Sports Redux: Jays Give Sox Bats A Halladay

It turns out not every pitcher in the American League is as incompetent as those of the Rangers. Toronto sent ace and longtime Sox nemesis Roy Halladay to the Fenway mound last night, a day late, and he dazzled the Red Sox. Halladay went the distance, giving up only one run and seven hits, and spoiled a pretty decent debut by Paul Byrd, 4-1.

Byrd scattered ten hits over 7 1/3, but one of those was a 2-run shot to Alex Rios in the first, which put the Sox into a hole that Halladay wasn't going to let them dig out of. While the Sox were on the phone, frantically trying to arrange for some Texas pitchers to be traded - and quickly - Halladay was mowing down the Sox bats, with only a solo Pedroia shot in the ninth spoiling his shutout. (The game time was 2:18, which was the length of some innings in the Ranger series.) Josh Beckett once again tries to stop a modest losing streak today.

Is the Curt era over? Curt Schilling posted a pretty morose entry on his blog, saying "the pendulum is swinging very heavily in the direction of it just being over." Unless he feels a burning desire this winter to go down to Florida and try spring training one more time, he says, he's going to call it a night. But he thinks this Sox team can win it all, which is a relief. We may also have seen the end of Billerica's Tom Glavine, who's been shut down by the Braves, will probably need surgery, and that may be that. And the Billerica Chamber of Commerce can start planning that bus trip to Cooperstown in five years.

The Revs had a rotten night, getting pasted 4-0 by the lowly San Jose Quakes, and more importantly, seeing goalie Matt Reis leave the game with a "strained right adductor" (It's connected to the hamstring, which is connected to the other thing; thanks, Wikipedia.)

Michael Phelps had an awesome night, winning again, in the 400-meter relay and breaking Mark Spitz' Olympic record with his eighth gold. Wait till he finds out the airline's going to charge him $25 for every gold medal he flies back with. The Globe is trying to figure out if he's the best American athlete of all time, which is a great idea, because people can be counted on to have a sense of perspective and not get caught up in the moment. See for instance, that the Top 3 Movies of All Time are The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption and The Dark Knight.

The Patriots are playing a preseason game in Tampa tonight without Tom Brady, whose foot may or may not be bothering him. And we laughed when Bill dutifully listed him as "probable" on the injury list since the beginning of time. Get well soon, Tom.