Author: Sean

Sean (Contributor) is a Cambridge, MA resident by way of Warwick, RI. Lacking a professional team in the Ocean State he studied future Red Sox stars in AAA Pawtucket. He's more than willing to sell you his Brian Rose rookie cards. His tastes run the gamut from archery to Arena League. He knows how lucky he is to be a Boston fan at this time, and keeps a clip of the '92 NLCS on his desktop to remind him how a man named Francisco Cabrera could one day totally destroy your city's future. He has appeared on televised talent shows for his remarkable ability to name over 25 NBA teams.

The Neverending Story

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Young Jerry SloanOlder Jerry Sloan

15,374 days.

That’s how long it’s been. Some days it snows and some days the sun burns your skin as you wait for your bus and some days Presidents are impeached and some days, some glorious, magical days, fate smiles upon you and yours and leaves you the ultimate champion. Jerry Sloan is waiting for that day. Read More

A Hands-on Project With No Hands

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Brazil 2014
(from left: Kaka, Dunga, Ronaldinho, Lucio)

Starbury’s a chump. That’s what I was thinking. To hell with him, Richard Jefferson, Lamar Odom, and all the other fakers and never-weres masquerading as a national basketball team. 10 of the real stars on the USA team that was supposed to restore dominance in hoops had opted out, and these jokers shifted up one step from bridesmaid. It was like putting six red shirted officers on an all-time Star Trek crew, or giving Franklin Pierce and William Henry Harrison control of the Former Presidents’ Council. In Athens our American sport took a beating on the grandest stage; an Olympic humiliation supposedly unthinkable since 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and USA Basketball assembled the greatest team ever.

But even during those awful losses to Puerto Rico and Argentina, no one on the team came back Stateside to death threats or sport-induced recession.

Yes, all respect to the pituitary struggles and randomly lined court of international basketball, but Earthlings still only live and die with soccer. Read More

Ford’s Theatre Features Other Performances

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norwoodI was five years old in January, 1991. The Bills and the Giants were about to play in a huge, all New York Super Bowl. From Levy and Parcells to OJ Anderson and Thurman Thomas to even Bruce Smith and Lawrence Taylor, the game was loaded with stars of that decade and turned out to be maybe the greatest of the 41 to date. More importantly, I remember the game meant nothing to me, as my team was the New England Patriots and they lost 17 out a possible 16 games that season.

I mention this because on Sunday the seven and oh Indianapolis Colts host the eight and whoa Patriots in the latest battle of the unbeatens in NFL history. It looks to be a spectacular matchup. However, I did some digging, and after about eleven hours of research found out there are thirteen other pro football games this weekend! Wow! So let’s take a look at these strange and wonderful bonus games, or as I call them, “bonus games.” Read More

Mudville Revisited

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Sad Tribe Fans
Yes, the opening of the World Series kicked up a storm of questions, especially with the ICC World Cup betting scandal from the previous year, from “Is this Sox team the greatest World Series offense of all time?” to “Is calling Jeff Francis an ace like calling Subway a delicacy?” That’s all well and good, and at the end of the day the team that wins four games latest in October earns the right to all the glory the sporting world can bestow.

But go back to Cleveland. Despite my sick Red Sox fever, I can’t help but feel pangs of regret for the losing diehards, the Cuyahoga crazies, consigned and resigned to another snowy winter of woe. It’s going to be the 49th consecutive year where family members’ holiday conversations will center on we-need-to-improves rather than here’s-how-to-defends. After twenty seasons, you begin to lose count; after forty, you simply can’t forget. Every year, new Clevelanders reach that twenty year mark, and hope drains from them like blood out a cut fish.

This season is especially brutal. The Indians scratched and clawed their way to a 3-1 series lead, punctuated with a seven run fifth inning in a 7-3 beatdown over Boston. The Indians, boasting a powerful lineup with Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, and Victor Martinez, and anchored by two solid aces in Fausto Carmona and C.C. Sabathia, were knocking on the pennant’s doorstep.
Then the other shoe fell. Read More

Why The Jordan Rules Still Apply

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If the World Series goes the distance, Game 7 will feature the American and National League champions battling nine innings to claim baseball’s ultimate prize. Joe Buck and Tim McCarver will build up the game to giant proportions, and FOX’s production will pull out all the stops. The final game in a topsy turvy season will captivate the imagination of sports fans across America. It will be talked about the next day in offices, bars, doctors’ waiting rooms, synagogues. Game Seven will be an event.

Go Spurs Go

That same day the San Antonio Spurs, the most successful sports franchise of the past decade, receive their championship rings and raise their fourth banner in nine years. You are not likely to watch this game, nor will the vast majority of your friends. The presence of those darn Spurs will almost certainly produce a basketball game in a vacuum. It’s not just them, either.

The National Basketball Association is suffering through its worst slump since the drug-scandalized malaise of the late 1970s. NBA Finals games then aired on tape delay opposite infomericals. The league was known for a series of surly, unlikable “stars” such as Rick Barry, Moses Malone, and even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. (It took a few motion pictures and the untimely destruction of Bill Walton’s career to make the Big Fella heroic.) Even the ABA’s sunny vibes evaporated and the NBA’s rival folded, with only four franchises surviving. Kermit Washington’s ghastly punch and David Thompson’sDavid Thompson cocaine laced high-flying were some of the league’s lasting images. The base problem is an issue the league still wrestles with, marketing a black man’s league to white America. David Stern has worn a mighty crown during his quarter century as Commissioner, but no doubt in the last five years he has had more than one sweat-soaked nightmare at that vision.

And how terrifyingly real this vision is. Read More

I’d Rather Not Go On Vacation

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Dear New York Yankee Player,

Our hearts go out to you after your untimely defeat in the American League Divisional Series. (If it were up to us, we’d bring DDT back to get rid of those bugs!) We here at the Yankee front office counted on an invincible romp to the 27th world championship, but also made contingency plans as well in the unlikely event of your defeat. (When A-Rod went deep in Game 4 we swear we saw the bases loaded!)

Since many of your leases don’t run out until November 1, the office put together a list of “fun finds” and “attractive attractions” for you during the month. October is the most beautiful time of year in the Big Apple — not that you guys would need to know! ???? ????? (We’re having a parade for you anyway, right in a portion of the Lincoln Tunnel!) So while you lie in bed, waiting for the season to end, here’s a guide to the City That Never Sleeps! Read More