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!). So it's the time of the season for Spring Training, and Papelbon held court......

It was the rarest of rare occasions: a Beanpot final that didn't involve BU. Instead it was Boston College and Harvard, with the Eagles leading by two midway through the third period. BC almost blew it before taking control in overtime and winning on a Nick Petrecki goal. So two overtime wins for Boston College. And a very relieved Jerry York. BU beat Northeastern in the consolation game. Pitchers and catchers don't have to be......

Rudy Giuliani might be out of the presidential spotlight, but one of his comments regarding the Boston Red Sox is back to haunt him thanks to the Topps Baseball Card Company. The supposed die-hard Yankee fan will be in the background of a card featuring the celebration of the Boston Red Sox winning the 2007 World Series. To refresh your memory, a reporter asked Rudy who he was rooting for last October and he......

A spring-loaded dress, a sun-lit fan, and a purse with a built-in alarm system were just a few of the futuristic fashions on display at the Seamless: Computational Couture fashion show at the Museum of Science on Wednesday. Over 1000 design and technology lovers packed three floors of the MoS's Blue Wing to admire clothes and accessories ranging from sublime (an air-filled dress that changes shape based on barometric pressure) to sci-fi (a burial suit......

Note: A few NSFW links are in this post. All of them are craigslist-related. No pictures, but words. Even though the Super Bowl is in Phoenix and all the hookers seem to be over there right now, that doesn't mean people aren't having their own naughty soirees, if Craigslist is any indication. After reading the Herald's articles about "Patriots Widows" and World Series hook-ups, Bostonist had to peruse The Craig to see if anything was......

Politicians will squeeze the juice out of pretty much anything, including the World Series and the Super Bowl. Only recently, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani made a legendary blunder when he said on a Boston trip that he was rooting for the Red Sox. Yankees fans were appalled, and Sox fans felt a little scuzzy. But former president and First Campaigner Bill Clinton was smooth 'n' silky when asked about his favorite for the......

This morning, the Patriots are headed to Phoenix. Most of America is uncomfortably embracing a New York team as "good"'s only hope against "evil", while we're just waiting and anticipating that Tom Brady will eventually show up and rejoin the team. (We think he will; it's not Manny we're talking about here.) Luckily for the Pats, another opponent has decided to open his big mouth and give them something other than Brady's foot to talk......

There's nothing like a loud, baseless Herald story to get the morning started right. Today's tabloid trumps Heath Ledger's death with, "BUSTED! Deval Casino Plan's Just Like Michigan's... And They Lost $10M Last year." This Bostonist happens to be wearing a Detroit Tigers cap and sweatshirt as we type this, but we don't need Michigander bias to be dismayed by the lack of evidence in their piece. The story's only statistic-backed argument is that......

Note: A few NSFW links are in this post. All of them are craigslist-related. No pictures, but words. Bostonist has noticed a Herald trend. Whenever a major sports event takes place in the city, someone at the Herald scours the craigslist romance posts for sports-related ads. Last time, during the World Series, the Herald found a few posts indicating that Red Sox victories boosted the sex drive. This time, the Herald claims to find something......

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. 10. Back to back to back to back. It wasn't Clemens or Mussina. It was only Chase Wright, who began the year as a potential......

What moved you to speak out this year? A Lite Brite giving you the finger? The Red Sox? The death of Mr. Butch? As you can see, there aren't many surprises--the Red Sox, MIT student Star Simpson, and L'Affaire Aqua Teen Hunger Force dominated this list. 10. Mr. Lonelyhearts: Tom Brady 9. Live-Blogging Game 4 of the World Series 8. Socket to Me: Star Simpson Follow-Up 7. Breaking: Fake Bomb-Toting MIT Student So Not......

It's easy now to sit back and bask in the glory that has been the Boston athletics scene in 2007. World champions in baseball, undefeated in the NFL regular season, second place in Major League Soccer, packing crowds into the TD Banknorth Garden for the Celts and (to a lesser degree) the Bruins...we have it good. But it's our job to remind you that there were days where hats were thrown, hands were clenched, and......

Let's be honest. We've long known that Boston is at least on the short list for Sports City of the United States. The passion felt by Boston sports fans has long been either heralded or chastised, depending on your point of view. But if you'd told us at the dawn of 2007 that we were entering one of the best years Boston sports teams and fans would ever experience, we would have laughed. Long. Hard.......

With the best year EVER in Boston sports coming to a close, it's time to do a little reviewing. We've come up with a series of lists from the highs to the really highs to the lows, and we'll be sharing them for the next few days. Here's a list of Boston sports' 10 Biggest Disappointments of 2007: 10. Coaches' wardrobes. Our hopes for a delayed winter were shattered, which meant two things, (1) snow,......

"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. Last we heard was that Jason Varitek had slipped it into his pocket at Coors Field, then gave it to Jonathan Papelbon. Well, today it broke......

Given that there were no local games to be had on Tuesday evening, we here at Bostonist wanted to dig below the surface, uncover some little-known facts about the local sports scene and its ripple effect. And did we* come up with some gems for you! -- Mike Ditka Doesn't Like the Pats! As we mentioned Tuesday afternoon, Ditka spoke out after Sunday's Pats win and said that Tom Brady was as wrong for acknowledging......

Red Sox fans have it good when it comes to the hometown team, but it's not always easy. On one hand, the team has delivered two World Series titles in four seasons, and we're looking awfully good as we prepare for the 2008 season. But on the other, tickets to see the Sox play at Fenway Park are the hardest in MLB to acquire and they come with the biggest price tags. And while......

--When word got out that Mayor Menino wanted to bring in a petting zoo to revitalize Downtown Crossing, we thought it was a joke. But it turns out that the barnyard animals are at the crossing on weekends outside Filene's Basement. Animal activists are underwhelmed, and how can looking at sad, cold animals inspire people to shop? [Boston Herald] --Wondering what all the screaming was about early yesterday evening at Downtown Crossing? It didn't......

Former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney attended the Republican CNN/YouTube debate last night, even though he admitted he was concerned about taking questions from a snowman complaining about global warming. CNN teased him a little bit in the beginning by showing a brief highlight reel with the snowman, but then they disappointed by saying that only "serious" questions would appear. And then CNN showed questions from a dude performing a singsongy tune on......

The Sox got the message. After making decisions that led to the breakup of the 2004 champs, like letting Pedro (which we grudgingly understood) and Johnny Damon (hey, how's that working out for you anyway, Johnny?) leave, Sox fans stood as one and declared that if they didn't bring back World Series MVP, great fielding, clutch hitting, hard working, popular Mike Lowell, we'd...be pretty unhappy. So Mike Lowell will be right where he belongs next......

We're the most starry-eyed, green-Kool-Aid-guzzling optimists anywhere, but even we never thought it would be this good, this fast. Even on a night when two-thirds of Ghidorah wasn't quite up to snuff (Ray Allen 4-for-14, Kevin Garnett missing his usual double-double), the Celtics still had enough to put the clamps on Jersey and win their seventh straight. Any time you defensively hold a team to 69 points and 33% shooting, you're doing something right. And......

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.......

We weren't surprised to see Manny Ramirez selling a car on eBay, but the news that someone was selling Red Sox manager Terry Francona's chewed gum on eBay thoroughly disgusted us. The fact that people were bidding on it disgusted us even more. And how are you going to know it's Terry Francona's gum, anyway? That's like selling Britney Spears' Dorito Dust. The seller told the Inside Track that she got it from the dugout......

Manny Ramirez sure loves his cars. When he went on Leno, he seemed to want to talk about cars even more than the World Series. Putting car enthusiasts Manny Ramirez and Jay Leno together was risky because they might not have talked about the World Series at all. Fans got lucky, and the talk turned to baseball, but it might be safe to assume that Ramirez holds hot rods and baseball in similarly high......

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......

Londonist got the big scoop of the week with what may be the first images of notorious street artist Banksy in action. They also got on a runaway train without an operator provoking a response from the transport authorities. Elsewhere, London's answer to Central Station is about to open for business, and Londonist got a sneak preview. Meanwhile, spooky goings-on beneath London Bridge, where a cache of skeletons provided an apt story for Hallowe'en.......

Now that the Red Sox have won the World Series, how are they doing with the publicity grind? We'll evaluate each one's turn on late-nite television: Manny Ramirez on Leno: Two versions of Manny Ramirez exist--the sulky one and the gleeful one who invites everyone over to his house for drinks. Gleeful Manny showed up on Leno. He chatted with Leno about cars and awkwardly hit fists with Steve Carrell. At first, it seemed like......

We're on the verge of Red Sox Burnout and looking forward to the Pats-Colts game (live blog Sunday!), but the Red Sox keep on impressing us with their victory laps. We are loving captain and catcher Jason Varitek right now. Varitek appeals to the angel side of Bostonist's personality. He wears Cosby sweaters and hands out Halloween candy. What's not to love about that? According to the Globe, Varitek gave the kiddies--and their parents--a treat......

The Celtics are pleased to announce that they've added an extra level to the bandwagon, and it's poised to start its run tonight at the Garden against Washington. This is the original bandwagon, mind you; not the auxiliary bandwagons the team expects to roll out over the course of the season. Naysayers (and there are some) point out that the supporting cast around Ghidorah is untested and unreliable. OK, whatever. So their starting point guard,......