Time to plow through the pile of thoughts accumulated during a weekend of too much snow and not enough meaningful football:
Forget what Mother Nature or the calendar says. The surest sign spring is right around the corner is the Red Sox equipment truck rolling out of Fenway Park Monday on the way to Fort Myers. Pitchers and catchers report Saturday. First official workout is Sunday.
Not that I don’t love international competition, but I think this World Baseball Classic is a very bad idea. Play it in November. Take two weeks off around the All-Star break and make up regular season games by scheduling doubleheaders. But asking competitors to play for pride and country before their bodies are up to the challenge is just asking for trouble.
I’m worried about Jason Varitek’s participation in particular. The guy wore down noticeably late in ‘05. Adding catching duties for Team USA certainly won’t help the Sox cause during the dog days of August.
And count me among the Fantasy Baseball geeks who will take a more skeptical look at any starting pitcher who toes the rubber and goes all out when he should be building slowly toward opening day. This could be more dangerous to a pitcher’s body than hunting with Vice President Cheney.
If the Pro Bowl falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? In my mind, no Brady and no Seymour equals no interest.
Come on now! Steve McNair and Michael Vick played in this year’s “All-Star� game. Together they combined for a whopping 31-touchdown passes, or one less than Carson Palmer, who missed the game due to injury.
Heard Peyton Manning threw 3-INT’s in the exhibition. Must have been protection problems!
Love the Olympics. I really do. But I can’t tell you how much I hate the way NBC televises them. It’s nearly impossible for a true sports fan to enjoy competition when the results are already in.
Sure, we’ll watch when one of our own wins. But knowing ahead of time that Bode Miller and Apolo Anton Ohno lost their respective events is an open invitation to ogle Teri Hatcher and the gals on Wysteria Lane.
Before you go reminding me the Men’s Downhill was finished by around 8:30 a.m., I’ll remind you I’m the same person who woke up to watch the Canadian Channel’s Sydney Olympics coverage at 5 a.m. If only I’d paid more attention in Mademoiselle Brady’s French Class.
News flash; Michelle Kwan withdraws from the Women’s Figure Skating competition. Is that so she can save herself for the Senior Olympics? I’m not saying she’s old or anything, but this is the same girl who served as an alternate during the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding fiasco.
Speaking of fiascos, have you seen Harding lately? I think she ate Oksana Bauil.
The Olympics serve as a blessing and a curse for Bruins fans. The good news is the 2-week break gives the Black and Gold a chance to regroup now that their momentum seems to have taken a downward turn again. The bad news is the hockey on display in Torino will remind us just how poor the quality of play is in Beantown and most other NHL stops.
The regular season standings show a pair of wins for the Celtics this past weekend. The draft lottery standings, the ones I’m most interested in right now, show a few less ping-pong balls for the men in green.
That’s my take...what's yours?