Sports Redux: Celts Survive FAIL-Star Game

There were four multi-time All-Stars at the Garden last night. The three heads of Ghidorah, you know about already, but with Cleveland in town for Game One, LeBron James and all his accompanying hype and presence were there too. Four All-Stars, two MVP candidates, probably a great game, right?

Um. No. Kevin Garnett was the only one of the marquee names to live up to the billing (28 points, 8 rebounds); in fact, KG was the only one of the marquee names who didn't look totally incompetent. Paul Pierce and Ray Allen matched LeBron almost perfectly; Pierce's 2-14 and Ray's 0-4 exactly countered James' 2-18. When Kendrick Perkins outscored Pierce and Allen combined, and LeBron scores less than Wally Szczerbiak, you know you're looking at a weird, weird ballgame.

Even with the clunky 76-72 final, it wasn't as dreadful a game as Bob Ryan would have you believe. The C's played as good defense as we've seen all year; obviously, since guys like LeBron don't shoot 2-18 out of nowhere. Pierce and Posey did most of the defensive grunt work, but everyone stepped up. Rajon Rondo and Sam Cassell, as well as Perk, picked up the scoring slack...to a point. It wasn't pretty, but it's 1-0. Game Two on Thursday.

With all the great pitching performances by the Sox lately, Tim Wakefield was probably starting to feel a little jealous that he hadn't thrown a gem yet. Not anymore. Wake mixed up his pitched more than usual, and shut down the Tigers for the 5-0 win, going eight innings and surrendering only two hits and zero walks(!). Back-to-back solo homers from Ortiz and Manny (#497) helped seal the deal.

If the Yankees are still schadenfreude-worthy, and we say they are, two news stories today. Of course, there's Future of the Franchise Joba Chamberlain giving up a 3-run homer to Cleveland scrub David Dellucci. Also, we learned that Alex Rodriguez's autumn of 2004 featured, in addition to being part of the team that blew four straight to the Sox, A-Rod passing out in the delivery room while Mrs. A-Rod was giving birth to their first child. Way to handle the pressure, there.