Posted by Teddy Panos, Sun Staff
A few things for you to ponder and debate heading into a busy sports weekend:
1) The Manny-Youk dust-up was apparently over Kevin Youkilis’ habit of throwing tantrums in the dugout. If the ESPN report is to be believed, the behavior has been a sore spot in the past and has been addressed before…never so publicly, of course.
I’d be a lot more worried about this if I thought it signaled some kind of dugout dissension. However, Manny and Youk spent much of the offseason working out together in Arizona, so I’m assuming they’re relatively close. For now, we’ll chalk it up to “heat of the moment” and move on. Hopefully, the team can do the same.
2) Big Brown stands one win away from ending a 30-year Triple Crown drought. Interestingly enough, the horse Brown is most often compared to, Secretariat, ended a 25-year drought. Up till then, that was the longest time between Crown winners.
I’ve said it before…I’ll say it again. The sport of Thoroughbred Racing REALLY needs this shot in the arm. I think Big Brown is the horse to do it, though we’ve thought this before, especially after Smarty Jones won the 2004 Preakness by 11 ½ lengths, only to come up just short in the Belmont. However, Smarty Jones was nowhere near the explosive horse this thing is.
(By the way, the above photo is from the classic stretch duel betwen Affirmed and Alydar, the two horses who battled neck and neck throughout all three Triple Crown races. Affirmed was the last horse to turn the trick)
3) Lots of local high school teams involved in state tournament action this weekend. Congrats to any of you with an alma mater still going strong. I hope you get on out and support your team.
As for the rest of you in the Merrimack Valley, I hope you’re able to put aside any petty conference rivalries and get out and root on a local team. I hate hearing people who root against a local team just because it’s not THEIR team. (Believe me, you hear a lot of that at the college and high school level) It’s a great story when a Merrimack Valley team wins a state title, regardless of town or conference.
4) Oh yeah, we also have this little thing called the NBA Finals going on. I’m sure you can find something to say about that.
That’s the view from here…how do you see things?