Sports Redux: Milestones

Milestone Reached: Red Sox manager Terry Francona, who got his 500th Sox victory with last night's 5-1 in Detroit. Tito joins Joe Cronin and Pinky Higgins in the exclusive club of Sox managers who haven't been prematurely (or correctly) run out of town. "That means I've been really lucky with an organization with a lot of players that have been very good," said the skipper.

Found the strike zone: Daisuke Matsuzaka, who cut his wild pitch count from four to zero, striking out six in five inning en route to his first win since last year's ALCS.

Vultures circling: David Ortiz, whose 1-for-5 raised his batting average to .186. Sigh. Bill Simmons writes a pre-need obituary for Papi's career, throwing out the increasingly-common theory that Ortiz' age was never correctly recorded and he's really 36 or 37, which is a respectable age for sluggers to suddenly become luggers.

Compared to squirrel: Dustin Pedroia, after one of the local rodents spent two innings frolicking around the Comerica Park outfield. "I got made fun of pretty much half the game," said the mighty mite, although thankfully Mike Timlin is retired, since he probably would have shot and eaten the thing.

Back, or soon back: Mark Kotsay was activated before the game. John Smoltz has one, maybe two, rehab starts with Pawtucket before making his Sox debut as early as next week. A Motown native, Smoltzy was in the dugout with his soon-to-be teammates last night. And Jerry Remy says he feels pretty good and hopes to be back in the booth soon.

Retiring: Patriots safety Rodney Harrison. This makes us sad. Although he was controversial and drew more than his share of unnecessary flags, Harrison's constant toughness and elan in the secondary helped define the D's toughness through some great years. Wikipedia runs down some of the key plays Rodney made in some key games. He's reportedly off to talk football on NBC, while old rival Freddie Mitchell, apparently, is selling BBQ sauce on his blog. To paraphrase an old joke, when you open a bottle of the sauce, it tells you how good it is.

Locked down for three years: David Krejci, who signed an extension with the Bruins that will put him well into the millionaire's club. Now they just have to figure out do to with Kessel and Savard, among others.

Quarterbackless: Boston College. After suspending Dominique Davis for academic reasons, Davis decided to transfer somewhere else (he hasn't decided where yet), leaving the Eagles' offense, for the moment, in the hands of either transfer Codi Boek or redshirt freshman Justin Tuggle. If Tuggle's name rings a vague bell somewhere, it might be because his dad Jessie was a star for the Falcons for many years.

Photo by Paul Sancya/Associated Press.