Sports Redux: Stealing The Headlines

We were going to lead off with the Celtics, but yesterday afternoon was possibly the most frustrating and aggravating game ever, and so hard to come up with an angle on, that we're just going to talk about it later and start off with 2009's Play of the Year (nominations are technically open 'til December, but come on).

With a 2-1 lead and the bases loaded, the Red Sox had to realize that every run would be huge, since we all know that 1,437 runs were scored in the first 73 hours of the Yankee series this weekend. But did anyone expect the game to bust open like this? Jacoby Ellsbury warmed a million hearts around New England with his straight steal of home in the fifth inning. J.D. Drew knocked in run number four, and the Yankees, dazed from the events of the weekend and perhaps rattled from playing in front of actual crowds, submitted meekly to a 4-1 final.

"I was just hoping J.D. wasn't going to swing at a pitch right down the middle and hit me," said Ellsbury afterwards. Less happy were victimized pitcher Andy Pettitte and his manager Joe Girardi: "It shouldn't happen, but it did..we were screaming, but nobody can hear you here." Might have been a different story at home.

So the Sox get a sweep out of the first Yankee series of the year, and amazingly follow up their iffy start with a 9-0 homestand. Dirty Watah's ready to start filming commercials. The bandwagon's filled up with gas.

But it's still waiting to see if the Celtics' bandwagon will be emptying out soon. In what has been described as "possibly the most frustrating and aggravating game ever", the C's dropped Game Four after two overtimes and hours of basketball where each team seemed to be trying to hand the game away. The Bulls missed free throws and committed dumb fouls, the Celtics had many defensive breakdowns and committed dumb fouls. Instead of dwelling on all that, though, let's congratulate Rajon Rondo on another triple-double, congratulate Glen Davis on almost getting Brad Miler thrown out of the game with his full-Ginobili flinch, and be glad that someone's actually going to win two more games in this series.

It's going to take about three months to figure out exactly what happened at the draft for the Patriots. We know we now have a bunch of new guys that we've never heard of, and we don't have Ellis Hobbs anymore, since he was traded to the Eagles. We'll miss him, especially when the Pats are returning kickoffs.

Photo by Winslow Townson/Associated Press.