The LucidSportsFan expansion continues...

My services have been requested for another website, celtic-nation.com.  The really cool thing about this one is that the creator is a published author who has interview tons of Celtics players and coaches over the years.  Take a look, it's pretty impressive stuff.  The site is trying to get more in tune with the current team and it's fans, so they've recruited me to write for them.

Having said that, here's a couple of stats from Friday night's win over New Jersey that jumped out to me: Kevin Garnett's 20 points marked the 5th straight game he's netted 18 or more, his best scoring run in five years.  And with the exception of the garbage time 4th against the Nets, the C's have strung together seven consecutive quarters of 25 points or more, a nice run for a team lacking consistency and only averaging 90.2 ppg.

On another note, last September I wrote a post saying that I need a LucidSportsFan logo.  It was a little bit serious, but mostly joking.  Well, now I definitely do; for real.  Ideas, suggestions, and offers to help are welcome, and would be greatly appreciated.  Somehow it has to convey all the stuff I said in that post, most of which is well represented in the profile pic of my facebook fan page.  The logos on the left side of the page for the other sites I write for are a good frame of reference.  It's a challenge for sure.

Awesome Old Song of the Week: "Escapade" by Janet Jackson. Also, today is a big day.

Escapade was a Billboard #1 in early 1990.  It was off of Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation album, which is definitely one of my top 10 all time favorite cassettes that I ever owned.  Plus, "escapade" is just a really cool word.  Without looking it up, I'm guessing the definition is "a mini-vacation/adventure that is of a slightly bad-ass or rebelious nature."

This picture is from her "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" video, which came oh so close to being picked today instead.

Also, today, Thursday, March 2nd, 2012, is the one year anniversary of the creation of this blog.  It's come a long way since day 1.  Do you know what that means?  I have written and posted something on this site for 366 (yeah leap day) consecutive days.  No vacations.  No calling in sick.  I'm like Cal Ripken.

C's more likely to win the division or miss the playoffs?

For the second night in a row the Celtics knocked off the team immediately behind them in the Eastern Conference playoff standings (first the Cavs on Tuesday, then the Bucks on Wednesday).  And even though Boston is tied with New York for the 7th/8th playoff spots, they're now 3.5 games ahead of both Cleveland and Milwaukee, but only 3 games behind Philly for the Atlantic Division lead and the 3rd seed in the East (with 2 of their next 4 games against the Knicks and Sixers).

On Wednesday against the Bucks Garnett filled in at center and looked as good as he has all year, putting up a season high 25 points, and 10 rebounds.  It marked the first time since the 2008 Championship season that he's scored 18 or more points in four straight games.  He also went 4-4 from the free throw line in the last 14 seconds to ice the game (for the season he's shooting a career high 86% FT, second best on the team to Ray's 92%).  With Jermaine O'Neal out, Brandon Bass took over Garnett's power forward spot.  I love this lineup, and I really hope Doc keeps going with it.  If KG can outplay Dwight Howard in back to back games, I'm pretty sure he can hold his own at center against the rest of the Eastern Conference.  After going 1-5 in the previous six games that Bass missed, the C's are now 2-0 since his return.  Obviously I'm not saying that's the reason they lost five in a row, but I do think there's a slight correlation.

On Tuesday night in Cleveland Rondo was held scoreless with five turnovers (although he did have 11 assists.  I'd be surprised if Pierce and Rondo had ever combined for 5 more assists than points in a game before; Paul had 12 pts and 6 ast).  But on Wednesday Rajon responded with his 3rd triple-double of the season (15 pts, 11 reb, 10 ast).  That's two more than anyone else in the league, and three more than Lebron, Wade, Kobe, Durant, and a whole bunch of other superstars combined.  And check out this stat that ESPN was nice enough to throw out there on Sportscenter last night:

Wow.  That is some list.  I REALLY hope they don't trade Rondo.  My official plea to Danny Ainge is coming soon.  Oh, and back to the title of this post, I still think they can win the division.

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I've made a big discovery, and unfortunately I have to give Jeremy Lin some of the credit

The other day I was reading a post on celticshub.com about why trading Rajon Rondo for Paul Gasol would be a good deal for the Boston.  I have an extreme dislike for Gasol and a very high level of affection for Rondo, so I was inspired to write a comment underneath.  To help make my case, I left a link to one of my posts explaining why, contrary to popular belief, I believe Rondo actually can shoot.  The next day when I checked my stats, I was pleasantly surprised to see that 30-some people had clicked on that link.  So yesterday I left another comment on a cbssports.com article about Jeremy Lin, and included a link to my blog that details why I think he's going to have a tough time the rest of the season.

When I got home from work last night, I discovered that NINE HUNDRED people had clicked on that link.  I assumed it was some sort of computer glitch, so I left another comment/link below a story about Lin on espnnewyork.com.  By this afternoon, 600 people had been here via that link.  In the last 3 days, this site has gotten as many hits as it did in the entire month of October.

Now I'm sure this is somewhat of a coincidence, and obviously it won't always be so easy, but I have definitely stumbled across a fairly effective way to promote lucidsportsfan.com.  And if you've been wondering this whole time how the picture relates to anything; the answer is it doesn't.  But when I did a google image search for "discover something new" it popped up, and I just liked it a lot.  Years ago I started mentally designing what the perfect bar would look like, and this one has several of the key components.

Also I don't know why the ads on the side only work sometimes, I'm hoping it's something adbrite will sort out in the near future.

First Wake, now Tek

Jason Varitek is officially announcing his retirement Thursday, which means both of the longest tenured Red Sox have decided to hang 'em up in a span of less than two weeks.  I feel similarly about Varitek as I do about Wakefield, obviously I can't try to sum up everything he did in a Boston uniform.  So I will just say this: Varitek is the greatest player in Major League history at catching no hitters.  He is the only one ever to do it FOUR times; and he came within a single out of five.  Obviously there is a significant amount of luck/chance involved in this, but it's definitely not a coincidence either.

I remember exactly where I was on all 5 occasions.  Saturday, April 27, 2002, Derek Lowe beat Tampa 10-0, throwing the first no-hitter at Fenway park in 37 years.  I watched the game while working at Boston Beer Works by North Station.  Thursday, June 7, 2007 Curt Schilling beat Oakland 1-0, giving up just one hit to the A's Shannon Stewart with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th.  My buddy and I were on day trip to the Vineyard, and watched the game at The Sandbar in Oak Bluffs.  Later that season, on Saturday, September 1, 2007, Clay Buchholz threw a no-no vs Baltimore in just his second Major League start ever. Again I was working at a bar (but still watching), this time at Foundation Lounge in Kenmore Square.

Now here's the big reason for why I chose this topic specifically: For both the first and last no-hitters that Jason Varitek ever caught, I WAS THERE.  In the ballpark.  I want so badly to take a picture of the ticket stubs and post it, unfortunately they are in a scrap book somewhere at my parents' house, so you're just going to have to take my word for it.  Wednesday, April 4, 2001, Hideo Nomo no-hit the Orioles at Camden Yards.  Because of a rain out the day before it was just the second game of the season.  I was living in Richmond, VA, and some fraternity brothers and I decided to make the drive up to Baltimore for the game that night.  And finally, Monday, May 19, 2008 Jon Lester tossed a no-hitter vs Kansas City, beating the Royals 7-0.  My boss from Foundation Lounge took us all to Fenway that night for a staff outing.  We sat in the now defunct Tony Conigliaro bleacher section up high in right field, and it was an incredibly cold and windy night for mid-May.

So there you have it.  Jason Varitek was behind the plate each and every time.

"You not say Ukraine weak!"

Yesterday there were 124 people in the Ukraine who visited lucidsportsfan.com.  That is weird.  To put it in perspective, 172 people in Germany have looked at my site, EVER.  So I dug a little deeper, and found out that 120 of those clicks came via a site called troll-face-ru.blogspot.com.  I've had things like this happen in the past, and they have always been some sort of soliciting/spam/fake website.  But this time I really don't think that is the case.

Go ahead and take a look, I promise it won't infect your computer or anything.  It's a bizarre cartoon blog written in Russian, and I can't for the life of me comprehend how it could possibly link to my site in any way whatsoever.  If you can figure it out I'll give you a free subscription for life (by the way, I have made that offer several times now, and so far nobody has claimed it).  But anyway, thanks Ukrainians, you've helped contribute to one of my highest traffic days yet.

The best thing I have added to my site so far

I've made some changes lately, most noticeably there are advertisements on this page again.  Ever since I got banned from google adsense I've been meaning to find an alternative.  I just started using something called "adbrite" that I don't really know much about.  If you have any insight into how it works, or suggestions for other advertising sites, feel free to comment below, or email me.

But what I'm really excited about is this new feature on the side that lets you view all the posts within a certain category (it's on the right underneath the "contact email" photo).  I spent the majority of the weekend going back over every blog I've ever written, and individually labeling them.  This gives you much easier access to old posts, and I assume it will encourage the average person to read things beyond just the first page.  Most of the best stuff I have written appears under "philosophizing."  People that are way into sports should be big fans of the "really good stats" category.  But don't sleep on "general unawareness of others" and "regression to the mean," those are easily my two favorite.

Oh, and I got a new business card too.