Sports Redux: Reversal of Fortune

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day,
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.

So begins Ernest Thayer's immortal "Casey at the Bat". Mudville flops in that poem, as we all know, but the situation was even more grim for the Red Sox going into the ninth on Sunday. Orioles youngster Jeremy Guthrie was firmly in control of the ballgame, and the score at Fenway stood at 5-0. Not a brilliant outlook, indeed.

So with one out, Coco Crisp hit a weak popup that was dropped by catcher Ramon Hernandez. And, apparently, that said something to O's manager Sam Perlozzo, who decided that an error on a six-foot popup was a signal that Guthrie was cooked. So out comes Guthrie, in comes the Orioles bullpen, and in come six Red Sox runs for a remarkable comeback. We'll be adding "out goes Perlozzo" to that sentence pretty soon, we imagine.

So we bid the Orioles a sad farewell; their bullpen was very good to Boston fans this weekend. Now here come the defending AL Champion Tigers, who will send Nate Robertson (winner of the "Charlie Sheen in Major League Lookalike Contest", for his glasses alone) up against Daisuke Matsuzaka.

But all wasn't sunshine yesterday at Fenway. Josh Beckett left after four innings with torn skin on one of his pitching fingers. They're careful not to call it a "blister", since Beckett has a troubling history of blisters, but the consensus is that this was a precautionary measure and there's a decent chance he'll make his next start.

If you have bleacher tickets for the Giants series next month, you should be aware that a Texas auction house has already made an open-ended million-dollar offer for the ball that Barry Bonds breaks Aaron's record with. We'd hold out for more, personally.

Patriots.com has all sorts of notes and tidbits from this weekend's rookie camp. One bit we learned is that they have a new running back coach named Ivan Fears, which may be one of the greatest names in history. Better than Lovie Smith, anyway.

The no-longer-mighty Ducks tied the Western Conference Finals 1-1 after beating Detroit. In the NBA, the Bulls beat Detroit to buy one more day, and the Jazz have Golden State up against the wall, 3-1 after a 115-101 win in Oakland.

Comeback ad from Flickr's Mamluke.