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What’s the one thing Bobby V could say that would potentially get him driven out of town?
It could go one of two routes. Either he’d have to make the following 10 points in the SAME interview …
“I’ve managed in New York and I’ve managed in Boston … New York just has better and more sophisticated fans. It’s a fact.”
“I have to admit, it’s weird to be managing in Boston given that I believe Magic was better than Bird, Gretzky was better than Orr, Kiss was better than Aerosmith, DiMaggio was better than Williams, and Manhattan clam chowder was better than that creamy white sludge they serve here. I even think Fire Island is better than Provincetown. Again, it’s just weird that I ended up here.”
“I’ve been a fan of Eli Manning’s game for a long time — those boys will go down as one of the best teams ever in any sport.”
“What’s up with the goofy accents here? These people sound like reeee-tahds. [Long laugh.]”
“I can’t believe how much they worship the Kennedys around here. Don’t they realize that JFK was the most overrated American president ever? Oh, and nice job pretending that Chappaquiddick never happened, EVERYBODY.”
“I can’t believe how much Dennis & Callahan’s political views echo my own.”
“Irish people are fat, freckled, drunken morons. And always have been, by the way.”
“Kevin Youkilis isn’t as physically and emotionally into the game.”
“I agree with Luke Scott — Fenway is a dump and they should have torn it down 20 years ago.”
“Sam Adams tastes like elephant piss and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee tastes like elephant shit. Sometimes I like to drink them both at once just to see how fast I can throw up.”
OR …
He’d have to answer a question about Boston’s busing riots in 1974 by saying something like, “I know that stuff happened almost 40 years ago, but I don’t care — I’ll always believe Boston is a racist city and you’ll never be able to tell me differently.”
” —http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7836691/welcome-back-mailbag
My favorite part of Bill Simmons’ latest mailbag column. If you know Boston, then you know just how funny this is!
For the record, I have been skeptical of the Bobby V hire from the start.
Proving once again that Bruins fans are the worst type of Boston sports fans. It’s also interesting—in a purely academic sense—to compare this with last month’s racist tweeting in Great Britain following Muamba’s collapse on the pitch. In that case, the tweeter has received a 56-day jail term. In the States, that would never happen because we have free speech laws, which, for better or worse, protect your right to be a racist asshole if you want to be.
It’s only fitting that Bruins fans would the ones to publicly air Boston’s dirty and racist laundry (for those that don’t know, Boston is still one of the most racist American cities). After all, Bruins goalie Tim Thomas has proven himself this year to be a total right-wing nutjob (and to think once upon a time I called him “a more likable Tom Brady;” couldn’t have been more wrong about that one!), and these days that Tea Party-style rhetoric is plum full of racist subtext.
He’s the Chicago White Sox pitcher who just threw the 21st perfect game in MLB history. What is more, it came against the Mariners. Now, the Mariners aren’t exactly an offensive threat—they are currently languishing near the bottom of the AL West standings, which has become their home for the past several seasons—but they do have Ichiro Suzuki, and even though Ichiro isn’t who he used to be, he’s still good at getting cheap hits here and there.
For baseball fans like myself who relish good pitching and defense it doesn’t get much better than watching a perfect game (full disclosure: I wasn’t able to actually watch this one as I still haven’t found a way to pirate live sports streams in Korea). But what makes this particular perfect game so weird is that up until this point very few fans knew who Philip Humber was. A quick check of his Wikipedia page reveals that he was a top prospect who never quite reached his potential and had Tommy John surgery in 2005. Many observers are of the opinion that Tommy John surgery—which takes around one year to recover from—allows a pitcher to throw harder than he did before. Others point out that the surgery basically “hits the reset button” on a pitcher’s ulnar collateral ligament, strengthening it temporarily but not permanently. At any rate, Tommy John alone probably doesn’t account for Humber’s ability to throw a perfect game. A couple of other relevant points: 1) the last time that a pitcher with a profile this low threw a perfect game was Dallas Braden in 2010; 2) Humber only needed 96 pitches to win the game, which is pretty remarkable in this day and age; the last time a perfect game was pitched with less than 100 pitches was David Cone in 1999 in which he threw an other-worldly 88 pitches; 3) Humber’s lifetime win-loss record up until the perfect game was a pedestrian 11-10, and the White Sox are his fourth MLB team.
Perfect games are usually more of flukes than anything else, but given his history as a fantastic college pitcher and the third overall pick in the 2004 draft, perhaps this game will be the catalyst for Humber to become an A-list pitcher.
This is a good thing to remember when it comes to the MLB. Much as I love baseball, the games don’t actually matter until some time in August. By then, maybe Ellsbury’s shoulder will be ok.
First he went full birther and denounced a sitting president (which as Charlie Pierce points out is kind of worse than whatever Ozzie is supposed to have done), and now he’s dissing Fenway?! Dude, I don’t know if you realize this, but you play at the Trop!
1) People who know me know that there isn’t a Boston sports star (not even Tom Brady or Paul Pierce) that I like more than Rajon Rondo (I guess you could call me a “Rondo apologist”). Right now, Rondo is riding the longest streak of games with double-digit assists in 20 years. He also has recorded more triple-double games than anyone else this season. It helps that he plays with three future Hall of Famers, but still, dude is the very model of a modern floor general. When rumors were flying around about the possibility that he would be traded before the beginning of the season, and then again before the trade deadline, I was filled with woe, but I’m glad that Danny Ainge had enough sense to keep him—and it’s paying off. The knock on Rondo has always been that he can’t shoot, especially free throws (which helps pad his assists totals because he likes to kick it out when he drives the lane instead of drawing contact), and a quick look at his stats for ‘11-‘12 show that this hasn’t been his best season statistically. But in a year when Celtics fans have been facing the hard truth that the roster will look radically different next season, Rondo appears to be the player that will bridge this era of greatness into, hopefully, another one. The other knock on Rondo is that he is “mercurial,” which is sportswriter/front office shorthand for “acts like an asshole.” I have no way of knowing if this is true, but it seems likely that he hasn’t done much to ingratiate himself to the people around him. However, you wouldn’t really know it if he did act like a petulant child behind closed doors because on the court and in postgame interviews he plays the role of dedicated teammate to a T. Maybe he is a primadonna, but it certainly isn’t a role that he has embraced. And speaking of primadonnas…
2) The NBA, like any professional sports league, has always been full of overpaid jerks who feel like they have been slighted in one way or another. I get that. But it seems like this season these types of players are popping up in abundance. The most recent examples this year have been Dwight Howard, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom, all of whom are different sorts of archetypal NBA primadonnas. First, Howard: He’s a primadonna in the mold of LeBron James, someone who knows he’s ridiculously talented—and has been told so his entire life—and feels like he should have won a couple of championships by now. He feels like he would finally live up to his potential if only he was surrounded by better teammates or was on a better team. Howard demanded that Orlando trade him all year, then backtracked right before the trade deadline and said he wanted to stay, and still doesn’t seem like he’s happy. Now he’s denying that he asked Orlando’s front office to fire his coach, Stan Van Gundy. Some people criticized SVG for putting Dwight on blast for this, but not me. Someone needs to teach this kid a lesson, and if it’s not going to be the Stones, then why not SVG? Second, Bynum: He’s a primadonna in the mold of Latrell Sprewell. His lack of maturity erupts in fits of violence and ri-dick-ulousness. The sad thing is that this season he’s somehow managed to stay healthy—which has always been his biggest problem—and yet he’s throwing it all away by acting like a spoiled brat. Third, Odom: I don’t know that we’ve ever seen a primadonna like Odom before. When the Lakers traded him to Dallas before the start of the season, I thought they were just as stupid as everyone else did (setting aside for a moment the fact that David Stern screwed them over in a way that only a megalomaniac like he can). But now Mitch Kupchak looks like a soothsayer as Odom has proven himself to have a psyche so fragile that he makes LeBron look like self-confidence guru. Call it the curse of the Kardashians. He’s not doing himself any favors either; is there an NBA team (other than Charlotte) who would take him right now? I doubt it.
I suggest that these guys follow Chopper Read’s advice.
Red Sox 2, Tigers 3. Not exactly how I had hoped opening day would go for my Sox, but at least Lester pitched pretty well and they had a chance of winning. After last season’s epic meltdown, I suppose that I have low expectations this year. If I don’t hear the phrase “chicken and beer” associated with the Sox this year then I’ll consider that a victory!
Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks that Brittney Griner dominates “like a guy.”
Damn, the Lady Bears gave the Lady Irish a serious beatdown! Congrats on completing the undefeated season! Total and utter domination.
Congrats to Kentucky accomplishing the inevitable and winning the NCAA championship (just about the only thing I got right in my bracket this year). How long until the championship is vacated? This is a Calipari team after all… Seemed like a boring game, too. However, I couldn’t see it because my go-to site for watching sports online is unavailable in Asia! Does anyone out there know of a good streaming site for those of us stuck on this continent?
I have a feeling that this year’s Women’s championship is going to be much more exciting because it has arguably the two best collegiate female players going head to head: Brittney Griner and Skylar Diggins. I find Brittney Griner especially compelling because it’s my personal opinion that she is tough enough and skilled enough to play with the big boys. And I don’t mean Kentucky. I mean the NBA. You want to tell me that Charlotte wouldn’t be a better team with Brittney in the low post? But this brings me to a larger question: is it possible that in my lifetime the gender/sex line will be crossed in American professional sports? Yes, yes, I realize that women have already played in the NHL, and Danica Patrick and Michelle Wie sort of count, too. But there’s never been a wholesale acceptance of women playing alongside men. The NBA seems like the perfect league to make this transition, especially as the women’s game in college is becoming more high intensity, and consequently more popular. And with the WNBA struggling financially (there’s no denying the effect that had on the NBA lockout this summer), why not start thinking about combining the two leagues? Maybe I’m just a dreamer, but in the words of Huey Freeman, “It feels good to dream.”