PARADE!

I can't stand the term "rolling rally," and I refuse to call it that.  I guess it goes back to when Mayor Menino got so scared of the crowds at the Patriots first Super Bowl championship rally (in 2002 at City Hall Plaza) that in 2004 he decided to have parades instead.  While admittedly it was a good idea, I think the fact that the Mayor couldn't even pronounce "rolling rally" made me hate the term forever.

That's Jonny Gomes holding up the World Series Trophy on the right, and below is just a whole bunch of confetti.

I was kind of excited to see the Red Sox ride the duck boats along the Charles River; I missed it in '04 and they haven't done it since.  Unfortunately that part of the day was a fairly anticlimactic:

This was the 8th event of its kind that the city of Boston has hosted since the turn of the century (the second since the creation of LucidSportsFan.com), and I've been to seven of them.  In my defense I was living in Austin, Texas for the only one I missed, and I did actually go to Houston (the host city) to watch the Patriots beat Carolina in the Super Bowl.  No other city can match that number of major sports titles this millennium.

Also, how do you think I get a chance to ride on Jake Peavy's duck boat?

So @JakePeavy_44 is fired up because he bought this boat. Yup, the whole thing. This is our Ducking City! http://t.co/EQqhwpiDcE
— Boston Red Sox (@RedSox) November 2, 2013

Pretty genius line by whoever runs the Sox twitter account; Tampa may want to take notes.

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Remember the Celtics? They're playing again...

Lost in all the World Series excitement on Wednesday night was the fact that the Celtics actually kicked of their 2013-2014 season.  They lost 93-87 in Toronto, and I think about 14 people in the Boston area actually saw the game.  Tonight they'll take the floor at the Garden for the home opener.  For the first time in 7 years there is pretty much zero excitement surrounding this team.  Case in point, can you name the guy in the picture?  At least for the time being, he's the starting center.

The C's do still have a few interesting story lines, and a hand full of players that will hopefully be worth watching.  For CelticsLife today I wrote a dollar by dollar breakdown of how much of my $70 per game season ticket price will go towards watching each player.  And here's a team season preview I wrote last month.

Oh, and his name is Vitor Faverani, a Brazilian free agent they signed from a Spanish league.

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World Series afterthoughts: Papi & pitching

Is that the bat Ortiz was using?

David Ortiz's final World Series MVP numbers: 11-16 (.688), 7 runs, 2 doubles, 2 home runs, 6 RBI's, 8 walks, a .760 on base percentage, and one stolen grand slam turned sacrifice fly.  He reached base at least 3 times in each of the final 5 games (and in Game 1 he was 2-3 with a HR and the aforementioned almost grand slam), culminating with the Cardinals basically surrendering and giving him 4 walks last night.  Most people booed this, but I loved it.  More base runners is almost always a good thing, as we saw with Shane Victorino's 3 run double.  Speaking of that, how amazing is this photo:

The funny thing was, after Jonny Gomes crossed the plate, this game (and series) was over in the 3rd inning (it felt kind of anticlimactic, reminding me of the clinching Game 6 of the 2008 NBA Finals in which the Celtics led the Lakers 58-35 at halftime).  Normally an early three run lead doesn't end a baseball game, but in this World Series it did.  The Cardinals only scored 14 times in the entire series, and had just 4 runs total over the final 3 games (all Sox victories).  St. Louis' 6-9 hitters did not record a single RBI, and Boston's starting pitchers allowed just 7 earned runs.  As incredibly worthy as Ortiz was of the MVP, the Red Sox pitching is what won it for them.


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Guaranteed to get you pumped for World Series Game 6 tonight, + a bold prediction

If you've got 14 extra minutes available today to get excited about the Red Sox, I highly recommend watching all four of these clips.  If you don't have that much time just skip down to the last one (but then you'll be missing out for sure).













And here is my very bold prediction:

Making the call now, and I'll write about it before Game 6: Stephen Drew is going to win this World Series for Boston (and with his bat too)
— Mark Vandeusen (@LucidSportsFan) October 29, 2013

Drew has been nothing short of spectacular defensively, in fact I'd argue it's been worth having him in there just for that alone.  But at the plate he's 1-15 (.067) in the World Series, and incredibly just 4-50 (.080) in the playoffs. He's a much better hitter than that.  During the regular season Drew batted .253 (112-442).  Laws of physics, probability, and reason suggest he's got to hit eventually.  I think it's going to happen, and in a big spot.  He showed signs of life in consecutive at bats in Game 5; first with a near home run to right center in the 5th and then a huge walk during the go-ahead rally in the 7th.  His big brother JD hit what's been dubbed the $14 million grand slam (the only thing he did to earn his money during the first season of 5 year $70 million contract) to help the Sox rally form a 3-1 series deficit in the 2007 ALCS vs Cleveland.  I'm betting it runs in the family.

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1918 again? Really?

I'm not thinking about 1918 in 2013.

Ever since Daniel Nava caught that line drive off Matt Holliday's bat to send Boston back home up 3-2, all I've been hearing about is how the Red Sox will have a chance to win a World Series at Fenway Park for the first time since 1918.  I think that's stupid.  We had 1918 on our minds for decades, but those thoughts were buried forever nine years ago.  Who cares if they win a championship at home or not?  Nobody on earth would tell you that the 2004 or 2007 titles would've been better if instead of sweeping the Sox had lost two games on the road and clinched in Boston.

When the Celtics won it all in 2008 I was in the building, and that was awesome.  But with the exception of the 18,500 or so people at that game, does anybody really care where it was?  I don't think many Bruins fans are too upset about winning Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final in Vancouver back in 2011.  And how many Super Bowls have the Patriots won here in New England?  That Adam Vinatieri kick to beat the Rams in 2001 was still worth watching even though it happened all the way down in New Orleans.

So how about instead of this "chance to win a World Series at home for the first time in 95 years" crap everybody just starts talking about the possibility of a 3rd championship in less than a decade; dynasty.

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Sorry Mike Napoli, but you're sitting again tonight

When this World Series shifted to St. Louis for 3 games (with no DH in the lineup), I assumed that David Ortiz would start at first base twice, and Mike Napoli once.  A week ago it was somewhat debatable whether or not the upgrade in Ortiz's bat was enough to justify the downgrade in his glove.  But now that's a moot point.

As a team the Red Sox have just 24 hits in the series, eight of which belong to Ortiz.  He's blasted two of their three home runs as well.  Through four games Boston has a total of 18 runs, and Papi has either scored or driven in 8 of them.  In 16 plate appearances he's 8-11 with 4 walks and a sacrifice fly (and that sac fly was over the wall, Carlos Beltran robbed him of a grand slam).  Ortiz's .727 series batting average is higher than Boston's next 3 top hitters combined (Dustin Pedroia .267 + Xander Bogaerts .231 + Daniel Nava .200 = .698 total).

As important as Mike Napoli has been to this ball club, I'm pretty sure even the cows know he shouldn't be in the lineup tonight.



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Awesome Old Song of the Week: "Rooster" by Alice in Chains

The movie This is 40 has been running on HBO a lot lately, and this scene from it cracks me up:




Normally I would tend to agree with the girls' point of view on that issue, but for the sake of this post I'll go with Paul Rudd's choice; from 1993, "Rooster" by Alice in Chains.

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