Results tagged “theoepstein”

Let's face it. That was uglier than Minnesota's starting power forward. But if the Celtics are going to make a run at 70+ wins this season (and while PTI and the Globe and others are speculating about the possibility, we say, let's can that talk and let things unfold), they have to win games like last night. Trap games, against young athletic teams, on the second night of back-to-backs. And somehow, finally, the Celtics did.

Six hours of baseball; 15 innings; a zero 29 straight times; 496 pitches; 96 at-bats; 11 hits We all knew this week's four-game series would have implications beyond August 6-9. The main implication is that the hapless 0-8 Yankees are gone. Now we have the Yankees who beat the Red Sox twice in two days in two totally different ways and have taken a 4.5 game lead in the division. New York outhit the Sox on Thursday and slightly outpitched them on Friday.

It sounds like Bob Ryan wants to be able to watch baseball while keeping his head buried in the sand. Steroids may be more of a Hall of Fame/legacy issue and the reason that is the case is because the history of baseball occupies a much larger place in the present and future of the game than other sports. Bostonist keeps hearing that from people like Ryan, anyway. Sox fans can still follow steroid-scandal news and a box score, Mr. Ryan. Steroids are a fact of life in baseball now, and nothing is going to change that for quite some time.

On a day when an actual game was overshadowed by front office moves and clubhouse goodbyes, the Red Sox managed to win anyway. Justin Masterson, Adam LaRoche and two minor-league arms left the Nation in order to bring back Casey Kotchman and Victor Martinez as Theo Epstein was active again at the trading deadline. Martinez is in Boston possibly because of one word: versatility. Theo says he can hit, catch and play first base. Kotchman is supposedly a defensive upgrade over LaRoche. Theo may have created a few headaches for Terry Francona, though.

Is it?

Clay Buchholz told NESN that he's in a game where confidence is key. He's got it now and has to keep it to be successful in the MLB. Buchholz solidified his self-confidence and the organization's confidence in him on Friday by pitching 5.2 innings and giving up just one run on four hits as the Red Sox beat the Blue Jays, 4-1. And now, he goes back to Pawtucket. So watch out all you AAA punks.

Don't even think about last night's chokefestloss in Baltimore again. It was so June. There's another game today that, hopefully, will feature Beckett being Beckett - 7-1, 1.94 ERA last 10 starts. And, the bullpen can get a second straight day off.

A Red Sox hat is ubiquitous. (Note to Yankees fans: That means lots of people wear them in lots of places.) Sox fans, young and old, near and far away, wear them. Celebrities flaunt them even when they are celebrities we don't want sporting Sox gear. Stores are filled with them for us to buy. And, as we all know, there are many of them to choose from. There is now another hat to pick from. Why, in the name of Dr. Charles Steinberg, do we need a watermelon scratch-n-sniff Sox hat? Is there a reason for this abomination? Theo? Larry? Mr. Henry? Can someone explain this to Bostonist?

"I do think we're turning in the right direction," said Doc Rivers after the game last night. Whether it's that the Celtics actually have shaken off the early-January stinkiness, or whether it was just the appearance of the godawful New Jersey Nets, the Celtics enjoyed their biggest blowout in a long time, cruising to a 118-86 win and bringing Gino out of mothballs for the first time in forever.

Hot Stove, Cool Music

Sure, it's 60 degrees outside. But it's beginning to look a lot like winter - well, maybe spring - in Las Vegas, where it's going to be in the 60s today, but more importantly, where baseball's winter meetings are taking place. And like this wintry scene, the Red Sox have come up empty so far.

If you were worried about the Celtics seeking motivation for a repeat, worry no more. Rajon Rondo blogged: "We have to repeat, because we have to go back to the White House to meet Obama."

First place was in their grasp. So close. Josh Beckett was humming, the Rays were putting up a line of zeroes, and even though it was only 1-0, the Red Sox had to feel good about taking first back last night.

While the Celtics are floundering out West, the Bruins have just finished an honest-to-goodness stampede through the South. And attention must be paid.

Let's take a trip out to Phoenix, shall we? The Celtics for once found themselves n the other side of the equation, as the team trying to cool an ongoing Suns hot streak. Turns out that the Celts don't well handle such a situation, losing 85-77 to Shaq and his crew. The quick breakdown of dubious distinctions from the game? Lowest Boston total of the season, first third-straight loss of the season, really lousy ball play from the Boston green.

A year ago, this particular Bostonist tore into Hot Stove, Cool Music with a ferocity most often seen perhaps in rabid dogs. An event billed as top-notch synergy between Boston's sports and music circles left us wondering if we'd missed the tabletop covered with Kool-Aid in Dixie cups, because we viewed the night as a musical an uninspired, over-hyped musical event.

Regardless of how you think he would have fared in 2006, one must admit that Bronson Arroyo was screwed over by the Red Sox organization. He plunks down money on a new house in Boston. He agrees to a hometown discount, $11.2 million contract (over three years) with the Sox, which was pretty much the one thing his agent didn't want him to do. And then the guy is promptly traded off to Cincy for who? Oh wait! Wily Mo Pena.

The stove, the stove, the stove is on fire. But Bostonist will brave the heat as Theo Epstein, Peter Gammons, and friends rock for Hot Stove, Cool Music--keep an eye out for a review of the show. The Paradise, 8:00 pm, $40.

All right. Let's dispense with the false modesty and ersatz humility. The Boston sports scene was AWESOME in 2007. So many great moments, and so many great stretches that can't be summed up in a single moment. How do you make a top-ten list of near perfection? Well, we tried.

"I hope we have this problem every year," said Theo Epstein when asked about the final-out ball from the 2007 World Series. You may remember the fiasco and hurt feelings involved when the Sox and Doug Mientkiewicz embarked on their power play over the ownership of the 2004 ball.

--Maybe Fung Wah isn't so bad after all. The local press picked up on a b0st0n LiveJournal story that a Peter Pan bus driver felt that his passengers on a trip to Boston should be punished and forced to stay on the bus in Framingham because one of them called the company about his poor driving. The driver's sorry ass is about to get fired. [WBZ, b0st0n Live Journal]

Unofficial leaked lists started hitting the Internet late this morning. Fearful and optimistic at the same time, we started scanning them to see who was allegedly going to be on the MLB Steroid Commission's "Naughty" list.

We already know they must hate us in Minnesota. Once, they had David Ortiz, Randy Moss and Kevin Garnett. Now they don't. But they must really hate us in Denver these days; less than two weeks after their Colorado Rockies were vaporized in the World Series, the Nuggets came to Boston and fared just as badly. The Celtics (who said they'd need time to adjust to one another?) annihilated Denver almost from the opening last...

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...

Bostonist saw today's "Rolling Rally," featuring the players riding duck boats across the city and relief pitcher Jonathan Papelbon dancing to the Dropkick Murphys, from two different vantage points--near the Common and at the Hynes Convention Center. Everyone clearly enjoyed themselves, especially Papelbon: Wherever you were along the parade route, it was simply madness. Of course, the Red Sox faithful turned out in their jerseys. Hundreds of little kids skipped school. College students sat down...

The Red Sox returned from a little trip of consequence out West on Monday and found several thousand fans waiting to welcome them back and get a taste of the victory parade planned for Tuesday. A caravan of buses rolled up to the park shortly after 5 p.m. Monday afternoon and those in attendance didn't have to wait long to see the hardware they'd been lusting after all post-season long: Tom Werner, John Henry, and...

If what they say is true, and Curt Schilling truly pitched his last game as a member of the Boston Red Sox last night... Let there be no mistake. The dividing line between the Sox' Era of Perpetual Failure and the current Golden Years can easily be geotagged; it's somewhere between Theo Epstein's Thanksgiving dinner in Arizona and the first time Curt posted on the SOSH message board. Somewhere in that stretch, the Red Sox...

Sox fans, the request has been made of you: dig out your reddest of red and wear it proud today. The Sox brass hit the television news airwaves on Friday and asked you to show the Red Sox that you're behind them - and show the Indians that in order to get to the World Series, Cleveland is going to have to get past our team AND our fans on our turf.

OK, we're as excited as anyone about the first game of the Boston-Anaheim ALDS. We'll get to that in a second. But let's begin by trying to imagine how thick the tension must have been within a conference room in the catacombs of Fenway Park recently, when Theo Epstein allowed Dan Shaughnessy to sit down and talk baseball. Seriously! After the columns and the gorilla suit, the jabs and the barbs, this was a matchup...

We're going to predict it now: regardless of how the coming weeks treat our local baseball team, the 2007 Red Sox season - sorry, 2007 Pennant-Winning Red Sox season - is going to go down as one for the history books. Years from now, there are going to be many people out there who exclaim that they never doubted that the Sox would win the division. They're going to talk about how they knew that...