There is no more charming cliché in baseball – all of sport, for that matter – than the mossy tale of the engaging rube who comes out of nowhere to amaze us with his raw and unspoiled skills like some sort of young, undamaged, and real-life Roy... Read more
Clark Booth on Sports
Footnotes! Dribs and drabs. Or ‘disa and data,’ as Bud Gillooly used to call the stuff. In other words, here are some more odds and ends looking for a place to land.
…Three and a half years after he graced the waiver wire — when any team... Read more
Here are three things to ponder while waiting for the Stanley Cup playoffs to awaken from sabbatical and the Celtics to prove they are not a one-man team.
1. The Draft.
There’s no accounting for taste, especially where it concerns... Read more
In olden times (like, the ’50’s) battered old ballparks – dusty and rather bleak – sufficed and they were plentiful. Moreover, we were happy to have them. Gripes were rare and rarer still were heated calls for the body politic to belly up and... Read more
This year it is Boston University. Another year it’s Boston College. And it was only a few years back that Harvard skated off with a national championship. Some day the utter majesty of the New England college hockey tradition and the brilliance of... Read more
In ancient times, the baseball off-season was a yawning, aching void; a prolonged and dreary hibernation occasionally spiced with summer dreams. In today’s brave new baseball world it is legitimate to ask whether — in terms of drama, competitive... Read more
Some things to wonder about as we count the hours to opening day, even if the occasion is possessed of rather less mystical fancy than was the case before we discovered the modern boys of summer have lumpy feet of clay.
But not Curt Schilling.... Read more
At the considerable risk of sounding like a broken record, here are some idle musings on the 'madness' while waiting for it to pass. I'll say this much for it. The stuff is well-named.
And it needs to be further admitted — painful or otherwise... Read more
More notes from the Florida spring baseball camps where it is already summertime and the living is mighty easy. Unless you play for either the Red Sox or the Yankees, that is. "C'mon down," as that merry old auto-hustler used to like to say.
... Read more
The signs and omens lately have been discouraging, conjuring grisly images of other sags and swoons scattered over the past generation. But be not of faint heart, Bruins legions.
Despite all their stumbling about since Groundhog Day your kids... Read more
Ask any veteran jock journalist to name his or her favorite assignment and the odds are top heavy that the answer will be 'Spring Training.'
We're not talking about the best stories here or the most important news events, let alone the most... Read more
A trio of short subjects for you to consider, quite random and unconnected.
I. Baseball and precedent
When in 1946 the baseball commissioner at the time, wily old Happy Chandler, first informed the major league owners of... Read more
A test column ...
It's only February and pitchers and catchers have just reported but the Conventional Wisdom (CW) has already pronounced the baseball season ruined. It is, of course, entirely the fault of that craven, cheating, wretch Alex Rodriguez. Lynch mobs are... Read more
It used to be back in the days when the world made rather more sense that there was remorse when the baseball season ended with the lament about there being no more games until the swallows also returned presaging a wailing over the onslaught of winter... Read more
