The Boston Globe is reporting that the Chicago Cubs contacted the Red Sox in an effort to interview Theo Epstein for a job - GM or higher, presumably - with the team. Peter Abraham credited Dan Shaughnessy with the scoop that allegedly came from a "team source." The team was meeting today to decide how to respond. Epstein needs the Sox ownership to approve as he is currently under contract. Boston could demand compensation from the Cubs if they hire Epstein, 37. He's been Sox GM since 2002. [Globe]
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Results tagged “danshaughnessy”
Well, the Red Sox season has come to this. Tied with Tampa Bay for the final playoff spot in the American League on the last day of the regular season. Both teams held serve on Tuesday as Boston escaped with an 8-7 win over Baltimore. Wednesday speaks for itself. "If you don’t want to show up (Wednesday) and play, you’ve got no pulse," Terry Francona said.
A lot is on the line Sunday night for the Patriots regardless of who plays quarterback for the Packers - Aaron Rodgers might play or Matt Flynn might be sacrificed in his first start - or if the game is played in the snow. Neither issue really matters. No offense, Packer fans. The Pats are 11-2 with five straight wins without a turnover and has outscored their last two opponents, 81-10, and has home-field advantage there for the taking with three games left.
We heard plenty of excuses for the Miami Heat when the Celtics beat them to open the season. Eight games into the season is probably enough time for the excuse of not having come together as a team yet. Whatever.
So much for needing Clay Buchholz on short rest. So much for a lot of things. Even when it was a 2-0 Sox lead early in last night's game, Don and Jerry seemed more inclined to talk about some couple they kept showing in the stands than anything happened on the field. (The crack Bostonist research team learned that they were contestants from a TV show called The Bachelorette. The crack research team then learned that The Bachelorette has been going on for six seasons. The crack research team has decided to take a few days off and donate some money to brain research.)
Did anyone make the mistake of reading Tony Massarotti's column on Boston.com on Wednesday? We did. Even Dan Shaughnessy was embarrassed.
We're all happy about Daisuke's good start, and outraged about the worst call ever, but baseball takes a back seat today. We've got a basketball game to watch tonight.
We'll start with some shocking news out of Los Angeles: our counterpart at LAist thinks his Lakers won't be able to pull the series off. We wish we could be that gracious and humble. In a rare example of cross-Finals and cross-country camaraderie, we'll be posting the results of a back-and-forth between the sides sometime tomorrow, though we have to admit LAist's pre-concession will take a little of the wind out of our sails.
When the 2010 Boston Red Sox are finally buried for good (and you might have noticed a backhoe or two headed towards Kenmore Square this morning, possibly with a shock of curly red hair flopping out from under a hard hat), May 17th is going to shine out as a key day in their march towards the grave.
It's not like we really thought anything would come easy to this team, would it? Not after the Inconsistent November Bruins were replaced by the Damn Near Unwatchable February Bruins, who were then in turn replaced by the Sensational April Bruins. And so it shouldn't be a surprise that this second-round series has featured all three of those Bruins squads, and that's why we're headed for an improbable Game Seven tomorrow night.
It's not a cure-all, by any stretch. But last night, the Celtics played the kind of game exactly like we've been hoping for, as they raced out to an early lead against Detroit, and - wait for it - held on throughout, for a 119-93 whupping. We needed that.
Maybe this will be the one that gets to them. The collapses against Orlando and Cleveland didn't do it. The close loss to LA didn't do it. The having to struggle just to get by Detroit and Washington didn't do it. And the loss to New Jersey didn't do it.
Maybe the Bruins didn't make any world-shattering moves at the trading deadline. But it seems like they pulled their ace goalie back from the brink of irrelevancy, and that might be enough to get them over the hump.
Where do you go after suffering what might be the worst loss in franchise history? (Hyperbole? How many other 5-52 teams have the Celtics ever lost to?) Do you give up on basketball? Walk the Earth like David Carradine and Jules Winnfield?
If NBA games were 30 minutes long, we're pretty sure the Celtics would still be talking about 72 wins.
So sayeth Milan Lucic, whose overskating led to the game-tying goal yesterday at the Garden, as the Bruins' tour through the various circles of Hell continued with a 3-2 shootout loss to Vancouver, their 10th in a row.
The only way yesterday could have been more shocking and more sudden? If Nicolas Cage, dressed in a bear suit, had come out and slugged Tom Brady on the way out of the tunnel (see this clip, at 1:19, for what that may have looked like). At least that would have had the blessing of being over in a second and letting us flip over to a satisfying Celtics win.
Can you top this?
Sure, the Celtics had battled back from 11 down in the fourth quarter. Sure, Rasheed Wallace had fouled out, the refs were calling fouls on everyone including the cotton candy guy, and sure, Dwyane Wade had just stripped the ball from Ray Allen and dunked to put Miami ahead by two with 0.6 seconds left. But the C's just nodded grimly and went to work...
Phil Kessel's played two games in the Garden since became an ex-employee there. We wonder if he's wistful, since his Leafs were smacked around both times. Last night, he watched his old teammate build a 3-0 lead and hang on for a 5-2 win. Goals by Mark Stuart, Derek Morris and David Krejci built the lead, then after Tuukka Rask let in two, Mark Recchi took over and scored the insurance goal and an empty-net lagniappe to put the Leafs away.
Superficially, it looked like the old rivalry again. The Sixers have brought back the old logo, the old floor from the Spectrum (more or less) and uniforms that hearken back to the days of Dr. J and Andrew Toney. But the team that Philly put on the floor last night was no match for the early 09-10 Celtics. The '83 Sixers might not have been.
When we last saw the Chicago Bulls, it was after the Celtics survived a seven-game street fight of a playoff series. Last night, the Bulls tapped out in about seven minutes. Perhaps that's an exaggeration on the part of Bostonist but the Celtics thoroughly outclassed the team, 118-90.
But that's kind of a big deal, since it matches their season high. The "team goes up...team goes down" Bruins survived a tough beginning to come back and win in a shootout in Ottawa last night, 4-3.
The power drunk wafflers at the New York Times Company have changed their minds again about the Boston Globe. Turns out, it isn't a huge gaping money suck anymore, and Sulzberger and friends no longer want to sell it. We have yet to confirm that the Times Co. front office has done any real number crunching on Dan Shaughnessy's expense report. [Globe]
"Whatever the hex is, I guess somebody un-hexed it," said the Angels' Chone Figgins. We're not sure what that hex may be, or if it's really gone, but last night, the Angels looked like hex-free division winners. And the Red Sox looked like a team that staggered into the playoffs, mustering no offense and succumbing meekly to Anaheimorwhatever 5-0.
The Twins beat the Tigers, so the field of eight is set in the baseball playoffs. All we can do now is wait. And wait and wait and wait. The Red Sox won't play until tomorrow night, when all the other first-round playoff series start today.
Well, not us as in Bostonist and its beloved readers. But the Angels hate coming here once the first fall wind blows. They can barely win a playoff game here to save their lives, and lost their second straight at Fenway with a sour taste in their mouths.
Somehow, in the quagmire and the deluge that took turns drenching the city yesterday, the Red Sox and the Rays found time to get in five innings. But one was really all the Sox needed.
OK. So much for the AL East pennant.
The Yankees all but clinched the division last night, taking the rubber match of their series at Fenway with a low-scoring 8-4 win. Most troubling is that the eight runs came at the expense of Josh Beckett, about the most worry-free guy on the roster. Nobody's worry-free today.
