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Mystified by the Red Sox’s lost season, yesterday I turned to where every sports fan goes to glean inside information about the world of sports they can’t get anywhere else: sports talk radio.
Brooks is on Twitter, Facebook and at sportsbybrooks@gmail.com
Some say spring starts with the vernal equinox, or maybe the first robin of the year, or maybe even Opening Day. Ninja please. Nothing says spring has sprung until baseball players start fighting like schoolgirls near the pitcher’s mound.
(Now these guys know how to put on a brawl.)
The Angels and Red Sox were eager to play that part today, as a Josh Beckett pitch over Bobby Abreu’s head set off a weird quasi-melee that eventually led to four ejections… none of whom were Beckett or Abreu. In fact, the main offender was, for some reason, Torii Hunter.
• OUT IN CENTER FIELD notices Josh Beckett trying to avoid blisters in the crotch area.
• The degradation that some groups are willing to go to so they can climb Michael Jordan’s “cigar” and ride it to brief recognition in a news cycle sinks just a bit lower.
• So a guy in a muumuu stands on a street corner, whipping plastic penises at passersby. Of course Australian rugby is involved. (There’s video, too. Thanks, FANHOUSE!)
Read more…
Dustin Pedroia might win this thing after all. News just came out that MVP candidate/all-around stud Carlos Quentin will have surgery on Monday to insert a screw into his messed up wrist, most likely ending his season.
It’s still a mystery as to how exactly he sustained the injury.
Read more…
• Neil Best of NEW YORK NEWSDAY learns that Lenny Dykstra still doesn’t like to read, yet makes mad money.
• OBSERVATIONS FROM ABOVE THE RIM doesn’t like Mike Krzyzewski being criticized for not wearing a ribbon for a slain North Carolina student.
• GOING FIVE HOLE sees nothing wrong with the last event at Yankee Stadium being a hockey game.
• A former Bengal confirms that Ocho Cinco went muy loco during a playoff game and slugged coach Marvin Lewis.
• Chinese officials claim that the Dalai Lama wants to disrupt the Beijing Olympics. So he’s got that going for him, which is nice.
• Pat Riley wants to reimburse Heat fans for the team’s horrendous play. Maybe he can borrow some dough from Carl Pohlad.
Men’s magazine editors across the good ol’ U.S.A. have jumped on the Red Sox bandwagon by selecting the two most photogenic Boston players and photographing the hell out of them. Jacoby Ellsbury and Josh Beckett have been fighting for the worst sunburn related to flash photography since last season’s Series triumph.
(Ellsbury’s World Series bonus went towards a big damned truck, apparently.)
As OUT IN CENTER FIELD notes, Ellsbury’s SI featurette was just the latest salvo in the War on Q Ratings. Beckett was on the cover of MEN’S FITNESS. (No snickering.) Ellsbury was in a spread in MEN’S VOGUE. (Seriously? There’s a men’s version of Vogue now? Can we get Justin Timberlake to cover Madonna?) However, these men’s magazines aren’t really thinking about the big picture.
• The LONDON GUARDIAN has the poop on Barnsley’s coach getting a lucky omen before his team’s big upset over Liverpool: “I left the team hotel for a walk in the town centre, and as I was talking a bird shat right on my head.”
• RANDBALL crunches the numbers & debunks the myth that only 5 NHL teams are below .500.
• Based on his recent clownish behavior, BLEACHER REPORT’s satirical story on Terrelle Pryor joining the Ringling Bros. Circus doesn’t seem so silly.
