The Streak Ends

When your best running back, best cornerback, and best wide receiver along with your starting right tackle and another starting cornerback are out, you're supposed to lose. What made the Patriots' streak amazing is they did win before on days like this when everything seemed to be going against them.

My 1st Angry E-mail!!!

I was really expecting to first hear from a New Yorker, but Mal's pretty defensive about the Lakers. Maybe, he's an NBA ref. Here's some of his e-mail with my comments in italics:


...'86 Celtics, the best ever? You are a cult of one along with an IQ to match. If a team was that great you'd figure they'd be able to parlay that into something resembling a dynasty now wouldn't you? Instead they were sandwiched between Laker championships; who were a vastly superior team of that era.

How does a team win three championships when there’s a vastly superior team around

...I'm sure though the 80's Celtics are fondly remembered by Boston, after all they were almost all white which is just the way "youze" guys like it. Don't believe me? Tell me now, who was the last MLB team to have a black player on their roster 12 years after Jackie Robinson?

You got me, I’m the ghost of racist Tom Yawkey. The Red Sox once being run by a racist is proof that all Boston Fans only like white people. Forget that the Celtics had the first black player and black head coach. Never mind that DJ and Chief are still wildly popular in Boston. By this logic, in a few years, we’ll forget about the 2004 Sox because Manny, Pedro, and Ortiz aren’t white.

So you despise Shaq, Kobe and Jackson, eh? Even with a bad cold one can't help but smell a Laker hater and an eastern elitist at that.

Laker hater yes, elitist no. I’m sure eastern elitists are the only ones who despise Shaq, Kobe, and Jackson

Due to your anachronistic and provincial views towards baketball combined with your slower brain functions from east coast cold, you are unfit to run the basketball section of the otherwise fine website know as bartcop. Oh, and may you contract herpes from a Manny Ramirez cold sore.

I would kiss Manny, but, like you inferred, Boston people don’t want to get to0 close to people who aren’t white.

Thanks for the input Mal; I’m sure you're excited about my upcoming preview. By the way, due to my elitism, I’ll be doing the Eastern Conference first.

Manny being Manny. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Sox Parade Sights

• Manny holding a sign, "Jeter's Playing Golf. This is Better."
• Sox Legend car included Rick Miller, Oil Can Boyd, Butch Hobson, Rich Gedman, and Luis Tiant. Only in Boston.
• Couldn't see enough of Ellis Burks, Johnny Pesky (a part of the team for over 50 years), and Tim Wakefield
• Also didn't mind seeing Adam Hydzu, career minor leaguer
• Schilling's on crutches
• I think I saw Pedro with his 29 inch adult friend, Nelson. Looks like tv stations are trying not to show him. Why else am I seeing the car with Gabe Kapler most of the time while barely seeing the car including Pedro, Schilling, and Wakefield?
• Just found out Busch Stadium allowed Sox fans without tickets into the stadium near the end of game 4. Wow. There's so much to thank the Cards for: Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, Vince Coleman, and now this.
  

BoSox Win: Jesus Saves

Here's a link from Jen:
I was expecting an article about Johnny Damon, but it's still good.

Here's an excerpt:

“It’s nothing really,” Jesus said at a press conference

after the game. “Dad said, ‘Where you wanna go, Son, Bagdad

or Boston?’ My Dad didn’t raise no dummy. ‘Send me to

Beantown,’ I said.”

http://www.glossynews.com/artman/publish/bosox-999.shtml

NBA Time

My NBA Preview is coming soon, but first some quick thoughts.

• Nothing was better than 80's basketball; today’s game is boring
• Pat Riley ruined the game of basketball
• The Shaq, Kobe, Phil Jackson feud is wonderful because I despise them all
• Isiah Thomas is ML Carr without the personality
• Too many NBA games are determined by the refs
• Greatest Team Ever: 1986 Celtics

Eventually, I’ll expand on each of the above points. Now I need to figure out if I should make a fool out of myself by doing predictions.

Go away Tim McCarver

Anti-McCarver sites are finally appearing and that's a good thing. For now, I'd just like to mention this: In the 1999 playoffs, some Sox fans responded to scandalously bad umpiring by throwing plastic water bottles on the field. McCarver was appalled, he spent the next 30 minutes attacking all of Red Sox Nation -- the fans, management, Jimy Williams, the entire population of New England. According to Tim, this was the end of civilization.

Five years later, Yankee fans are upset at the umpires. This is understandable for two reasons; they couldn't see instant replays and for the first time in the last 100 years two close calls actually went against the Yankees. Fans throw bottles and baseballs on the field. Riot police actually need to protect the field. McCarver's spends maybe five seconds on the subject, and Fox probably shows footage of Bucky Dent or Babe Ruth (just a guess, but I like my odds).

I admit this is all from my memory, so if anyone has transcripts or a different memory please tell me. By the way if Bartcop can have a Bartcop Sports, why can't Media Matters have Media Matters Sports?

Repeat after me: Larussa's not a genius

Let's go back to 1989. The A's have Dave Stewart, one of the greatest big game pitchers ever, Dennis Eckersly, best reliever in the history of baseball, Mark McGwire, and Jose Canseco when he was the best player in the game. Fire Larussa, and begin the filming of, Ernest Manages the A's. The A's still win the World Series.

The late 80's A's prompted baseball experts to call Larussa a genius. A genius would have won at least one game against the Red Sox this year. A genius would have beaten the Reds in 1990. Unfortunately for Cardinal fans, Larussa thinks he's a genius, so he doesn't put his best available hitter at DH, he pitches Morris on short rest when not forced to, he uses HectorLuna as a pinch hitter for the most important at bat of the season, and he wears sunglasses during night games. He does this because he thinks his thinking is better than conventional thinking.

Then again, the sunglasses thing could be a tribute to Corey Hart.

1986, Fully Recovered

It was my 12th birthday. I had some friends over to watch a movie and then watch the Red Sox clinch the World Series by winning Game 6. I won't discuss the rest of the sleepover party, except to say it was my last.

For some reason, I kept watching along with my brother, my father, my uncle, my grandfathers, my mom -- all of us complained about the Sox, berated every manager, every underachiever, yet we continued to watch. Last year, Grady Little forced me to ask myself if I should even watch the Red Sox again. I envied all of these people who didn't care about baseball or the Red Sox. For months, I kept asking myself, "Why? Why am I doing this? Why won't I stop?"

Last night I learned why. There's so much to say, but right now the only thing I can say is "I don't believe it."