Dave's World: Stuff

A few thoughts, here:

*First off, congrats to A-Rod on both his .133 postseason batting average and his A.L. MVP. The award almost erases the final A-Rod image of 2005, that of his ninth-inning double play in Game 5 against the Angels. Almost.

*I have to admit I got a bit of chuckle out of the spate of "hey, the Bruins are a train wreck, who saw that one coming?" articles in the Boston papers over the past couple days. I could re-post the "same old Bruins" item I wrote during the first week of training camp, but lord knows I've gotten my share of things wrong here.

A couple years back, when the Bruins were in the midst of their historic choke against the Habs in the playoffs, Kevin Paul Dupont wrote a tough piece criticizing Joe Thornton for his play and initmated he might not deserve to wear the captain's C. Kevin got absolutely skewered for writing this column. But, here's the thing. Let me make this clear:

DUPIE WAS RIGHT.

Joe Thornton is a very good hockey player. From all accounts, he's one of the best guys you could want to meet. And I definitely wouldn't want to get into a fight with him.

But being a captain in hockey means doing things like Mark Messier did in 1994 when his Rangers trailed the Devils 3-2 in the Eastern Conference finals. He sought out the tabloid reporters, guaranteed victory, and basically went out and delivered it. The Bruins sat around against Montreal with their thumbs up their butts and frittered away a 3-1 series lead for the first time in franchise history.

There's a big difference between writing columns that are stinging but fair and cheap-shot columns. Everyone knows who the cheap-shot artists are in Boston. Dupie's not one of them. His Thornton column was both on the money and fair. I mean, geez, if the Bruins couldn't handle the heat from one critical column, they didn't deserve to win anyway.

Anyway, the main premise of that column has become apparent yet again this year. The Bruins are the softest team on ice and have zero killer instinct. Changing the captaincy won't turn things around, but I've still yet to see anything out of Thornton that would indicate he deserves the honor.

*I got satellite radio over the weekend. As of right now, I consider it quite possibly the single greatest invention in the history of the human race. I'd say "the greatest thing since sliced bread," but this is way better than sliced bread. 230 channels, no commercials, no DJs, every NHL and MLB game and a ton of college hoops and football. I can't believe I've lived the first 32 years of my life without this.

But this got me thinking ... just how bad is commercial radio? Think about it. They have a product that is free, and that free product has become so lousy that droves of people are willing to pay $12.95 a month for an alternative. I mean, there is still obviously some quality stuff on commercial radio, but if there wasn't so much lowest-common-denomenator garbage I never would have even thought to look into satellite radio.

*So, I'm not sure I'm going to have time to do the Dave's World Awards, after all. I sort of forgot how much time and energy goes into picking up and moving down the coast.

I am, however, going to link up to my friend Matt's Dispatches from Iraq series one more time. I consider this one of the most rewarding endeavors I've undertaken as a journalist. And I'd like to think Matt and I demonstrated something about the potential of blogs -- I gave Matt the medium, he supplied the dispatches, and we were able to give an unfiltered look at what's going on over in the desert without the constraints of traditional media.

Dispatches from Iraq series links

Dave's World

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Stuff