1986 Red Sox lineup

Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Clemens' first 20K game, and they re-aired it on NESN.  That got me thinking about a conversation I had a few weeks ago.  Somebody asked me if I could name off the top of my head the starting lineups for both Sox championships teams in '04 and '07.  I think if I really thought about it I could, but not easily, and I might get some mixed up.  But the '86 team I still know easily:

1B: Buckner

2B: Barrett

3B: Boggs

SS: Owen (in a trade for Ray Quinones)

LF: Rice

CF: Armas

RF: Evans

C: Gedman

DH: Baylor

 

I think the reason for this has got to be baseball cards.  I spent a ridiculous amount of time with them in 1987.  when I found these pics on the web I remembered them perfectly.

Or it may be that kids are just better and remembering stuff and i'm getting old.

ipad restaurant menus

i went to a new restaurant the other day and asked to see their tequila list.  the bartender handed me an ipad.  now i like to think i'm reasonably tech savvy.  i have a fancy 4G droid phone, and i understand how ipads work.  but as far as menu's go, i thought it kind of sucked.  so if i wasn't a fan, i can't imagine how somebody's grandmother would react to it.  the problem is it's just way too involved.  when i look at a tequila list i want to be able to glance over everything, see the prices, and pick one i like.  instead i had to click on a few different things to get to tequilas, then i had to click on each category, then i had to click on each specific one in order to find out the price.  it took forever.  if you want to sit for half an hour before you order and have a full page of information available for every possible item, then this is for you.  i suppose it's not the ipad's fault though, just the way that they set it up.

the other issue is, how can they not lose them?  how can a large busy indoor/outdoor waterfront restaurant hand out menus that are worth $400 each?  drunk people will drop them.  angry people will try to take them.  disgruntled employees will steal them.  this may be the wave of the future, but i don't think we're there yet.  the place has been open less than 2 weeks.  my guess is the ipad menus don't last 2 months.

the NFL draft is finally here! and then we can stop talking about it

i watch a lot of espn and espn2 in the day time before i go to work.  and for weeks and weeks they've been talking about the NFL draft, more and more as this day has gotten closer.  and each year it gets worse than the year before.  more in depth analysis.  more interviews with "experts."  more of my former spider classmate todd mcshay talking about which guys are moving up and down his draft board.  what i don't get is why people want to hear all this?  if you look at the history of the draft some high picks do well, and some flop.  sometimes you get jamarcus russell #1 overall, and sometimes you get tom brady in the 6th round.  nobody knows who's going to be great and who's going to be out of the league in 2 years.  but the media talks and talks and talks about as if they know exactly what each guy is going to do.  well guess what, they don't, and it's a huge waste of time. 

hockey plays game 7's on no days rest???

i tend to be of the opinion that hockey is a notch (maybe 2) below the other 3 major sports, both in terms of interest level and overall relevance.  in my mind, since half the teams make the playoffs and seeding hardly matters, there's no good reason to pay much attention during the regular season.  i do love to jump on the bandwagon come playoff time though.  having said that, the fact that the bruins and canadians travel back to boston and play game 7 tonight without a days rest pretty much sums up the NHL's level of significance.  enormous television contracts basically dictate the playoff schedules for the other 3 sports, but this hockey series had to be adjusted to accommodate a lady gaga concert.  even in montreal, which last i checked was part of canada, where i thought hockey was a pretty big deal.

The problem with another Wild Card team

So it seems a certainty that MLB is going to add an additional Wild Card team in each league for 2012.  I don't like it, but not for the reasons everybody is talking about.  I don't care if they're just doing it for more TV money.  I don't care if it makes the season last longer.  I don't care if it means the Red Sox and Yankees both make the playoffs every year from now till eternity.  I don't like it because they're saying the Wild Card round will be either 2 out of 3, or just 1 game.  My biggest issue with the current playoff system is that the 3 out of 5 first round is too short.  It's just way too small a sample.  Anything can happen in 3 baseball games.  And it's not representative of the whole team when you only have to use 3 of your 5 starting pitchers.  Now imagine ONE game.  It has nothing to do with the teams, just whichever ace is better that day. 

How about this for a comparison: One baseball game is the mathematical equivalent to half a basketball game.  If the first round of the NBA Playoffs was half a game long, the Bulls, Celtics, Magic, Spurs, Lakers, and Thunder all would have been upset last week. 

Or even crazier, one baseball game is the same percentage of a season as 6 minutes of an NFL game.

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puke flavored jelly beans

even though my sisters and i are adults, we do lots of kid stuff at easter.  there's an egg hunt, and my mom still puts some candy and other things in a basket.  this year we each got a box of these crazy jelly beans:

they come in regular colors and flavors, except half of them are gross, on purpose.  so you eat one that is brown, but you don't know if it is chocolate or dog food.  the yellow are popcorn or rotten egg, the orange are peach or vomit, etc.  and the bad ones taste bad, really bad.  like offensively bad.

sweep x 2

i have no data to support this, but my guess is the sox and celtics have never simultaneously closed out 4 games sweeps on the road before. 

RED SOX:   i've run out of things to say about the starting pitchers, now at an absurd streak of just 7 runs allowed the past 9 games.  for everybody who was panicking ten days ago, they have an identical record through 21 games as last year (10-11), and are just 1.5 out of the wild card.

CELTICS:   not many people would have guessed they'd be the first team through to round 2.  i can't wait for all the media love they'll get the next couple days while the heat, bulls, lakers, and spurs struggle on.  the celtics do need to work on their free throw shooting though, ray allen shot a surprising 65% (17-26) from the line for the series.  oh no wait, that was the 3-point line.

and i know the heat will beat philly, but i love this stat.  for those who can't add good, that's 1-19.  it's hard to be too afraid of a team that shoots 5% with the game on the line.

P.S.
("can't add good" was a joke/zoolander reference.  i think in may have been a little too subtle though...)

red sox redonculous starting pitching continues

the sox starting pitchers have now given up a total of 7 runs in the last 8 games.  i'm sure there have been similar streaks in baseball over the last few years, but i can't remember anything this dominant for this long.  most amazing of all is the back to back starts they have gotten from dice k: 15 innings, 12 K, 0 runs, 2 hits.  are you kidding me?  freaking daisuke matsuzaka?  this is the same guy who got shelled for 7 runs on 8 hits over just 2 innings in his previous start.  what the $#IT is going on?!