Friday stuff
Today's recommended reading: a really good piece by underrated writer James Whitters about old-timer Benny Friedman's induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Here's my latest column for Bostonsportsreview.com; click on the link to check out the rest of the mag's content.
Words from way out West
By Dave Doyle
Contributing columnist
A bunch of sunny Seattle summer thoughts while pondering how the satellite TV baseball package is saving me from months of Mariners baseball:
*Is it possible to just dispense of the first half of the regular season in baseball and commence on August 1 from here in on? It seems like every year, the Red Sox start strong; go on cruise control; hit the skids during interleague play; then get jolted back into reality by some sort of bedlam around the trade deadline, whereupon they go on a tear. Last year it was the Nomar trade; this year it was the Manny Mayhem.
*You know who might determine the winner of the American League East over the next two months? The Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Seriously. Heading into Thursday night, the Rays are 14-5 since the All-Star break. Tampa has given division foes fits all season. And the Rays still have nine games left with the Yankees and seven with the Sox. They have won six of their past seven against New York. True, four of the five losses since the break were to the Sox, but something bizarre happens every time the teams hook up.
*I don't usually buy into the notion of East Coast bias, but you have to wonder if Roger Clemens would be getting far more ink if he suited up at Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium or Camden Yards. What Clemens is doing is ridiculous -- he turned 43 years old Thursday, and has a 1.45 ERA. In 1986 his ERA was 2.48 and in 1990 it was 1.93. His 10-4 record doesn't reflect what little run support he got in the early going, before the Astros got it together. This has been the most underplayed story in baseball this summer.
*It might be too soon to talk college football, but regardless, go ahead and crown the Division 1-A national champion right now: Pete Carroll's Southern Cal Trojans will win AP title No. 3 and BCS crown No. 2 when all's said and done, unless Bobby Grier comes in and messes with his roster sometime in the next couple of months. USC's backups might make for a Top 25 team on their own.
*I want to give the Bruins the benefit of the doubt. I really do. I want to think that Mike O'Connell is going somewhere with the series of signings he's made recently. But I just remember hearing for the past decade how the Bruins are being smart with their economic prudence and storing themselves up for the post-lockout future, upon which time they would go all-out to build a champion. So far, though, the signings sure look like more of the same -- third- and fourth-liners; aging veterans; and non-stars with local ties. Of course it is still early on in the process and O'Connell is navigating a complex new system, but the early returns indicate the new Bruins will look much the same as the old.
*Oh, and for those who got on Manny Ramirez's case and tried to ride him out of town on a rail last week: Since he insisted on taking his day off -- you know, the one that was supposed to portend the apocalypse and tear the team apart -- the Sox are 8-0.
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