Sports Redux: Good Day, Sunshine

There will be time to discuss precisely why writers waited until not the eleventh hour, but 15-minutes-til-midnight to elect Jim Rice into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Writers seemed to feel that that time was during Rice's first post-announcement press conference (SI.com covers both sides of the debate), but we here at Bostonist say that the right time for such pondering will come further down the road. After this summer, when Rice is finally inducted into the Hall in Cooperstown, perhaps.

All we know is that it felt great to wake up this morning and say, after years of waiting, that Jim Rice is a Hall of Famer. Say it again. Savor the words. It took 16 years in the pros and 15 years of waiting, but No. 14 is getting what he deserves. Ahhhhhh.

The Celtics realized that they could not sully Boston's special Monday with a loss, so Paul Pierce and Company kicked it into overtime mode to lift the Green over the Raptors, 115-109. Not only did Pierce contribute a brilliant 39-point performance to help Boston get the win, the Truth did so while playing 49 minutes on a knee that was sprained to the point that it wasn't clear that he'd actually play at all. Once again, the Cs demonstrated the ability to overcome a deficit; this time they also overcame injury woes and the fact that Toronto wasn't going to let Ray Allen get away with another 30-plus point performance.

Speaking of roster absences, the anticipation for tonight's Candians-Bruins matchup at the Garden was tempered slightly by Monday's Phil Kessel news. Mono will keep Young Kessel out of the lineup for 3-4 weeks, depending on how he's feeling. That breaks down to a lot of key games. We'll be interested to see who steps up (Chuck Kobasew, we're talking to you) and how the Bruins faithful support the team as they take on those Montreal types tonight.

Photo by Paul Keleher