Results tagged “springtraining”

Both the Celtics and the Bruins took the day off Monday, which allowed Boston sports fans to focus their attention on the palm trees and pitchers assembled roughly 1,472 miles from home. While it might still be chilly in New England, Red Sox Spring Training helps to remind us that baseball really will be returning to Boston in a matter of weeks.

"Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in." - Michael Corleone

One of the few remaining regular-season goals left for the Celtics is checked off. They've seen every NBA team; they've beaten every NBA team. The Hornets were the last stragglers, winning in New Orleans last week. Last night, they found out what 2008 Celtics basketball is really all about. The game was close at halftime, but the C's clamped down the defense, completely took out the Hornets' stars, and rallied to their 2nd straight 20-point win over one of the West's best.

Even the most pie-eyed, green-blooded Celtic optimist didn't think it was going to be this good. No team since the Kings did it in 2001 has traveled the fabled Texas Triangle without at least a nick and a scratch. Maybe no team since then has really been as good as the 2007-08 Celtics.

Did you enjoy yesterday's narrowly-averted international incident? All is well, and the Sox will be landing in Japan this morning. The deal as we understand it is that instead of the $40K(!) the coaches were supposed to get as a business-trip bonus, they're now getting a good chunk of that from MLB, and the Red Sox will make up the difference.

Hold your horses. Put your plans to start drinking at 6 AM on hold. The Sox plane to Japan is sitting empty on the runway.

We'll never forget how Doug Mirabelli went from "the other guy" to Tim Wakefield's personal catcher. We'll never forget when he got traded, traded back, and changed into his catcher's gear while receiving a police escort today. Or the time Doug was incorrectly implicated as a fink in the mild Schilling sock controversy. We'll never forget the crack we made that, someday, Mirabelli and Wake will be buried 60' 6" from one another. And when he was sent packing yesterday, we remembered that baseball is a business. And that "Miracle" hit just .202 last year. But still, forgive us if we pour a cup of marinara sauce on the curb in Doug's honor today.

Give Seattle some credit. Going nowhere, ready to board a long flight home after an extended road trip, they hung around with the Celtics for six or seven minutes. Which is six or seven minutes more than we expected, frankly.

Does anyone remember what the preseason over/under for the Celtics was? Because we're pretty sure it was about 48 wins, but it seems like all evidence has been scrubbed from the Internet. If anybody thought back then that Ghidorah would take a few months to get used to one another and the C's would struggle, they sure wouldn't want it on their record now.

A year ago, the Celtics and the Memphis Grizzlies were nervously eyeing one another for ping-pong balls. Neither team was going anywhere, and both were playing out the string fully aware that getting too good would kill their lottery chances. As it turned out, neither team had a lottery chance, as the Fates punished both franchises by withholding Oden and Durant.

...only makes you stronger. That has to be the attitude the Bruins take today, after having their winning streak stopped, killed, set on fire, stomped, buried, and the earth salted. The good news is, they will never play a worse game than they did last night. It was 6-0 Capitals in the first period. Alex Ovechkin had a hat trick before half the fans had found their seats. Tim Thomas got pulled, put back in to hang out to dry, then pulled again. 10-2 final; the B's have to be happy they play again today and don't have this lingering over them for too long.

The Bruins' win over Pittsburgh had a little something for everybody. It had scoring (including two by Marco Sturm), goaltending (Tim Thomas came one shot away from two straight shutouts), fighting (Milan Lucic exchanged pleasantries with Jarkko Ruutu for a good long satisfying while), and most importantly a win, which pulled the scorching-hot B's within four points of the Northeast Division lead. Kevin Paul Dupont analyzes why doing nothing might have been the best move at the trade deadline.

On the way out of the TDB Garden last night, we weren't completely thrilled about the Celtics' victory over King James and the Cavaliers last night. It was a kind of sloppy game, Paul Pierce was way off-target all night, and the effects of jet lag were obvious. Then we stopped for a second and remembered where this team was a year ago. In one season, we've gone from plummeting towards ignominy, to beating the Eastern champs while clucking about aesthetics. We'll take that deal.

It seems that the Bruins' approach to the NHL trade deadline - to hold steady and remain as is - might just pay off. On Tuesday night, against an Ottawa Senators team that the Globe kindly referred to as "thoroughly disinterested" (read: someone's will to play didn't arrive at the TDBN Garden with the rest of the Senators' gear), the Bruins cruised along to a 4-0 win, extending the winning ways that began out on the road. We're liking these results - and we're also digging Coach Claude Julien's decision to start the game with the bash brothers line (Jeremy Reich, Vladimir Sobotka, and Shawn Thornton).

This Bostonist finally got around to seeing There Will Be Blood last night, so we're prepared to concede that the West can be a harsh and pitiless place. Until this week, the West had been very good to the Celtics.

You've got to be kidding us. We can't get anywhere near the rest of the media during Red Sox spring training (MLB doesn't believe in the journalistic credibility of blogs, can you believe it?), and the big press conference of the pre-season takes place in the Red Sox spring training complex PARKING LOT? We totally should have gone to Florida to try to jump in on the conversation that took place on Monday between Curt Schilling and a small group of hand-picked media.

Can you put a price on Super Bowl immortality? MasterCard would likely say no (because let's face it, it's priceless), but some people in St. Louis offer a resounding "hell yes." The estimated price of a 2002 Rams Super Bowl win, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, is $100 million.

It looks like it's going to be an easy season for Red Sox beat writers. It looks like all they'll have to do is set up a microphone within half a mile of Jonathan Papelbon, and he'll come a-runnin' with enough material to fill a dozen Notes columns. More, if they can be padded out with 40-year-old rock lyrics (hi, Dan!).

Look outside the window. Grimace. Then realize that somewhere, in a magical land known as Florida, spring is only one day away. Pitchers and Catchers Day is almost here, which means that spring is creeping closer to our frozen city. Ballplayers will be ready to welcome in the season when they finally get back to Fenway. The journey just happens to take them to Florida, Japan, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Toronto before spring finally reaches us. Why do we live in New England again?

It's a day that happens only in Boston, as far as we know. Maybe they do it in Milwaukee and Kansas City, but we doubt it; only Red Sox fans are maniacal enough to go out on a cold morning to watch some boxes be loaded in a truck. That's right, it's Truck Day - the day when the Sox equipment heads south for Fort Myers and Spring Training.

Come on, it wasn't as if anyone thought that the mighty Toronto Raptors would snap the Celtics' unbeaten home streak. Sure, they could have - insert your "any given team, any given night" coaching adages here - but it wasn't a match up that was highly anticipated. You didn't hear any of the Raptors guaranteeing victory. We're just sayin'. So it was with a pleasant little lack of surprise that the Celtics took an early...

Josh Beckett got to hoist the championship trophy, ride down Boylston on the duck boats, and will get a huge ring in the spring. He earned the Sports Illustrated commemorative issue cover, the champagne and beer showers, and the reputation for serving as the ace among aces in October. He had a rich season, so we're hoping that such a reminder helps as C.C. Sabathia is toasted as the American League's newest Cy Young winner....

The details leaked to the media were changing by what felt like the minute today (or, as on-air talent at WEEI noted, "It's changing from one commercial break to the next!"), but now it's official: Curt Schillling is back for one more season with the Red Sox, a move that will likely end his baseball career here in Boston. "I’ve already heard from Josh and Wake, and am excited to know that my last year...

We caught wind of Manny's grill auction yesterday afternoon. Bidding was up around $4,300 when we first checked. My midnight it was already past the million dollar mark, even higher overnight, an early morning check revealed that $99,999,999 was the current high bid. The early afternoon came a few emails letting us know that the auction would be no longer. eBay had closed the auction down. The Globe splashed the mention on the front page, above the fold, of the sports section. The Herald chimed in via the Inside Track with the typically punny headline "Are you bidding me?"

Bostonist knows... Bostonist knows... Spring Training is wrapping up, and the boys of summer are due north in a couple weeks time, so most of this space will be dedicated to our beloved Red Sox over the next few months. But, Bostonist has some unfinished business with the New England Patriots organization, Head Coach Bill Belichick, and owner Robert Kraft. As all Bostonists are now aware, the Pats lost some pretty large parts this...

David Wells, Mr. I-can't-go-out-to-eat-without-being-papparazzi'd-to-death, no longer wants to be traded. Hmmm...now that there's a question of his paycheck (and his $200K bonus per start), he's a dedicated Red Sox pitcher. Can you say flim flam? Flip-flop? Hey David, if you want privacy at a restaurant, give them a call in advance, tell them who you are, and get a private table. When you're famous and the city of Boston pays your salary, part of the deal is putting up with fans (note - fans, not people that want to beat you up or steal your Rolex) who might want to interact with you. Get over it; you've been in the bigs for 19 years.

It feels like only yesterday when Bostonist wrote Jason Priestley and asked him to be our date to the junior prom. Unfortunately, Priestley never responded and after many unanswered phone calls to his agent, Bostonist decided to ask someone on the soccer team instead. It’s that time of year when teenagers get into a twitter over the upcoming prom season and two Maine teens decided to skip over all the average boys and go right for the gold: Mr. Theo Epstein himself.

But, if Bostonist is a true Sox fan, you had to be wondering last night and this morning if Mr. Ramirez was going to show his smiling mug today at Spring Training. On the T, this Bostonist hadn't seen a newspaper or the Internet, so there was a bit of pondering as whether or not Manny was going to be more of a pain in the crack than usual, but alas, here he is, laughing it up, joking with teammates, and pointing at people already and everything.

Last week Bostonist was all in a tizzy over the idea that the Red Sox wouldn't be able to work out a deal to keep General Manager Theo Epstein here in Boston. His contract for the past three years was going to end today, but there was lots of negotiating the past few weeks to have Theo stay with the Sox. Well, Bostonist awoke this Monday morning to see a nice article stating that according to some MLB sources, the Sox and Theo came to an agreement with a three year contract keeping him here through the 2008 season. The deal was going to make Epstein one of the best paid GMs in the league.