the fans to believe that it is victim or victor. And the self-proclaimed most intelligent fans in the nation swallow it hook, line and sinker.

I don't think it's too early to wonder how the process will play out should the team decide that life no longer begins at forty for baseball players in the post-performance enhancing drugs era and Big Schill should take 38pitches to another city. How will Henry and his crew spin that tragedy?

GREAT MOMENTS IN RED SOX HISTORY #5 - 4/16/07

Ladies and Gentlemen, I realize that it's been a long, long time since I last posted one of these Great Moments in Red Sox History. But there really wasn't a lot I could do with the events that unfolded at the end of last season. The moments were either too insignificant or too catastrophic for me to mock. But that all changed on Patriots Day.

For the past year, I have portrayed Red Sox fans as a tribe of slackjawed morons, hypocrites and tools. And two fans sitting in the grandstand on the left field foul line decided they had to live up to all of the negative characteristics of Red Sox fandom in one shining moment of childish behavior. I'm sure you've seen this highlight a thousand times by now, but it's still worth watching again and again and again and maybe a fourth time.



So here it is, the triumph of Red Sox fan sophistication with the added benefit of Jerry Remy's keen analytical mind. One grown man took issue with another grown man eating a full pizza at a baseball game. In a free country. So the other grown man looked deep within his soul and summoned up every ounce of maturity he possessed. He took that maturity compressed it into a ball of fury, waited until his adversary was distracted by a foul ball and the opposing left fielder and lobbed a slice of the aforementioned pizza at the back of his antagonist's head.

It was a proud moment for Red Sox Nation. I have seen monkeys at the zoo comport themselves with a higher standard of decorum than these men exhibited. Of course when the monkeys are riled up what they tend to throw is a bit more unpleasant than cold pizza, but on the whole they're still better behaved than their less advanced cousins at Fenway.

I wonder what business is it of any fan's if a paying customer wants to eat pizza at a game. When a person goes to a game he or she tends to overindulge in unhealthy food and adult beverages. If the unhealthy food of choice happens to be pizza as opposed to the more traditional hot dogs or peanuts, so what? It's the same problem I have with people who decide that they and they alone are the arbiter of what potable can and cannot be consumed with a given food.

If I order a steak at a restaurant and I choose to have a Miller High Life with it, it isn't because I'm blundering along in the metaphorical darkness just waiting for some superior being to enlighten me as though I were one of the damn apemen from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's because I like steak and I like High Life. I am what Charles Barkley would call a grown-ass man. I can make my own decisions. People should leave each other the hell alone, that way they wouldn't get a piece of pizza whipped off the back of their domes.

That said, people really hadn't ought to settle their differences by throwing pizza off the back of people's domes either. But what can you do if you happen to be a Red Sox fan and as such only discover your courage when an adversary is outnumbered or has his/her back turned?

To give credit where credit is due, I have to thank the man I go to for my Red Sox info and the man I go to for my Chicago (the sports scene, the city and the band of the same name) information, both of whom sent me the youtube clip first thing this morning. Keep up the good work.

And if that's not enough, Mitt Romney wants you to be his friend. On myspace, if not in real life. If only he'd explain what Elvis ever did to deserve such shabby treatment.

I have a riddle for you. When is a win not a win? When an official goes mad with power, runs amok and ejects the best player on either team with little or no justification. Such was the case last night in Dallas, where the Spurs went into a funk after Joey Crawford kicked Tim Duncan out of the game on a insane power trip and lost to the Mavericks.

After a long silence on the subject of basketball, the Benefactor weighed in on this subject today. Mark Cuban doesn't want you to send him emails complaining about the officiating in the NBA anymore. He wants you to email the owners or managers of the other NBA franchises to stir up grass roots action to change the face of NBA officiating.

Of course, as a blogger who has long been critical of his hypocrisy, I have to wonder whether the Benefactor would have been so quick to bow out because of the severity of any fine the league would levy prevents it from being worth his while had it been one of his players instead of Tim Duncan. I have to think that had Joey Crawford had so much as troubled the serenity of Dirk Nowitzki by mentioning the fact that the German government recently tried to draft a four week old child into its war machine or pointing out that David Hasselhoff's music sucks, the Benefactor would have manned the barricades and screamed bloody murder. But that's just me.

That gets to the root of my problem with the Benefactor. More even than his atrocious personal deportment in the crowd at games, which constantly evokes the image of a spoiled four year old throwing a temper tantrum because another child is playing with his favorite toy, the fact that his concern with the quality of NBA officiating begins and ends with how it impacts the Mavericks.

If Joey Crawford broke a chair over a player from any other team's head, kidnapped his family to force them to participate in some ill-conceived cross-country race or sold poisoned milk to school children, Mark Cuban would keep his mouth shut. But if he misses one call that the Benefactor thinks should have benefited the Mavs, and it's go time. Even if David Stern decided to forgo the standard fine and handed Mark Cuban over to black market organ harvesters to exact punishment, the Benefactor would move heaven and earth to get his two cents heard.

And Mark Cuban doesn't want to be bothered by fans looking for a mouthpiece to articulate their discontent with NBA officiating. It seems like he should have made that call a few years ago, before he set himself up as NBA gadfly to get people to notice him. And if you don't think it's about ego with the Benefactor, then maybe you shouldn't read this little piece about what a tool Mark Cuban is.

I have a solution to his little problem. Email Mark Cuban to complain about NBA officiating. Email him to talk about the umpires in Major League Baseball. Email him to talk about the weather in your town. Email him to ask pointless, unanswerable questions. Email him to talk about sailing ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings as though you were the damn Walrus from Alice in Wonderland. Email Mark Cuban several times a day to tell him no one cares about his opinion on Google and YouTube. Just email him to tell him he's a tool and a hypocrite and wish the Mavericks an early exit from the playoffs when you email him.

I think I have reasonable precedent for this. According to legend, the eminent comedian WC Fields would send Elanor Roosevelt and the IRS letters every day to complain about them. I think you should take the time to complain about Mark Cuban, provided of course that you want to. God knows, if I ever become famous, I'm going to send a letter to remind people (like John Henry, Theo Epstein, Larry Lucchino, Danny Ainge, Wyc, Steve, Irv, the rest of Banner 17, Bill Simmons, the CHB, Bob Ryan, Jay Mariotti, Mark Cuban and others) that I don't like them.

Just do me one favor if you decide to email Cuban, keep it clean and don't do anything illegal. And do not under any circumstances send any complaints to the IRS. That sounds like one hell of a good way to get an audit, and I just don't need that hassle.

Tonight, we have a combined tool of note segment and random thing I hate thing segment for the first time ever. They both come out of that colossal waste of time that is the Boston Marathon. While I hate the marathon, it is not the random object of my derision tonight. Instead, that honor goes to the space program.

Space exploration was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be a giant waste of time and money. So what if we got Tang, Velcro and pens that write upside down. I just don't see how that and all the and a little flag on the moon justifies the billions and billions upon yet more billions of dollars of the next dozen generations' money that the government spent on the space program.

Even if there is intelligent life in the universe (based on what passes for it on this planet, I sincerely doubt that intelligent life exists anywhere), I just don't see how sending people up in rockets to do experiments of little tangible value is going to help us here on Earth. So what if aliens invade the planet to probe rednecks or kidnap people or kill us all.

And among all of the colossal wastes of both time and money in the space program, there is this gem. A woman at the space station was tethered to a treadmill to run the Boston Marathon in spirit. And on both Tax Day and Patriots' Day. The Founding Fathers must have been rolling over in their graves. They revolted against a relatively benign tyranny over a 3 cent tax on tea, and now we have a woman in space running on a treadmill at the expense of billions of dollars of public money.

Even better, the woman was running the Boston Marathon in spirit as a gesture of solidarity with her sister. Aside from the gargantuan waste of money, this struck me as a total fraud. First, if there were gravity on the space station, why did they have to tether her to the treadmill? And if there was less than normal gravity shouldn't she have had to run further? And how does it count, even if she'd changed the incline settings at the appropriate times? It's not like she ran real, honest to goodness, no fooling hills in the rain.

And on top of everything else, the woman was a Red Sox fan. There they were on TV, the banners, trappings and paraphernalia of the team I hate as the woman was wasting an entire nation's money in an exercise that was so obviously fraudulent. A perfect storm, in the metaphorical sense, and with no pun on the miserable weather.

As a special bonus, here is a second tool, with a bizarre infatuation for the terribly pointless UPS whiteboard ads.

There really hasn't been a whole lot to smile about on my end, what with the Red Sox on a tear, it's depressing but true. They've won 5 of 6. I had expected that the Anaheim Angels would prove to be a more formidable opponent than they have to this point. For some reason, as good as he is, I just don't like Vladimir Guerrero. He keeps letting me down in big moments against the Red Sox. I am not a fan of the Angels manager. At a certain point (I'm referring to the infamous time he nearly fought Frank Robinson), you're not a tough guy, or a legit guy for that matter, when you try to throw down with a 70 year old man, even if he is a hall of famer and a member of the 500 HR club.

I was talking to my source for information on the Cubs today, and even though the team suffers from a chronic lack of clutch hitting, he gave me some info that brightened my day a bit. It wasn't baseball related, either. I was flipping through the channels when I talked to him, mostly because I couldn't get interested in the Detroit-Calgary game. He told me that ESPN2 was showing the NCAA Women's Team Bowling Championship. So I tuned in, and it was pretty damn funny.

First of all, I have some difficulty accepting the underlying premise of team bowling. Different players took turns bowling in the same game. Then they would change lanes and switch up the lineup. All the while, the rest of the members of the team stood around. As far as I could figure out, there were five bowlers from each team rolling in a given game while the rest of the squad stood around offering moral support and waiting for their turn to bowl. I suppose there's no reason I can't google the rules and give a better explanation, but I just don't care enough about the game to do it.

Far more interesting were the players themselves. They called to mind the line delivered by the legendary actor Sir John Gielgud in Arthur: "Normally, someone would have to go to a bowling alley to meet someone of your stature." At the risk of seeming shallow and sexist, there were not a lot of lookers competing in the bowling championships.

There was one girl on Vanderbilt who looked like her nose had been broken and inexpertly set. But that helped to take attention away from the fact that she had a double chin and man hips. Also, that bowler wrist guard does nothing to enhance the attractiveness of a lady bowler.

Maryland Eastern Shore's bowling team was not much better. There was one girl who looked like a slightly more masculine version of Chris Griffin from Family Guy. Another looked eerily like Corey Feldman's character from The Goonies. She happened to be the lone senior on the team. I could not tell whether that meant that she was a four year player or she'd have to leave early if the match went into overtime so she could get to the early bird special at the local Sizzler.

Even the girls with pretty faces were a little thick through the middle. And I don't mean they were fat, just that they had child bearing hips, even if it came time to deliver a child the size of a full grown walrus. In an amazing coincidence, at least one of the ladies on the Maryland Eastern Shore bowling squad hailed from the town of Brick, New Jersey. Any joke I could make on that community and her appearance would be far too cruel even for me.

I know I'm verging on Don Imus territory with my insensitivity, but to tell the truth, I don't much care. After all, what could anyone possibly do to me? Get me fired from blogging for free? Pull my sponsors when I don't have any ads on the site? Write scathing comments? Vote with their feet and stop reading me? I must say I'm not too worried about it, I have a very small audience now.

In other matters, mark down this date: May 4, 2007. It's the day the new Eric Bana Drew Barrymore vehicle premiers. It's called Lucky You, and he plays a professional poker player and she plays what appeared from the trailer to be some sort of singer. If ever there were a film for which a public desperately yearning for cinematic substance cried out in the metaphorical darkness, it was this.

Alas, for Eric Bana, Black Hawk Down is further away with each passing day. And with every role like this and every time he accepts a part in a half-assed movie like this one, it's getting further and further away.

Bill Simmons is an amusing man. He has now taken it upon himself to lead the charge against the Celtics' team management. It is true that he has been sharply critical of Doc Rivers for some time now, but the Sports Guy has now moved on to criticize Danny Ainge and the buffoons who write the checks. Suddenly, now that a writer with an exponentially larger profile than mine has joined me, I am not enjoying the anti-Banner 17 movement as much as I should.

Simmons is convinced that the young players have not developed to the extent that many casual observers have been led to believe under River's slightly less than inspired leadership. That is clearly true, unless you consider Gerald Green winning the slam dunk competition as some tangible form of progression in genuine basketball skill and not raw athletic ability. The lone bright spot has been the continued development of Al Jefferson.

I must say once again I am not convinced that Al Jefferson is going to continue progressing. Last night, at the tail end of TNT's Inside the NBA Kenny Smith refused to consider Al Jefferson for his personal Most Improved Player Award. His rationale (loosely paraphrased) was that a reasonably skilled guy on a bad team has a lot of chances to take shots because no one else can score and better teams pushing for the playoffs are likely resting their best players when the games are in hand. Kenny Smith played on some preternaturally bad Sacramento teams in the late 1980s, so he knows a bit about the statistical benefits of being the big fish in a small, polluted pond.

At the moment, Al Jefferson's stats really aren't all that impressive to me, even on a Celtics team desperately yearning for mediocrity. He's averaging 15.8 points, 10.6 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game. Jefferson is shooting nearly 51% from the field, but he turns the ball over 1.98 times per game while averaging only 1.2 assists. If that is the bright spot for the Celtics, it's going to be a long, long night.

As a point of comparison, at the same point in his career, Antoine Walker averaged 18.7 points, 8.5 boards, 3.1 assists versus 2.83 turnovers. He did not block as many shots as Al Jefferson does, but he had more steals per game. That was also the 98-99 season shortened by the labor dispute where Walker came back out of shape and submitted his worst season as a Celtic.

I realize that Antoine played two years of college basketball before joining the Celtics. But I bring him up not to be unfair to Al Jefferson but to show how the Celtics have fallen in the eyes of the basketball world. People booed Antoine mercilessly for putting up gaudy numbers on terrible teams. Now Al Jefferson is averaging just under 16 points a game and people are excited. I also bring up Antoine to link to this video of Toine talking about Red, since he was probably the last person to play for the Celtics who really understood what an honor that once was.

I just don't think it makes sense to take for granted that Al Jefferson will continue to develop at this pace, or at all for that matter. If the Celtics should somehow wind up with Greg Oden should he declare, or Kevin Durant, one or the other may not take minutes of playing time away from Al Jefferson but Jefferson won't be taking as many shots. It is possible that getting better looks for those fewer shots will still help his game.

Tony Allen will probably be coming back from his injury at the midway point next year. There will likely be a period of adjustment as he tries to rebuild the confidence in that knee. But he was on track to be the star of this team and its future. His comeback will also take shots away from Al Jefferson. And let's not forget that Paul Pierce will probably play more than 47 games next year, too.

That brings us to another of the real villains in the demise of Celtic pride - Paul Pierce. So many people, like Simmons in the piece linked above, believe that Paul Pierce is a great competitor who desperately wants to win. I don't believe it. I believe he hates to lose, but hating to lose and wanting to win are not necessarily the same thing. When push comes to shove, I think Paul Pierce would be happier putting up great numbers on a perennial doormat than he would be in taking fewer shots and contenting himself with less statistical production on a winning team.

For those of you who would disagree with me, I offer you the example of Game Six of the first round series between Indiana and the Celtics back in 2005. The Celtics ended up winning that game in overtime, but they very nearly lost it in regulation when Paul Pierce threw his infamous tantrum which resulted in his ejection. The Celtics went on to be routed out of the playoffs in Game 7, at home of all places, with Pierce scoring 19 (Antoine had 20). Since that time, the closest a Celtic has been to a playoff game is when Pierce went to games as Toine's guest in last season's championship run for the Miami Heat.

I don't know if Pierce likes the role of the tragic victim of a poorly managed organization or if he simply can't bear to share the limelight, but he simply can't carry a team to victory on his own in this NBA environment. Kobe isn't good enough to do it, and he brings a similar skill set to the table. Kobe is more athletic and a better defender and an even bigger tool when it comes to sharing the spotlight.

I wonder how long Ainge will be able to hang his hat on Jefferson, West and (maybe, even though I am not impressed) Rondo. I am not happy living in a world where a man turned the number 7 pick in the draft last season into Sebastian Telfair, even if it did banish Raef LaFrentz to Portland. Not when that pick is probably going to be Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy even though he missed 20 games.

I knew that the Telfair/LaFrentz trade was a bad idea all the way back on July 3rd when I took time out of my efforts to recreate the journey Ray Miland took in Lost Weekend over the holiday to complain about it. I've been ripping Ainge to my nation of two readers (to paraphrase the Kurt Vonnegut line from Mother Night) for a long time now. All that while disappointing my loyal reader the Kobra Kommander by mentioning a certain Japanese pitcher in a scandalous 10.4% of my posts.

PS - It's a shame that Kurt Vonnegut passed away. Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle are two of my favorite books. One of the underappreciated funny satiric sequences in the movie Back To School comes when the Rodney Dangerfield character hires Vonnegut to write a term paper on Vonnegut for him and ends up getting a D. It's just too bad, but with the way Americans continually conspire to produce generations of morons, America will probably never produce another writer of his caliber.

You're walking away and they're talking behind you
They will never forget you 'til somebody new comes along
Where you been lately? There's a new kid in town
Everybody loves him, don't they?
Now he's holding her, and you're still around
Oh, my, my
There's a new kid in town

-from The Eagles song "New Kid in Town" written by Don Henley, Glenn Frey and John David Souther

Tonight marks the one year anniversary of the first post in the history of Sedition in Red Sox Nation. And what a night for it. There's nothing like seeing the mighty Red Sox fall victim to a 21 year old pitcher throw seven innings of no hit ball. If that weren't enough, there were two subplots that may go largely unnoticed as the mainstream media and the fans of Red Sox Nation embrace their small moral victories and silver linings in the form of Daisuke Matsuzaka shutting Ichiro down and JD Drew's seeing-eye single to end the no-hit bid.

The impressive pitching performance of Felix Hernandez inspired me to preface tonight's post with that quote from The Eagles' "The New Kid in Town." Matsuzaka was the new kid in town, but it was the younger, less heralded Seattle starter who stole the show. It would have been too perfect for him to throw a no-hitter in Friendly Fenway tonight. That's why I don't feel too bad that I was in the process of dialing the guy I go to for my Red Sox info (not to be confused with the guy who comes to me with his Red Sox info and told me that he'd be happy with a 12-7 split in the Red Sox favor against the Yanks last year, since I have multiple friends in Red Sox Nation, most of whom have been uncharacteristically if not unexpectedly silent tonight).

I am not going to go on at greater length on the pitching performances in tonight's game. Orel Hersheiser, who is a Cy Young winner, former 20 game winner. World Series MVP and a paid professional baseball analyst, summed it up far better than I could, even if he lacked my wit, rambling verbosity and boundless capacity for personal rancor. In his opinion, he saw more velocity on the fastball, a greater capacity for changing speed, sharper breaking pitches and a younger player when he compared Felix Hernandez to Daisuke Matsuzaka. Far be it for me to dispute such sage analysis, especially when it favors an opponent of the Red Sox.

First, and perhaps most intriguing, is the demise of Jason Varitek. This blog has not been very kind to Jason Varitek over the past year. I hate Varitek, more so than any Red Sox position player with the possible exception of Nomar in the last 20 years. I've been like John the Baptist (in the least blasphemous possible sense) crying out in the wilderness that Varitek is overrated, that Varitek is a fraud, that Red Sox Nation is due for a rude awakening. And after tonight, I think I won't be alone in that regard for much longer.

For years, I've listened to Red Sox fans talk about how tough he is, how much value a switch hitting catcher adds to the lineup, how well he handled the staff and how great his defense has been. I have never believed it. In fact, I went to great lengths to dispute Varitek's toughness in a post last April.

Tonight, Varitek just might have shown Red Sox Nation that I've been right about him all along. With the possible exception of the aberration in yesterday's home opener, Varitek has done little or nothing at the plate to justify his spot in the lineup. He could hang his hat on the fact that he was an adequate defensive catcher and he handled the pitching staff effectively. Varitek was covered under the "I Want You, I Need You but There Ain't Know Way I'm Ever Gonna Love You" principle of Meat Loaf's Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad Postulate.

Unfortunately, Meat Loaf has been preoccupied with demolishing Bill Simmons in Celebrity Fantasy Basketball, and he has not been able to offer any guidance for how one ought to handle a situation where only one of three requirements is met. Red Sox Nation might be sorely in need of his guidance, as Varitek's defensive prowess has apparently deserted him. First, he lost the ball on the tag while the Mariners scored the first run of the game. Then the ball bounced off of him as he endeavored to block the plate against the second run, which scored anyway.

Now, one might argue that Manny should have made a better throw to the plate to stop the first run from scoring. We live in an imperfect world, and a good defensive catcher would have turned that less than perfect throw into an out instead of the eventual winning run. I would offer Johjima as a counter example (especially since he hit Matsuzaka sharply), but since no Red Sox runner managed to get to scoring position, let alone home plate, the point is moot.

As for that throw that bounced off of Varitek, it allowed Adrian Beltre to advance to third base. One might argue that said runner would have gone on to score the third and final run of the game on the subsequent single by Jose Vidro. However, the fact remains that Varitek took much more from the table by failing to hit safely and submitting a sub par effort defensively than he brought by handling the pitchers, even one who hails from a different culture and speaks a different primary language.

As an aside, I wonder how badly Daisuke Matsuzaka needs his interpreter. I can't say I blame him, because I would jump at the chance to place any buffer between myself and the Boston media I could should my job require me to interact with them. It's just that I've been hearing of the general excellence of Japanese schools and their marked superiority to their American counterparts for years now. I can't help but think that Matsuzaka probably speaks English with a proficiency that could not help but put many of his American fans to shame if they compared his skill to theirs and they had sufficient mental capacity to feel shame.

The other subplot I noticed is that the bullying tactics favored by the Red Sox, and perhaps imperfectly employed by their new pitcher tonight, seem to have backfired. Brendan Donnelly, apparently not realizing that he was not one of the Black Donnellys, was very, very, very brave after he struck out his archnemesis Jose Guillen while on the favorable side of a blowout yesterday. It is also well documented that he drilled the next hitter with his "fastball" before getting the gate.

Apparently, Guillen was not intimidated. He drove a pitch from Matsuzaka off the Green Monster and later scored in his first at bat. Since I am they type of person who believes in coincidence only when they benefit my side, I have to think that it wasn't an accident when a pitcher who commands all of his pitches as well as Daisuke Matsuzaka hit Guillen in a subsequent at bat. Unfortunately, the Mariners were not intimidated tonight.

More attention will be paid to the bullying tactics of the Red Sox in future posts, but I am tired, hungry and eager to celebrate the defeat of Daisuke Matsuzaka by watching the new South Park at midnight before I go to bed. So, good night and bad luck the the Red Sox.

Thanks to the good people over at Deadspin, we have another tool of note segment to bring to your attention tonight. And for the first time, it is a member of the Boston Red Sox. Newly acquired relief pitcher JD Durbin is a tool. In fact, he might even be an archtool. Just look at the picture below, where he is rocking a cooler as a garment.



The only good thing to say about him wearing a cooler as though it counted as clothing is that it nearly conceals the fact that he is also rocking a banana hammock. I think we all know that the odds of a dude who has rocked a banana hammock at any point in his life being cool (or even remotely well-adjusted) are not very good. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it would be impossible for a guy who had ever worn a banana hammock to be cool at any point thereafter if I didn't believe in miracles.

There are those who might say the Sox acquired Durbin because they are in dire straits in the bullpen. Those who know a little about the business of baseball know that there's no way that a brain trust of Henry, Lucchino, Epstein and Francona would hobble the best baseball team that will not win a title this season with a thin bullpen. They acquired a pitcher who needs a serious transformation to become mediocre like JD Durbin so that this team will have a bigger douche on the team than JD Drew.

They know that the average Red Sox fan is dumb enough or drunk enough to be easily confused by the same first initials and a similar sounding last name. So when JD Drew cools down and hits the DL for the first time six weeks from now, there will be another underperforming JD for Red Sox Nation to kick around. Otherwise the fans would start in on Drew, or maybe Lugo who will join Coco Crisp in the failed leadoff hitter category and Edgar Renteria and Alex Gonzales in the list of shortstops who haven't quite cut the mustard since they let Orlando Cabrera go.

It requires only a glance at JD Durbin's myspace page to see that he is a tool. A total tool, even. Based on the fact that he readily and articulately expresses his interest in both tits and ass, we can reasonably infer that Mr. Durbin is neither a gentleman nor a scholar, as a gentleman or a scholar would find a slightly subtler manner in which to convey his depravity. Fortunately, although its citizens believe themselves to be intelligent and sophisticated, Red Sox Nation is the perfect place for a shallow nitwit. It is, in fact, the perfect disguise to blend in with a crowd of Red Sox fans, regardless of gender.

Unfortunately, he has set his profile to private since Deadspin commenced to rip on him. Apparently, any one who has had a picture taken with Garth Brooks and Tricia Yearwood is cool enough to skate past the shallow headline, and the faux depth of the quote "what hurts the most is watching her walk away." Too bad Deadspin left more than enough incriminating evidence from his page to make him worthy of a tool of note segment.

First, he has a dog. When I quoted WC Fields maxim: Nobody who hates kids and dogs can be all bad, I meant it. I hate dogs. Dogs are very much like people, in fact they have better personalities than a depressingly large segment of the human race. But that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. That's even before treating the fact that he named his dog "Hoss." Naven R Johnson had a better name for his dog.

And there's the banana hammock and cooler ensemble. There is no way short of a gun or maybe one of those Crocodile Dundee type survival knives that I would be caught dead in a banana hammock. And it has nothing to do with insecurity. No man has the body type for a garment like that. Men who wear banana hammocks ought to be arrested.

What frightens me is that an idiot like JD Durbin could become a sort of cult celebrity in Boston, like a shallow, ignorant frat boy version of El Guapo. If he pitches remotely well, he'll be fighting off the sorostitutes in Daisy Buchanan's with a stick. God knows, he'll probably have his own reality show by season's end. And in the meantime, between Durbin and Papelbon, the Red Sox bullpen could be the dumbest unit on any team in any sport.

Sooner or later, lack of depth in the bullpen will hurt the Red Sox. What a shame it will be when that day comes. In the meantime, I'm trying not to let the beating they laid on Weaver and the Mariners this afternoon worry me too much.

I really don't like posting twice in one day, but I just couldn't get the post I wanted to finish last night done until the middle of the day today. These things happen. I thought about waiting until tomorrow to post again, but I decided I ought to go ahead and write this while the subject was still fresh in my mind.

After watching ESPN baseball coverage last night and tonight, with apologies to Charles Dickens, it was the best of quality starts and the worst of quality starts. The best - Curt Schilling overpowering the mighty Texas Rangers. The worst - Carl Pavano squeaking past the lowly Twins. The Yankees are in bad trouble this year.

When you look at the stat line alone, Schilling would seem to have an edge because he allowed only one run over his seven innings of work. Pavano also went seven against the Twins tonight, allowing two runs in the process. Pavano only struck out two batters, but he didn't walk anybody. Schilling struck out six, walked only one and allowed only four hits. It was indeed one for the ages and much, much, much better than Pavano's effort.

After all, it's not like Curt Schilling allowed a home run to an overrated bum like Frank Catalanato. Oh, wait... Minnesota had to manufacture one run against Carl Pavano with a single and stolen base by Tori Hunter and then a base hit to drive him in. Then Morneau doubled and two batters later, Hunter drove him in with another double. Both balls were well hit, very well hit. But Pavano recovered, got out of the inning and got a big win.

Before any Red Sox fan decides to remind me that the Rangers play in a notorious hitters park, think for a second and see if you can't remember the nickname for the MetroDome. Before you sprain something from the unaccustomed mental effort, it's the Homer Dome. I am aware that the Twins aren't built to hit home runs the way the Yankees can, but can you really make the claim that the Rangers can hit with the Sox?

To this point in the season, I think Pavano has been more impressive than Schilling. It is true that the Devil Rays produced several runs against Pavano on Opening Day in the Bronx. But the Devil Rays offense is considerably better than the Royals who put a man-sized beating on Curt Schilling in Kaufmann Stadium. I will have more to say on the Devil Rays later this week, because they're going to be a team to watch this season.

While Texas has some big names like Michael Young, Hank "Yes, my production declined at a strangely suspicious time" Blaylock, Mark Teixeira and The Man Who Once Was Sammy Sosa, they have fallen into a rut as a team. They put up decent offensive numbers, but as the guy I go to for my Red Sox fan's perspective said to me today, the Rangers look great on paper without ever bringing that to the field when it matters.

Minnesota, on the other hand, has a very good team. They're a small market team, and they can't throw money around the way the Sox and the Yanks do. But they compete year in and year out. Santana is probably the best pitcher in the AL, but they also have the reigning MVP in Morneau and the reigning batting champ in Mauer. Holding them to two runs after a shaky start on Opening Day is an important confidence builder for Pavano.

Carl Pavano now stands 17 wins away from the 18 I predicted for him before the season started. I realize that it's only two starts in, he's only won four games in pinstripes in a little over two seasons, he has bad karma hanging over his head from lying to the team about his injury last year and he has a hell of a long way to go to earn his teammates' trust once more. He took a step in the right direction today, and he better take 17 more steps like that because I really want to be right for the first time in a while.

As for other baseball matters, or at least matters peripherally connected to baseball, I have yet another problem with Bill Simmons. In his running diary on Daisuke Matsuzaka's first start, there was a very disturbing subplot. He reacted to the excessive grundle grabbing exhibited by Julio Lugo with an enthusiasm that was slightly less than decent. I leave you to make of that what you will.

But if I were the kind of writer given to bestowing movie quotes as awards, like the Sports Guy, I'd have to go to the cinematic tour de force Planes, Trains and Automobiles to the scene where Del Griffith (John Candy, in what might be his best role) takes Neil Page (Steve Martin) to task for his grundle grabbing. The purveyor of shower curtain rings hits him with this epithet: "Larry Bird doesn't do as much ball handling in an entire night as you do in an hour."

If I were the kind of person who tampers with perfection, I might be inclined to update that quote now that Bird has been retired for well over a decade. But I'll let it stand, because it has a Boston connection and there's no one on the Celtics that's worth elevating by connecting him to that film. That quote will also serve as my memorial to the golden age of John Hughes movies, since he lost his fastball after Uncle Buck.

On a completely unrelated note, at the risk of bringing my unique brand of insensitivity to an issue that should be handled with the utmost sensitivity, I have to laugh at MSNBC and CBS for handling the Don Imus situation with neither courage nor balls. If they don't have the courage to kill the golden goose (the coveted demographic that makes up his audience has considerable buying power, after all) and fire him for his incredibly stupid insensitive remarks on the Rutgers women's basketball team, they at least could have had the balls not to weasel out of the situation with a slap on the wrist.

I don't know what is the right way to handle this situation, I only know it's not a slap on the wrist suspension. Without going to the lengths that the South Park episode that dealt with Kramer's career suicide went to make the same point, there is no way that I could, as a white guy, understand how comments like Imus and his guest made resonate in the black community. I do know that CBS and MSNBC can't be all things to all people in this situation. They should have either fired him or stood by him. I think this suspension insults us all by trying to offend no one.

I don't know how I missed the trend, but when did Easter become a big deal again? I understand the religious aspects of the day, but as the Christian population of this country becomes incrementally less Christian with each passing year, you'd think that Easter would come and go with little notice. And then last night as I watched that travesty in Arlington, Texas, I noticed two fat guys in Red Sox jerseys sitting in the crowd wearing bunny ears.

Maybe that's what Easter is in the process of becoming, spring's answer to Halloween - a day which once had religious significance but has become an excuse for adults to act like children and for children to act like even bigger morons than they are on any given weekday. Unfortunately, thinking about Easter more as a day for masquerading than as a day for rebirth might take a little of the bloom of yesterday's impressive triumph over a very mediocre Texas Rangers team.

If you read Curt Schilling's blog post on the win, you'll believe that it was a tremendous performance by Jonathan Papelbon. Of course if you remember the press coverage of the decision to return Papelbon to the bullpen, you might recall that the team was to make a concerted effort to limit him to one inning appearances to protect his shoulder. Morgan and Miller pointed out that Francona is also talking about pitching Papelbon in the 8th and bringing in another pitcher to throw the 9th.

Of course, last night Papelbon pitched an inning and two-thirds. He came in with runners at the corners and only one out. He faced Michael Young and Mark Teixiera in that situation and put the kibosh on the Ranger rally. And somewhere between the Bronx and Minneapolis, Joe Torre would have started preparing his explanation for The Boss when the Red Sox win their first AL East crown of the millennium had he not been so utterly traumatized by the supremely dominant Papelbon.

As Curt Schilling astutely pointed out, the Red Sox return to Fenway for their home opener after having gone .500 on the trip. Things could be worse. And they should be a hell of a lot better. The Red Sox payroll for 2007 is higher than the combined payrolls for the Rangers and Royals. Perhaps I'm being unfair. After all, Larry Lucchino has said that he doesn't like talking about payroll, since it could put the Red Sox at a competitive disadvantage, and I wouldn't want to do anything to hurt the team. So I'll just remind you that neither the Rangers nor the Royals finished last season with a winning record.

I must say, I am not as worried about Papelbon's performance as Red Sox Nation should hope. First, I am not impressed with Mark Teixeira. After his 0 for in the World Baseball Classic (I remember how often I have disparaged that farce, which is why not even getting a hit in it is doubly pathetic) and his slow start last season, I just don't think he's as good as advertised. To be fair, he is currently hitting a very impressive .211 with an RBI to date this season.

Also, I don't think the Rangers lineup is as good as some have said. The entire world may love Michael Young, but it doesn't change the fact that he's hitting .154 at the moment. The team is currently struggling to find timely hitting. Let's not forget that the Rangers came into the Boston series reeling after being swept by the Angels.

So yes, the Red Sox bounced back in a big way yesterday. Schilling looked a million times better than he did against Kansas City. Papelbon slammed the door on the Rangers with authority. Ortiz came alive offensively, hitting his first two home runs of the season. And Manny hit the ball pretty well, even though he had little to show for it but some loud outs.

And yet I think this team ought to be more than a little concerned going forward. Big Schill may have had his groove back, but is the 7 inning 102 pitch performance an indication of great pitching or bad hitting? I would say a bit of both, but I'm an incurable pessimist.

Papelbon slammed the door shut, but he did so against two boppers who might have a little trouble hitting the floor if they fell out of bed at this point in the year. Plus, would Francona have gone to his fragile closer for five outs in the eighth inning of a game on the road in April if he had anything but warm bodies in his bullpen? I think not.

As well as one can hope Schilling, Beckett and Matsuzaka will pitch, I just can't see Red Sox Nation feeling confident in Tim Wakefield and Julian Tavarez at the end of the rotation. JD Drew is 9-23, and hitting .391 in his six games in right field. But what happens if he should slump? Julio Lugo is only hitting .261 at this point. Kevin Youkilis is due to turn back into a pumpkin any day now.

I am aware that the Yankees had a bigger advantage in terms of payroll disparity over their two opponents. And their starters have yet to see the sixth inning. And their defense looks pathetic. But I'm not a Yankee fan, I only root for them because every win for the Yanks is bad for Red Sox Nation. As long as things look bad for the Red Sox, I'm happy. And I get the feeling that things aren't going to go well against the Mariners.