Sports in Title Town

In the past several days there have been a few incredible and entertaining events in sports.

-- The Boston Celtics are embroiled in a classic NBA finals with the Lakers of LaLa. The Lakers are basically a team of unknowns to non-NBA followers except for this Koby Bryant guy. He was the partner of Shaquille O'Neal a couple years ago and since Shaq left, Bryant has been a cry baby deforce. He stammers about leaving and screams at his teammates. Bryant is obviously basing this entire championship run by his TEAM on his own selfish legacy.

On Thursday night the Lakers held a 20 point lead in the third quarter.... and lost. They fell down three games to one and faced extinction going into Sunday night. Bryant was stunned and the rest of his no-name team furious and crying. The crowd filled with pissant actors and faux fans went home quietly as well.

-- Speaking of the NBA, can anyone with a straight face tell me that the officials are not in control of every game all the way? They let muggings of illegal proportions go unfouled to any team that has more than a 10 point lead and then call hang nail fouls down the other end. They don't need a corrupt accused ref to be telling us what is sooo obvious to begin with. The NBA makes the WWF look real.

-- On Saturday, we see the Red Soxc playing in Cinncinati for the first time since the1975 World Series. Holding a slim lead, closer Jonathan Papplebon blew it with a gopher ball in the 9th after third basse coach Demarlo Hale ran Mike Lowell into a Bonnie and Clyde ambush at the plate. The game was a throw back to crazy days and enjoyable, especially when hometown boy Kevin Youlilis and Cocc Crisp went back to back to seal the win and closer number two, Craig Hansen finished it off.

-- Later on Saturday, one off the greatest sports legends of the modern world, Tiger Woods played perhaps the most inspiring round of golf in his life at Torrey Pines in the 108th US Open. Limping around on a newly reeconstructed knee, Woods struck 2 eagles and several lengthy putts to take a 1 stroke lead going into Sunday. His pain on many shots was evident and those who saw his performance witnessed pure guts.

-- Sunday afternoon saw the Red Sox pummel the Reds 9-0 and secure once again the best record in baseball despite the fact they are playing without sluggers David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez as well as starting pitcher Diasake Matsuzaka. Boston is deep and plays with the confidence that a defending World Champion is supposed to play like.

-- The US Open on Sunday saw Tiger Woods trailing most of the day as he lost 3 strokes on the first 2 holes. He scrambled all over the place, again grimacing on every shot as his left knee twisted, glued to the carpet by his spikes. On the 18th hole, needing birdie to tie for an 18 hole playoff, he sent his drive into a trap, his second into the rough, his third above the hole 14 feet away on a slippery slope. From the scorers table, leader Rocco Mediate could only watch helplessly as Woods drained the putt to force the playoff. Classic.

-- The spectrum crossed between Tiger Woods and Koby Bryant is mammoth. Woods plays an individual sport needing to perform on a weekly basis to maintain his status. Bryant ignores team concept in order to prop himself up and maintain his legacy. The Red Sox exemplify what the Celtics did Thursday night: They play hard and under whatever conditions exist, they persevere with unwavering confidence....

Retooling a rebirth of relations

It really is something. To find it. You know, "it's a good thing". Have you ever really tried to basically force an issue of social standing and have a calamitous let down? That the illusion of the desired feeling was ingrained so firmly in your mind that any thing short of that perfection was a failure? You know, you wanted it so bad you could taste it? Then when you actually got it before you it wasn't anything what you expected?

It is indeed a certain good thing we desire. It gives a warmth that only we know in each of our bodies that catapults a signal of peace and serenity throughout us. Those feelings clamor of satisfaction and safety with a resounding force if we let them. The invitation of trusted elements is instinctual but not always at our finger tips. There is a security in our souls that good stuff still runs deep in the world or at least it wants to.

When we do start out this way, down this path at a later age, it may even be an illusion to think that anything has changed but our outlook and our modes and methods really. We'd love to think that we have control over some kind of force field to get there too. Our years have taught us differently about control.

To make haste with comparison and thus seek recreation of a previous vibe by way of your self prophecies is too demanding of your sub-conscious mold. You can't just go back there into some 1982 5" floppy disc and take a channel of this, then insert a 2.5" floppy to grab a chunk of that, no. This isn't your mothers eye of newt here. No, you need to use the experience of instinct to guide you. When you do, it explodes in your lap, wonderfully in color, smell and texture. It goes very deep in some penetrable avenue you had known existed but couldn't find before. I know this, I can say it for a fact. Believe me, that road exists for everyone, somewhere.

It's not a "program", a religion or even a philosophy. It's not any material thing or the sudden ability to gain it. It doesn't dwell in the binders of a book nor is it spewed in the town common. I can't take it anywhere in a box or give it away as much as I'd like too. I know of another that is "there" and seems to agree we have found it.
 
A wonderful, well-defined straight line exists between me and my discovery deep in my heart. I have found it and it is now known to me, having followed the path for a little while now. The consistency of the results on a daily basis reinforces my success and confirms the path is true. Absolute trust is what keeps this path safe from intrusion of cerebral parasites and negative trolls sent from the past. Actually any violation via darkness is defeated with a heart full of confidence shedding light on the target.
 
As I weave my way along, almost mesmerized by the calling, I reduce my learned previous weaknesses and my identified faults and defects to mental rubble. I reinforce the attributes that are stronger now with my conviction to succeed without control. As the horizon reveals what may seem like a "reward" far in the cloudy yet defined distance, the determination is multiplied, the strength of the will increases as the shedding of past skins lightens my load. This molting of the past is my rebirth and the delivery of my soul to a virgin aura of trust, release and the adoption of internal policy based on serenity.

In my mind the weather never changes, but it is the shelter that I build against the inclement times that allows for my survival. For now I am prepared for the actual and internal Spring as my path curves into another plateau of peace, harmony and love. Yeah, that's what it's called you know: love.

Pass the clicker... there's a test pattern on soon.

With the unceremonious entry of Spring into our economically challenged lives, we push further from Bing Crosby electronically jousting with David Bowie and closer to the odiferous splendor of freshly mown blades and storm rains steaming on scorched asphalt.

The control our world, once thought to be ours in some corner we were occupying, now has fallen completely and unabridged into the hands of an invisible force holding the title of media. The presence of image capturing devices in all hands rules the release of information now, not the import of the facts. Presidential candidates, having now spent billions of dollars, which if standing alone are worth nothing, continue to parade rally's, solitary meaningless chance encounters and quasi-experience before us yet it is all but over for the new mystery of polling now determines outcomes and results months ahead. Opinions of lesser educated pundits are often held as fact by the gullible.

Announcers of the dawn headlines are now mechanized, sounding like 60's robots. They lose track of vowels while still desiring us to believe they have any real personality. They read into our eyes "Dorchester man finds shoe on hand", which has as much appeal as a Depends punch line.  Film at 11 is old at 9:30 and a man that hits another with a frozen ham climbs the water cooler ladder faster than a 300 million pound chunk of ice falling to the Atlantic south of a latitude that never saw liquid before. TV weather as we knew it is long gone, filled instead with breasts, glam and GQ guy quaffed follicles. Speakers of the right words in the wrong context who say "Savings" Time or pay more attention to the Verizon phone clip of a piece of hail from Annagacky, Idaho than a map of the nor'easter developing off the DelMarVa.

Domestic abuse dominates the post-911 gendarme force but half its cases of it are determined to be scapegoats, revealed rarely to the aftermarket of the rush to judgement crowd. The true cases are run by public opinion when the absence of common sense law takes a powder. Scum scorching minors with Marlboro's are jailed but the real person responsible for its evolution, the mother, walks free for days until enough people who care voice up. But on a subway, one can whisper "bomb" (as in, "last night sweetie, you were the bomb!") and 231 gung-ho yahooo, crew-cut, riot police will be at the next stop to castrate, embarrass and feather you and then, with a Patton face, say it was necessary.

The police hero genre in our culture died on 9/11. Since then, egos, hidden abusers and insecure persons seeking adoration have infiltrated the ranks of street law enforcement with an attitude of Nazi-ism that the government has licensed them for. We have seen incredible saga's of misuse of public trust, internal covers and basic blatant audacity. Simply upholding the law and protecting the public via presence has tilted sadly and strongly to expending an entire shift searching for a cause to be a hero. Fortunately, the hand-held media recording devices have caught up to something useful and these abuses are now proven, albeit in a small percentage. Wear there's smoke.....

What we have here actually is continued progress. A progress of digression sidled with aggression. Higher percentages of every crime and wrong is evident.  A very short hundred years ago people of New England were barely flying, driving or avoiding human contact. We knew our neighbors. We talked to our kids at the table at 6 sharp. We loved our spouses and we respected authority. We worked hard and greeted strangers in safety. We thought nothing of the teacher, the scoutmaster or the clergy alone with our children because they hadn't been exposed to or allowed to embrace a culture of abuse online media offers us in 2 clicks.

The day we were attacked by hijacked airplanes, people fled the cities to go home. To watch on TV and rally? No, to catch up on laundry and email. The JFK-9/11 comparison to "where were you" when you heard the news is lame. "I was online buying lotion and Verizon couldn't keep up". Those people care just as little now as over 4000 fine men have died for NOTHING. An heir to the British throne fights on the front lines but Congressman NitWit (R) from Virginia will be damned if he sends his kid there. To follow the example of our leaders for years has kept in step, for now we ignore laws, education and honesty. No one cares if the emporer is wearing a skirt and lying.

In the baby boomer generation, many things changed in the late 60's and through the '70's. The media age had a lengthy birth for a week after November 22, 1963. It grew as we fed it and became a raunchy defiant youngster by 1967, when we saw and heard an explosion of Doors, Stones and Beatles. We puffed hemp and dropped acid to make sure we weren't hearing things and avoided what was really there. The end of baseball innocence, for example, was in 1975 when we clung to the TV in October. Realizing the opportunity to soak America after broadcasting "the Greatest World Series", corporate fly traps invented free agency and threw us eventually out of the parks and under the bus.

Back in the day, we caught hold of the fact Vietnam was killing our kids and we rallied in Washington and got shot at Kent State. We did it because we WERE being robbed by our government of the truth and our security DID feel threatened. Today, kids shot each other in school. By the time we are 17, mommy and daddy buy's us a car, a cell, a PS2, an IUD and a key to the front door. Dinner's in the fridge. We have no fear of the future because people don't care. Secure in the moment they are. In the rocking chair.

Our climax as a lovable entranced media nation and a true indication of things to come were the success of the Apollo space program and Neil Armstrong's step. That step is still being taken in what we have today in technology. Those who scoffed at JFK on his mooning of the U.S. didn't realize it then but that single initiative, to do it "because it is there", changed the world forever in a pace that we still try to keep up with. Inevitable anyway? Yes... but not at this pace. Space Age. Good Times!

The end of a social era was the Blizzard of '78 when we became, for a National Guard Week, closer before releasing forever our neighborly ways. When a storm approaches now, some still buy out bread and milk as if a romantic time machine will take them to the snow-bound paralytics of the past. They do so while shoving you aside with a cane and cutting you off in a dry and bare parking lot.

You get to watch a woman with a small child hanging around her neck, writing Shaw's a check while talking on a cell phone about her mortgage payment being 1400 bucks... and late. Intimate facts indeed we still share apparently. Point being it's as if the person next to us never existed. And when you get the door for this person? Ummm. You do get the door for her, right?

Media growth in the '70's was frightening and fearful looking back now. People said "damn" and "hell",  for heavens sakes. Now it's "bitch", "ass", "penis", "horny" and "for Christ's sakes" for heavens sakes. We have created a monster for the sake of ratings, which make a dollar. We thought we became much more informed but we still make our decisions and form our opinions on what the TV tells us instead of learning ourselves by reading facts.  

That, therein, is where the problem lies. A new God and a new escape for the generation that pays no attention to their neighbors, care less who they insult or the results because of who they voted into office. As long as the mutual fund of the 90's keeps paying the mini-van gas bill to toodle around the 2.2 kids or pays for that 6 year-old Ford Exploder for juniors first car, who cares what world we leave them in 2025?

Fuck it. Let them worry about it then.... Dr. HOUSE is on in a few, TMZ has a new Britney pic and I still have email to answer...

A Long Strange Trip It's Been

Wow.... yeah, it could be assumed that I have slacked off this blog and now unhibernating into spewage and rash opinions once again now that the sun rises sooner, sets later and can't be hidden from. But assumptions are the worst enemy of civility....


I have been away for almost 4 months. Out of contact. Without computer. No email, blogs or weather radars. It was hell... but I am back and full of piss and vinegar and without a straight pronounciation of my winter demise, I shall yak on...


While on the subject of assumptions, let's say that 3 drunks see another drunk, call her Dee, being removed from her car by someone not drunk at all, call him Rod. The police arrive, Rod is jailed and Dee is given a free cab ride home without ever speaking a word! Further down the justice road, Dee, pissed off that Rod moves out of their shared bungalow to get away from her vodka abuse, obtains a "no contact order" against Rod by blatantly lying to a judge on FOUR counts. Rod is then sentenced to 4 months in a slimy jail on a hill West of Hamilton. Dee then takes Rod's belonging... power tools, camera's, art work, collections and personal lifetime memorabilia and moves out of town. While it's an address that was easy to find, Rod cannot contact Dee woithout breaking the law. A civil suit of 5 figures is called for, we thinks.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Patriots found out what us older people (over 50 works for me) have known for years... that over confidence is the demise of so many. To see Bill Belichick walking around laughing and joking 3 days before the game was a bad omen. To hear that the offensive line brag of late nights out made sense when they truly played offensively. They played a perfect season and then failed to show up for history, legacy and closure. The continueing spygate backlash reminds me of the drug backlash after they got schmucked by the Bears in 1986.


The Red Sox romped once again from an ALCS deficit and a 4 game sweep in the Fall Classic to go double or nothing on people who hoped to see a World Series win in their lifetime. What this past win did was prove that they have arrived as a bonafide power in baseball and that 2004 was no fluke handed to them by some anti-Yankee God.


The Celtics have proven that they too are ready to return to the proud annals of Red Auerbach's legacy and have built a good team but lately seems to have tired and returned to mortality. There is another pro team in Boston but their identity evades my keyboard at this time...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ahhhh, a snowstorm:

Walking into downtown Rocjkport over the weekend was a test as the DPW only chose to plow the sidewalks where it was already wide enough for 2 lanes and pedestrians (i.e.: Back Beach) and NOT where the road is narrow and curving (i.e.: 127 on the way to Pigeon Cove). Those drivers who have to interupt their 10 MPH over-the-speed-limit drives on said roads to slow for ped's like me apparently lean forward so fast they inadverdantly strike their horns. I refuse to believe it's on purpose because these residents are the same who complain of the cash shortage around Town and want to sell gobs of land to fix it. If the Town chooses to save overtime on a sidewalk plower on the weekend, then I shall walk on the pavement that tax dollars DID expose and those in speedy Lexi and Audi can share nicely. If not, I will sic my snow deer (right) on them that I found down Granite Pier.

THE BRONZE ZOO IS BURNING

So where do we start? The Red Sox head into the Bronx like a well balanced planet on a perfect elliptical orbit. They haven't passed this close to Planet Yankee since June 3rd. They have won 4 in a row for the first time in exactly 1 month. New York, meanwhile, is stumbling badly on the road, losing 2 of 3 in Anaheim and 2 of 3 so far to the Tigers. They have been running on high octane for 3 weeks to get back into it and while they cut the lead to 4 twice in the past 8 days, they seem spent when on the road and find themselves almost needing a sweep this week just to get back close.

The Sox, on the other hand, go into New York Tuesday night with a 7.5 game lead and having Monday off. New York gets to stay in Detroit on Monday night and play a desperate, fighting Tiger team one more time. They will either be 7 or 8 out by the time they take the field for the first of 3 against the Sox top three pitchers, if you consider Schilling to be a member of that genre.

Boston is coming off a 4 game sweep in Chicago where they out-scored the White Sox 46-7 and never had to ask Jonathan Papplebon to lift a ball until the 9th on Sunday just to blow the dust off. They have rotated nicely their new acquisitions of Bobby Kielty and Kevin Cash. Kielty will now platoon, thank you Lord, with JD Useless and is a tremendous fit. He contributed nicely over the weekend with the bat and he can play either corner in the outfield. Cash is fitting in seamlessly as Tim Wakefield's personal catcher while Doug Mirabelli is out. Terry Francona has done a masterful job of resting his starting components through this trip as well.

The pitching has been incredible and the move to send a struggling Jon Lester down for a start and give Julian (Ironman) Tavarez the ball was rewarded yesterday as Tavarez threw 2 hit ball against the imploding White Sox. The bullpen hasn't been taxed because of the offensive explosion and while they scored 14 runs on Saturday, they did not go deep once. No matter who it seems comes in the 6th thru 8th anyway, be it Manny Delcarmen, Eric Gagne, Oki-Doki, Kyle Snyder or Mike Timlin, the game is usually well in hand for a well maintained Papplebon to close. (It's amazing to think that Papplebon only makes 425K, isn't it?) All this is coming together nicely and there is no real outstanding reason why that is so, which bodes well for October baseball here in Boston.

So as the leaves show signs of Falling into September and the parenting tourists in town thin out to start their school years, we here in the Nation beam with the expected joy of post season play. Years past were so many that we were skeptics and wary of a collapse but this year is different with a team so built for the long haul and with so few injuries that sent them crashing last year. A franchise which no longer needs to answer to a curse or a Dent.

Nope. This team is better than the 2004 Championship team in a lot of ways. The leading winner (tied) on the pitching staff is TIM WAKEFIELD with 16. Huh? A team with Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz on the roster had a guy named Lowell lead the team in home runs almost the entire first half. They have a right fielder making 15 mil who can't hit a fly with a cannon and leads the world in emotions with zero, yet they still win. Julio Lugo and Dustin Pedroia couldn't hit off a tee through May and now Pedroia is in the Rookie of the Year race and Lugo is one of the best clutch hitters on the team. The bench, comprised of starters for a lot of teams has Alex Cora and Eric Hinske coming up big. The addition of Kielty hasn't hurt either and I already mentioned how Cash has spelled Mirabelli.

So tomorrow night we play 3 games in the Bronx. The very worst that could happen is that the Sox come home still 4 games up. Just like they were a week ago, meaning the Yankees gained no ground what-so-ever. We even get to face Roger Fat Ass Clemens on Wednesday night. He will be opposed by his childhood idol Josh Beckett.

The schedule has the Sox playing at home most of the way from here on in against Tampa, Toronto and Baltimore as well as a send off party for the Yankees in the middle of September. By estimation, you get a clinch somewhere in Toronto or Tampa Bay September 17 thru the 23rd and a nice week home against Oakland and Minny to align your arms to open with either the Mariners (Yankees miss out) or the Central winner (Yankees take wild card) at Fenway October 3rd or 4th (And the only game that can collide with the New England Patriots, barring rainout, is Game 4 of the World Series.)

Three weeks ago in this space it was written that we should "brace for the race". Not needed as the past week has proven our miscalculation and paranoia false. With a day to day resiliency, this Red Sox team molds itself to the same idea and philosophy that the 0-3 2004 ALCS Sox had: Just win today. Period. But for today, they rest.

Tidbits in a Sad Nation

Item: "Hollywood Welcomes Beckhams": Ok. We have a low-talent blonde sour puss bimbo and a crippled soccer player from England coming to recieve American dollars to infuse interest in a sport that will never succeed on any grand level in the US. 5o million dollars to show our kids that one player makes a difference in the most team-based international sport there is. (This hollywood glam story appears on ESPN... is this sports?) Such class and glamor also that with 100's of pap smears lurking that Mr. Beckham would shove ones hand into her crotch. Not quite a handball but we'll let this one slide.

Finally, the Beckhams released a statement that they just "want to be left alone" to acclimate in LA and stay home with their kids every night. Right. That's why on several pap and glam sites they are seen out and about partying nightly. They have been here a week and have been photographed in more places than Elvis and Paris combined.

Item: "Michael Vick arrested for dogfighting": An ESPN has a poll asking which is more disgusting Vick or the NBA ref accused of gambling on games he officiated. And amazingly, it was the NBA official, 60-40%! It does show what a loser nation we have here. (BTW: in our opinion neither story has anyhting to do with sports but yet people who make their living within the sporting world).

Item: "NBA players shocked at allegations": This one is a joke too, right? A sport that employs more criminals than politics has no right not to justify, finally, why the officiating has controlled games since its inception. You jerks finally have an explanation for the level of integrity of the sport and you won't embrace it? Come on, if you want to be like the WWF, at least have fun with it.

Within 1 hour the NBA, through the New York media, released the following two media bits: "...the NBA had no knowledge of Donaghy's betting." And an hour later: "The NBA sicced a private investigator on disgraced referee Tim Donaghy more than a year ago, but then let him work games all season long anyway..." I rest my case about the NBA.

Item: "Lindsay Lohan turns herself in": This gem of Springer garbage stayed on CNN's front page for over 3 days which is further proof that CNN has replaced it's news staff with Perez Hilton wannabe's.

Item: " President turn reins over to Cheney for colonoscopy": How many assholes are we talking about here?

Item: "Seagull steals bag of chips from store" Really? This is an actual top headline on CNN at 8am on a Monday morning. And 3 slider clicks down the page is the useless "Meat processor expands botulism recall". Shouldn't the gull be made aware of the botulism?

Item: "AirTran seeks people on sick teen's flight": This is a good one. If someone told the FBI that there was an Al Queda bomber on that flight into the US, they would know every name, address and life history of every single passenger on that flight in about 27 minutes. Those resources, however, are not available for US citizens in cases not involving terroristic heroism.

Item: "Melting glaciers contributing to rising seas": D'uh!?! Ever hear one of those stories where someone gets a piece of mail delivered after years lost in the postal system? That's what we have here only this time there was email postage due. We shall wait anxiously for news that the sun is to blame for shadows and that the president is a moron.