Week of October 22-28(23 weeks to the National Marathon - March 29, 2008)
Monday 10 miles in 69:05 OK. It's time to start it up again. In a sense I'm starting from scratch, which is fine. The idea is to build a big base until there are 14 weeks to go and then I'm going to crank it up. I don't think I can push super hard for 23 weeks or so anymore... oh sure, I could have, but sometimes life gets in the way.
Anyway, I started with a 10-miler that was a bit difficult. For one thing it was more than 80 degrees outside. Plus, I have a cold that made it tough to breathe. On top of that, my legs and lungs were weak, which made the running a big test.
Either way, I ran a solid pace the entire time.
splits: 1st 5 - 34:36 2nd 5 - 34:29
Tuesday Goose egg Took a zero because I couldn't feel my legs or breathe. It seems as if the cold I have is kicking my ass... not fun.
Wednesday 10 miles in 68:25 Felt good after taking a beating from the cold I had/have. My legs are still kind of weak and my lungs aren't there (yet) but the 10 miles a day seems reasonable at this point.
splits: 1st 5 - 34:21 2nd 5 - 34:04
Thursday 7.2 miles in 48:05 Ran a loop with Jeff Kirchner, who was doing a LT, and it kicked my ass. I went 1.8 miles in 10:37, which is the fastest I've run since the baby was born, and... wow! I felt it in my lungs and legs from the first couple of strides. I'm definitely not in shape, but it was good to do it even though it hurt a little bit.
But it felt good...
I also ran back in the Brick Yards and came face-to-face with a wild, red fox. This is the fourth or fifth time in the past year I've come across a fox, and when I use the word "fox" I'm not using slang. Anyway, as I was leaving the normal loop around F&M's Baker Field for the trails along the Little Conestoga Creek near the abandoned brick yards, I came within 10 yards of the fox after rounding a bend of trees in a wooded covey. There, after I came to a sudden stop midstride, casually sat the fox in the middle of the trail -- and he wasn't budging.
Now I've encountered a fox or two in the past, and like deer, ducks, monkeys, bighorn sheep, snakes and elk, they always skedaddle into the brush or far into the trees. Like deer, a fox can jump like a sonofabitch... it's almost like they have springs on their legs. But this sly fella eyed me up and down and wasn't moving.
Scanning the files in my head of what to do in case of a fox attack while slowly backing away, I figured I'd get out of view behind the trees and then make a run for it. At the same time, I thought that I should make myself appear large and make a lot of noise, but then realized that's what you do when being stalked by a mountain lion. Then I thought I should climb up on something elevated and try to be cool, but that's what you do in the event of a bear attack, I think.
Finally I decided to pick up a bunch of rocks to throw if the bleeper made a move on me.
Needless to say, everything turned out OK. I slinked away without incident and finished the run, while the fox continued to do whatever it is foxes do.
Next week: the story about how I beat the bleep out of a guy with my bike helmet after he flipped me off, jumped out of his car and then took a few swings at me.
Friday 9.3 miles in 65:11 Got out at 6 p.m. after procrastinating all day. Basically, I didn't want to run in the rain, but I ended up going out when it was coming down in sheets.
Nonetheless, because it was raining so hard all day, I ran a few loops on the F&M cross-country course where they will be holding the Centennial Conference championships tomorrow. The course is in decent shape despite the fact that it will be as soggy as a bog for the race.
Saturday 11 miles in 1:16:07 Started out by running over the cross-country course, which was a muddy, soggy mess. There was water everywhere and the mud was deep. While running up a hill back in the Brick Yards, I stepped down and my foot sank into the earth up to my ankle.
It was kind of cool.
But it wasn't something I wanted to do for too long. I did one loop through the course and hit the roads. It feels as if I'm beginning to get my legs back, but my lungs and speed aren't even close.
Sunday 7 miles in 48:12 I felt good on this one. When I started running I didn't feel tight or tired and I felt as if I had some lungs, too. In fact, I ran the last 10 minutes at 6-minute pace and it didn't feel difficult at all.
Perhaps I'm getting it back?
From time to time I like to snap photos, though I am hardly a good photographer. Nevertheless, since I like to post pictures on this site, I thought it would be fun to share a few I took one Saturday afternoon in June of 2004 after the Phillies had beaten the Red Sox at Fenway. After the park had cleared out and I was finally finished with my work, I meandered around the place and snapped up these:
Retired numbers
The left-field foul pole
Pesky's pole
The view from the left-field corner
The Monster from center field
From home
Looking at the Monster from home
First base
The Triangle from center field
The view from the Red Sox dugout
The view from the Red Sox bullpen
310
I have more snapshots from different ballparks, like The Vet, that I will post someday soon. In the meantime, if anyone would like to use these photos for a web site or a blog or any other non-commercial enterprise, please, be my guest. If you feel up to it, throw me a note or a link to let me know where they are because I'm interested in that sort of thing.
Anyway, there's Fenway.
Sometimes I feel like an old man. When I wake up in the morning my legs are tight, which causes me to limp around until the first jolt of caffeine from my breakfast of coffee and a Clif Bar, as well as the sting from hot water from the shower limbers me up. My friend Mike says he was the same way until he started his strict daily yoga regiment, but I think there are other factors involved.
Mike is actually Batman. He sleeps upside down swinging from a pair of parallel bars. I hope I didn't reveal too much.
Plus, my ankle has been really cranky lately. I don't think yoga can fix a twisted ankle all banged up from running too much.
Anyway, here's another reason why I feel like an old man: my big plans for Friday night are to load up the kids and my old lady (I was just listening to Muddy Waters... I think he's having problems with his old lady) and head to a local high school football game. Weather permitting of course. It's pretty rainy and damp right now - baking weather, my old lady calls it.
Back to the game...
Playing in the game are two schools that are both 7-1 and neither of which I am an alum. Oh, I have ties to each of the schools and even attended one for the ninth grade before quickly transferring to the far superior J.P. McCaskey High School where I received a real education.
I didn't get much of an education at the school I briefly attended and will be rooting against this evening[1]. Actually, that's not true. I learned a lot at that school, such as I was better off not going there any longer than I had to. As such, I'm rooting against them because of the way things went for me at that school, which is to say it was a rough year and I think I'm still holding a grudge for how things went more than two decades ago with people, places and things that really have no significance in my life at all. I suppose I'm funny that way. But now that I think about it, perhaps those perceived slights motivated me? Well, motivated might be the wrong word. Maybe I was just prompted to a certain action.
Whatever it was, the thing I remember so crystal clearly is my ninth grade English teacher scoffing at the notion that I would ever consider a future as someone who wrote sentences as part of a job. Seriously, she scoffed. I was scoffed at in such a manner that even as a ninth grader I thought to myself, "Wait... is she scoffing at me? Does she think it's funny - as in a rude joke about midgets and donkeys told at the dinner table with grandmothers and long-lost chaste aunts present? Man, I guess I suck as a writer even though I'm just 14."
Hey, I know I'm not the best writer in the world (maybe not even the best writer in my house), but what the hell? And where does a ninth-grade English teacher at a private school get off telling a student that he would probably be better off considering a career where he could dress shabbily and walk around someone's house, scratch his ass and then proclaim, "Yeah, I think youse need a router..."?
I thought I wanted (want) to write. Was that so wrong? Fortunately I transferred to McCaskey where Dennis Schmid cultivated the skills I came with and taught me how to compose a sentence or two. There were other teachers at McCaskey, too, who were/are ridiculously good at their jobs. Folks like John Valori, Ken Barrett, Pete Horn, Ann Pinsker, Donna Couy to name just a few off the top of my head, should have received paychecks like the one "sources" are saying Aaron Rowand is after.
Then again, after digging deeper into the pages archived on this site I might be doing those folks an injustice. The fact is I came with my own ideas and they tried to set me straight. For that I am grateful.
And I hope Columbia High wins tonight.
[1] Let me clarify: I will not be rooting against the kids on the team, because they are just kids playing a game. In fact, I find it hard to root against any team of any kind. A team is just laundry, after all. However, if given a choice I'd like to see certain teams with certain players perform well. It's personal, I suppose... and I am an idiot that way.
For some reason ESPN the Magazine is delivered to my house every two weeks. I don't know why this is because I never ordered it and I don't really think I particularly want it, either. In fact, I even called a number I found inside of the magazine to ask them to stop sending it to me and they politely yet forcefully told me, "No."
So I continue to get the ESPN the Magazine.
Occasionally I even look at it because I have a few friends who work there and I like to keep up with them.
That's just the way I am... I am a supporter.
Supporter or not, I think I am pleased that the magazine comes to my house because there was a quarter-page capsule/preview for the Olympic Trials Marathon, which is quickly approaching on Nov. 3 in Manhattan. Written by Alyssa Roenigk (she has a cool web site), the preview outlines the chances five of the top runners have to make the Olympic team for the 2008 games in Beijing.
It was nice marathoning in an ESPN sponsored publication.
However, there were a few glaring omissions within the five top runners previewed. Included are Abdi Abdirahman, Ryan Hall, Meb Keflezighi, Khalid Khannouchi and Brian Sell, which is good and correct. Any top three could (should?) include at least two of that bunch.
But how did Dathan Ritzenhein get on the pay-no-mind list? Or what did defending Trials champion and current national cross-country champ Alan Culpepper do to be excluded? Excluding Ritz and Culpepper is kind of like having a baseball season without the Yankees or Red Sox. Sure, they can be beaten, but chances are they will be with near the top of the standings at the very end.
Meanwhile, some of the capsules on the runners explain how some might miss the top three because of the hilly nature of the course. Two of these runners who don't like such terrain are 2:08 marathoners. Now I don't know much about anything, but I know that 2:08 marathoners are rare in America. In fact, in the history of running, only six American men have run 2:08. That's six, as in one more than five. Of those six, only three - Hall, Dick Beardsley and Bob Kempainen - were born in the United States. The other three - Abdirahman, Khannouchi and Alberto Salazar - were born elsewhere. That doesn't make them any less American, but the point is, 2:08 American marathoners are not common and they won't be bothered by the rolling course.
Anyway, with a little more than a week to go before the big race, here's my top 3, which I am liable to change in the days leading up to the race.
The Top 3:
1.) Ryan Hall 2.) Dathan Ritzenhein 3.) Abdi Abdirahman
Watch out for Sell. ESPN says "he loves hills and will push the pace, keeping opponents honest from Mile 1." But in Boston in '06 where he ran his 2:10:47 PR, Sell ran an even pace and surged during the final 10k where he picked off faltering runners (including Culpepper) to finish fourth. Sell is a brute and a tank and he runs smart.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X7Zi_p-5ww&rel=1]
There's just something about Curt Schilling that just doesn't fit. Maybe it's the baseball uniform that makes him look unusually pale, dowdy and frumpy as if he were househusband from the Indianapolis suburbs. Surely Major League Baseball teams not only have the best and most artistic tailors on their staffs, but also hire stylists and Naomi Wolf to turn them all into the ultimate alpha-males covered in the latest fashions.
You know, like that guy Tom Cruise.
But since it's baseball and it attracts C-list celebrities on crappy Fox shows, Tom Cruise is nowhere to be found. It's more like that dude in the show "House," who, truth be told, always looks like he's a bit peeved about having to be on a show on Fox.
What are you going to do?
If you're Curt Schilling you just pull on that uniform and deal with it. Oddly enough, though, Schilling's Red Sox uniform is easily the most flattering. When he played for the Phillies, whose current unis debuted in 1992 and are becoming more and more tired looking that those ‘70s-styled maroon jobs that made Luzinski look like Philip Seymour Hoffman in a velvet shirt in Boogie Nights, Schilling looked as if he should be playing softball on a diamond behind the Holiday Inn on Packer Ave.
But doughy, stick-legged Curt with his body that he described as a "family curse," really fooled with horizontal hold on TV sets across the country when he forced his trade to Arizona. With the Diamondbacks (the worst nickname in the game... just switch it to Snakes already) and their vest jerseys and purple pinstripes, Schilling looked as if he was set to audition as a reptile for a children's television show. Or worse, those Arizona uniforms made Schilling look as if he was a purple bowtie and cummerbund away from a gig as an overfed male exotic dancer working in strip malls across the Rust Belt. I don't know what his full stage name would be, though I'm pretty sure he might use the nom de guerre "Dash" in there somewhere. Like "Dash Fastball," or maybe "Curty Dash," or something like that. I don't know how they come up with that stuff.
But yes, it's a good thing he can throw a baseball.
It's good that Schilling can throw a baseball because when he really puts on a bowtie and a cummerbund to go be seen at some ridiculousness like the ESPYs, a Dungeon & Dragons convention or a Bush rally; he can entertain us all by looking like the party crasher. You know, the guy with the look that says it's just a matter of time before someone taps him on the shoulder and says, "Dude, you're in over your head. Let's go get you a trailer, a pair of cut-offs, a pack of Marlboros and a Kenny Chesney CD. Do you like the Olive Garden?"
Instead, he shows up, does his thing then shrugs his shoulders as if to say, "can you believe my life?" before stopping off on the way home to get the best Asian massage ever.
God bless that Curt Schilling. God bless him because he walked off the mound at Fenway in potentially his last game ever with the Red Sox having put them just 11 outs away from taking a 2-0 lead in the World Series over the Colorado Rockies. It would put the Red Sox two chilly night wins in Denver away from wrapping up their second World Series title in the last four seasons.
And certainly dowdy, gabby Curt would be more than an integral part of that. Imagine that - two World Series victories with the Boston Red Sox... the last pitcher to do that was Babe Ruth.
Babe Ruth and Curt Schilling... talk about style.
Speaking of the Red Sox, get this. My oldest son is 42 months old and could live in a world where the Red Sox have won two of the four World Series played in his lifetime. One of the other two was won by the White Sox, whose previous title was in 1917. My grandmother is going on 90 and she has been on this earth for the same number of White and Red Sox Series titles as my 3½-year old.
That's weird, wild stuff.
*** Here's one that I found in the Rocky Mountain Sports magazine newsletter the other day:
Comcast Colorado in Denver CEO, Scott Binder, won the title for 2007 Fittest CEO in the World in the CEO Ironman Challenge World Championship in Kona. Binder beat out 12 other CEOs who earned their spot to Kona at one of six CEO Ironman Challenge qualifying events held around the world.
I have to admit I'm a little jealous because I'd love to properly train for an Ironman. That would be so much fun. However, I have no interest in being a CEO or the boss of anything. My ego would be satisfied with just an Ironman... that's enough.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJdCglISowo&rel=1]
As the more astute baseball fans know, the loquacious former Phillie and current Red Sox, Curt Schilling, has a blog. It's called "38 Pitches," which is really clever because Schilling is a pitcher and he wears uniform No. 38.
See, clever.
But unlike most jock web sites or blogs, Curt actually dives into the fray on his. He has the comments section wide open, updates it fairly regularly and probably even picked out the design by himself with help from the good folks at WordPress. And yes, they are good folks.
Anyway, Curt lets it fly on his site, which we mentioned earlier, is pretty cool. After all, if one is going to operate a blog they need to:
- Update it regularly
- Keep it from getting stale
- Keep it from being boring
With those rules in mind I'll offer a pre-emptive apology.
Curt has no reason to offer such an apology, though he should offer some sort of mea culpa for the shoddy grammar and stylistic errors. C'mon, big fella - English isn't a second language is it?
Jokes aside, in his latest rambling post that reminds me of that scene in the underrated film Election when Chris Klein gives his breathless campaign speech in the gym in the all-school assembly, Curt starts with offering kudos to Josh Beckett for winning the MVP of the ALCS, then moves on to lauding his skipper Terry Francona for just being Tito, and then opines on the Joe Torre situation and the Yankees.
About Torre and the Yanks, Schilling writes:
A few random observations. The Red Sox in me is happy Joe Torre is no longer in charge in NY. The person in me wonders how does a guy who obviously has the respect and loyalty of his entire roster, a guy who's taken his team to 12 straight post seasons, a guy who exudes class and respect, how does he, in the midst of what might have been his most challenging and defining season and post season, not only have to manage his team in a best of 5 win or go home series, but also answer a billion questions about being basically told ‘win or you're out'? How did it come to that? I have never had a chance to get to know Mr Torre beyond handshakes of congratulations or hellos, but I have never heard a player on his team utter anything but respect for the guy. Much like Boston, managing a 175m+ roster of super star players, in that market, with a hack to writer ratio bordering on 100-1, how does he basically win pretty much every year, get to the post season and get an ultimatum at THAT point in the season? I have always thought very highly of Mr Steinbrenner as well, anyone that pours that much of himself into his team, is that dedicated to his teams fans is ok by me and I would think ok by pretty much anyone that plays for him since he never makes issue with paying the huge salaries players make these days but only adds the caveat of "Just win a World Series". I don't think players have ever had problems with owners like that.
Then he gets ‘offered' a pay cut with strings? That sucks. Was very cool to see the mass of Yankee fans at the "keep Joe" rally though. Amazing how that loyalty card plays out in the public eye and through the media when the shoes on the other foot. Managers don't win ballgames, players do, and I think you'd be surprised to know how bad we feel when managers we care about get fired because we know, if we have one ounce of integrity, that our failures as players are, most times, what gets a manager fired.
See what I mean about rambling? Sheesh! It's like reading Faulkner while hopped up on greenies. Anyway, the rambling rant didn't stop there. Oh no! Ol' Curt moved back to our boy Tito and how things have worked out so well in Boston after he got "hacked up" in Philly. In fact, Curt doesn't just fire willy-nilly into the air with the broad, sweeping charges against the Philly hacks. Oh no, that's not his style.
Curt names names.
To wit:
Terry Francona is a genius since he arrived in Boston? Having been on his team the first day he managed in the big leagues through today I'll tell you up front that he is not much different. He does suck much more at cribbage now than he ever did and his fantasy teams continue to suck as well, but as a manager he's not really different. I think the interim jobs he had in Cleveland and Oakland showed him the inner workings of baseball front offices more and helped him in some areas but in the clubhouse, dugout, and on the field he's pretty much the same non-jersey wearing guy he was in Philly, he just has a front office comprised entirely of people that understand winning games on the field matters more than anything else. The ‘know it alls' in Philadelphia, from Conlin to Cataldi to Macnow, aren't really know it alls are they? Their people who's life it is, who's entire job description, revolves around creating news or stories where there is none, to make you think their ‘in' and you're not, and if you want to truly know or get smarter, listen to them. Pretty cool when you can be wrong pretty much 90% of the time and still be considered an expert.
Wonder how smart Tito looks to the guys that hacked him in Philly now? 3 post seasons, 2 world series appearances in 4 years here. Nice to know he gets that last laugh.
Et tu, Curt? Et tu?
Yeah, so how about that? Good to see gabby Curt is preparing himself for a smooth transition back to Philadelphia in 2008, huh?
Editor's Note: The following story is a complete work of fiction. There is not one element in it that is true, though the pitcher whose name is used in the story actually did win 24 games in 1964. Other than that, nothing else is true. That's what fiction means -- it's all completely made up.
When I’m King of the World I’m going to buy a big chair – kind of like a throne. Then, after it’s delivered to my palace I'm going to sit in my big chair, a recliner, and relax. Then I’ll reach down, between my legs and ease the seat back…
She’s blinding, I’m flying Right behind the rear-view mirror now Got the feeling, power steering Pistons popping, ain’t no stopping now!
Panama, Panamahahaha Panama, Panama!
So when I’m King of the World and I am sitting in my big bleeping chair – a reclining throne – I’d wear a silk shirt and extra-large pair of sweatpants because I’m a tall drink of water and I like to breathe free and easy. Plus, sometimes I get what they call "swamp ass," which can be a little uncomfortable. When it’s hot and humid it's tough rolling around in my shorts, as one can imagine. That’s no good because when I’m riding in my coupe with the jamz bumping, I like to keep it tight. But I get sweaty, as I stated. Sweat, of course, is the production and evaporation of a watery fluid, consisting mainly of sodium chloride (which is the main constituent of "table salt") in solution, that is excreted by the sweat glands in the skin of mammals. Sweat also contains the chemicals or odorants 2-methylphenol and 4-methylphenol.
But when I think of salt and sweat I think of Cool Hand Luke, the epic 1967 American film directed by Stuart Rosenberg – also famous for The Amityville Horror, and The Pope of Greenwich Village – and staring salad dressing/spaghetti sauce benefactor, Paul Newman. Newman's concoctions remind me of the time back in 1967 at the Winter Meetings at the Royal Sonesta Beach Resort in Key Biscayne when we were sitting in the lounge drinking Cuerevo and talking about the team's top prospects in '68. That's when Ruly came ambling in with that big grin of his and invited the gang to The Sand Dollar, a little bistro tucked behind the dunes bordering Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park. Those guys all drove in the same car, leaving me to follow in my rented Chevrolet Chevelle. A couple of times those guys sped out of sight when they pressed on the accelerator just as the light switched from yellow to red. I suppose they were having car trouble because they had stopped and then suddenly sped up… then the taillights went out and it was if they were driving in a ghost car.
Cars didn’t have computers in those days, nor did they have digital clocks or radios. We had to be able to tell time by knowing the multiplication tables, like “five times three equals 15” and so on. In my Chevrolet Chevelle, named for Frenchman Louis Chevrolet in 1878 in La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland when we were still embroiled in our Restoration following the bloody Civil War, I kept a folding map so I found them after driving around for a little bit. But thinking of Chevrolet caused me to think about the Civil War. It was Ambrose Burnside, famous for the plumage that spread from the hair near his ear down his cheeks, who told U.S. Grant in Appomattox in 1865 to "take what they give you, Uly. Let’s get out of here and back to the Sawmill Inn. I saw some birds there that look like a sure thing. Ol’ Braxton Bragg once told me he spent a week there one night and didn’t even have to buy anyone a drink."
So we got to the Sand Dollar and had a nice table on the deck near the waitresses' post. Ruly had the salmon because he was concerned about getting his Omega-3 fatty acids. This was back in 1967, mind you. It wasn’t until recently that the importance of Omega-3 in the diet was popularized, but there we were at the Sand Dollar in '67 and Ruly was having salmon with a green-leaf salad and extra-virgin olive oil instead of salad dressing. I had the peppercorn ranch on a nice arugula salad and a delectable piece of white fish. Larry Jackson, the hard-throwing righty from Idaho who won 24 games for the Cubs in 1964, came along too. Ruly liked to call Larry “Don” when he'd had a few, and by then he was already waist deep into some 30-year old Glenfiddich that he drank after sipping a club soda. After three hours or so of eating, drinking and gabbing about that sonofabitch Kennedy and the upcoming election, the tab finally came and Ruly snatched it away from Pope, whose hands always recoiled as if he were touching something hot or trying to sneak a piece of limburger out of a mouse trap. That's the way Pope was whenever someone else attempted to grab the check. It was as if he suddenly became a Thalidomide baby.
But after nodding off during his fourth scan of the bill, Ruly came to, focused his black-framed eyes on Larry and shouted as if he were an antebellum preacher trying to fend off Mephistopheles.
"Don, you dirty son of a bitch, did you really need to order the calamari to go with the grouper with the pinot noir? That’s two bleeping fishes and a wine that doesn’t match. And why are you drinking that bleepy wine for."
Only he didn't say bleeping and bleepy. I'm trying to clean this up so tenderhearted folks can read it and won't feel like they did something bad. Anyway, Larry and I just sat there quietly hoping Ruly's rage would pass the way his big, overhand curve passed by all those opponent's bats during that 24-win season for the Northsiders in '64.
But Ruly wasn't finished.
"And you, fat boy," he said, bearing down on me, which was an odd thing to say seeing as I am 6-foot-1 and weighed 155 dripping wet during those days. "You put him up to this didn’t you? He’s the reason we couldn’t ditch your ass back on Crandon Boulevard isn’t he? You bitches are working together aren’t you?"
That’s when Ruly pulled out the small revolver he kept in his boot and shot Larry just below his right eye.
Killed ‘em.
Needless to say, Ruly sobered up really fast. He also diagramed a quick plan to get rid of Larry that made it looked like he had been in that situation before. It was kind of like the caper Denzel Washington came up with in the movie Training Day just before Ethan Hawke shoved a shotgun into Dr. Dre's throat. Either way, I was stationed at the door and told not to let anyone in the joint, while Ruly and Pope took care of what was left of Larry… and just like that – 15 minutes later – they came strolling out of the kitchen with a big Chinese takeout box. Next thing I knew I was back in my Chevelle and heading south into Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park.
About 20 minutes into the drive we came upon a man standing in the middle of the road made of sand and crushed seashells. He was wearing a dinner jacket and black leather gloves and his body language emitted an ardor that was bathed in austerity. We got out of the car and the man ushered us without a word to a bluff behind a sprawling, three-storey Cape covered in a canopy of palm and southern pine trees. As soon as we were out on the bluff, the man finally spoke:
"Get to it, guys, but this is it. I don’t want you back here anymore. Do you hear me, Ruly? This is it."
Ruly didn’t say anything. Instead he elbowed past the man in the dinner jacket and said:
"Donny was a good bowler, and a good man. He was one of us. He was a man who loved the outdoors. And bowling. And as a surfer, he explored the beaches of Southern California from La Jolla to Leo Carillo and up to Pismo. He died, as so many young men of his generation, before his time. In your wisdom, Lord, you took him. As you took so many bright flowering young men at Ke Song, at Lon Doc, and Hill 364. These young men gave their lives, as did Donny. Donny who loved bowling.
"And so, Don, in accordance with what we think your dying wishes might well have been, we commit your mortal remains to the bosom of the Pacific, which you loved so well.
"Good night, sweet prince."
That’s when I felt a felt a rap on the back of my skull and blacked out…
When I’m King of The World I’d make sure I had a lot of money so I could buy a lot of neat things… If I were King of The World You I would make it so that a team either won or lost a hockey game without that silly shootout or 4-on-4 stuff in overtime… If I were King of The World I’d give every single person that reached the age of 18 exactly one hand grenade. I bet you're saying, "Yep, he's really gone off his big bleeping chair this time. Just think what would happen to the housing market, let alone health care!"
If I were King of The World I’d buy everyone a Kevlar suit so the shrapnel from the hand grenades wouldn’t hurt anyone… When I’m King of The World I’ll ban the designated hitter rule and outlaw artificial turf and night time World Series games... If I were King of The World I’d hire a personal chef and get really nice suits made by a good tailor. No more off-the-rack blazers for me!
I'm on record in many different mediums proclaiming that the Colorado Rockies will never, ever lose again, and I'm going to stand by that. But if the Red Sox win the World Series in six games I won't be too surprised by that, either.
Be that as it is, I figured I'd send out an annoying mass e-mail to solicit predictions from some of the top baseball writers in the business.
Here's the e-mail:
Dear Sirs: I'm soliciting predictions for the World Series. If you want to send me which team will win and in how many games for publication on my little dog-and-pony show, I would be most appreciative. For your trouble you will get a link on a web site that was rated by Word Press as the sixth up-and-coming site on its platform.
Yeah, pretty cool, huh.
If you want to add some trenchant and interesting analysis, I'll accept that, too. But just remember the audience I have cultivated -- we like our BS full of bluster.
Thank you in advance.
truly, jrf
So what did these "experts" predict? Take a look:
John Finger - Comcast SportsNet/Raconteur Rockies in 4 pithy analysis: Using logic and baseball acumen, it's tough not to believe the Red Sox will win the World Series. After all, the Red Sox are Goliath having smote (smited?) that mantle from the Yankees. So yes, logic dictates that the Red Sox should win. But someone explain the logic behind the Rockies’ streak in which they have lost just one game since Sept. 15? Or the logic in making a team wait eight days in the middle of a playoff run? Go ahead, someone find the logic there… you can’t can you? Yeah, well, while you work with your logic and conventional thought, I’m going out on the ledge…
Mike Radano - Camden Courier Post Red Sox in 6 pithy analysis: Colorado can't beat Beckett and he could start three times in the series.
Ken Mandel - Phillies.com Red Sox in 6 pithy analysis: What?
Jayson Stark - ESPN.com Rockies in 6 pithy analysis: I explain it all in my column tomorrow.
Scott Lauber - Wilmington News Journal Rockies in 6 pithy analysis: Will the layoff affect the Rockies? Sure. They may actually lose a game. But Destiny's Children won't be slowed by a layoff, Josh Beckett, Manny or Papi. The Sox can roll out the Dropkick Murphys, Kevin Millar and any other good-luck charms. It's just the Rockies' year.
Marcus Hayes - Philadelphia Daily News Rockies in 6 pithy analysis: Surely the Red Sox, with Inquirer-dubbed genius Terry Francona at their helm and Bloody Curt on the mound, will have no problem with a young, energized, under-the-radar team coming off 9 days of rest and playing an aging Red Sox club that faced elimination three times in its last three games.
Rich Hofmann - Philadelphia Daily News Rockies in 5 pithy analysis: McNabb throws for two touchdowns and, oh, wait...
Todd Zolecki - Philadelphia Inquirer Red Sox in 5 pithy analysis: Why? Because I think the layoff for the Rockies will cool them down, much like last season with the Tigers. And I just think the Red Sox are a better team.
Jim Salisbury - Philadelphia Inquirer Red Sox in 6 pithy analysis: Eight-day wait cools off Rox...
Ellen Finger - wife/teacher Rockies in 7 pithy analysis: Why do I always have to explain everything to you?
Mike Wann - neighborhood gadfly/sports illiterate Al Qaeda pithy analysis: Apparently no one can stop those bitches.
Matt Yallof - SportsNet New York Rockies in 6 pithy analysis: Colorado's lineup is deep and balanced and Josh Beckett can't pitch every night. After losing one game in the last month, I cant imagine they'll lose 4 in week and a half.
Marcus Grimm - future Boston qualifier Red Sox in 5 pithy analysis: What the Rockies did was impressive, but 8 days will have cooled them off, and Boston's just a better team.
Stephen Miller - Allentown Morning Call Rockies in 7 pithy analysis: Logic tells me to pick the Red Sox. Of course, logic also helped me pick the entire NL playoff field incorrectly before the season. I'm done with logic.
Andy Schwartz - Comcast SportsNet football maven Rockies in 7 pithy analysis: Boulder is so much cooler than Boston.
Dennis Deitch - Delaware County Daily Times Rockies in 5
There is no such thing as the ex-Phillies curse. There might be an ex-Cubs curse and the curse of Kenny Lofton[1] appears to be alive and well, but as far as the Phillies go, there is no such jinx[2].
In fact, leaving the Philadelphia Phillies for another team is a really good career move. How good? Going back to the last time the Phillies were actually in the World Series there has been at least one former Phillie to play in the Series in every season except for 1998. If the Red Sox manage to beat the Rockies this year, it will be four straight World Series where an ex-Phillie plays an instrumental role.
Need names? OK.
Scott Rolen for the Cardinals last year; Cliff Politte for the White Sox in 2005; and of course, Curt Schilling and Terry Francona for the Red Sox in 2004.
The last two names are the most interesting. Actually, Schilling isn't so interesting because he is one of those guys who can pick and choose where he wants to play. He wanted the Phillies to trade him to the Diamondbacks and a year later he was pitching in the World Series. When the D'backs were ready for their big fire sale, Schilling was able to wrangle a deal to the Red Sox, a team that missed out on the World Series because of Aaron Boone's home run in Game 7 of the ALCS the previous year.
What Schilling wants, Schilling gets - but really, where's the fun in that? It's not exactly the noblest tact, but whatever...
But when Schilling worked the trade to Boston at Thanksgiving of 2003, one thing he wanted was Terry Francona as the manager of the Red Sox. It wasn't the most popular move to the Red Sox fans during that 2004 season, but they got over it pretty quickly. Now in his fourth season as the Red Sox skipper, Francona is heading to his second World Series after ending the franchises' 86-year "curse" in '04. Francona, it seems, is a pretty good manager after all.
Go figure.
Jim Salisbury examined the rise of Tito in the Inquirer today. In the story Francona's days as the manager of the Phillies were especially noted. Hired to manage the Phillies before the 1997 season when he was just 37, Francona's job, it seems now, was just to bide time until the Phillies could get the new stadium built and then find a better manager.
Francona, it was reasoned, had the temperament to deal with the young Phillies players as well as take the lumps in the press. And aside from giving the manager Rolen and Schilling, the team really wanted Francona to take a beating.
Francona definitely took it, the Phillies eventually built their new stadium, but did they get a better manager to replace him? Surely there will be plenty of folks to debate that one - especially in Philadelphia where there seems to be some resentment for those who find success elsewhere. The curious part about that is Francona was never expected to win in Philadelphia - what team in which four starters made more than 30 starts during the four-year run would be?
Why the resentment? Is it Francona's fault that the Red Sox cared about winning and the Phillies just wanted to get a stadium built and hired Larry Bowa?
Schilling summed it up in the Inquirer:
"Nobody that matters or knows what they're talking about sees him that way," said Curt Schilling, who has spent eight of the last 11 seasons pitching for Francona, first in Philadelphia, now in Boston.
"Unfortunately, there are some people in Philadelphia that have the ability to shape opinions. There are some people in the media there that are the most ignorant sports people I've ever met.
"Terry's really not any different than he was in Philadelphia. He just has an organization that understands winning and is committed to winning."
And like Rolen and every other former Phillie that left town for greater glory, Philadelphia is hardly even a blip in Francona's rear-view mirror:
"Regardless of what job I've had, I've never made it about myself," he said after his team won the American League pennant Sunday night. "Really, I don't care what people in Philadelphia think, especially from Woodhaven Road on down."
So can Francona and Schilling do it again?
Yeah, why not...
[1] Kenny Lofton has made it to the playoffs in 11 of the past 13 seasons with six different teams and has been to the World Series twice. Both times his team lost. Moreover, in 20 playoff series, Lofton's teams are 9-11. Then again, Lofton was a Cub during the infamous "Bartman" series. Does that mean Lofton himself is the jinx or the fact that he was on the Cubs make him a jinx?[2] Of course there are no such things as jinxes, curses or other otherworldly influences on sports, but for the sake of this argument we'll just pretend to be stupid(er).
At this point in the game, the runners in the Nov. 3 Olympic Marathon Trials are beginning to think about their taper. With months of 120 to 140 miles weeks behind the top runners, there isn't too much many more hard workouts will do for a guy other than wear him out.
A hard long run or a serious set of intervals this late in the game is almost like studying for an exam the night before - if you don't know it by now, it's too late.
So with 11 days to go before the biggest marathon of the year, all that's left is to hype the race... and relax a bit.
It is funny (in the ironical sense) that the taper period is the most difficult part for runners to get through. Going out there every day to run 15 to 20 miles is always less scary than the very idea of cutting back the training.
Anyway, this year's trials could be the deepest ever. In fact, Khalid Khannouchi, the American record holder in the marathon (2:05:38) says in an interview with Runner's World that there are "seven or eight" legitimate contenders to take the top three spots to earn a position on the Olympic team. Of that seven to eight, there are two runners whose injuries could prove to ruin their chances at making the team.
The biggest name of the bunch is Meb Keflezighi, the silver medalist in the 2004 Olympic Marathon, whose calf injury forced him to shut down his normal training routine for a few days. If Meb is going to make another Olympic team he's going to need healthy calves to negotiate his way over those five-mile loops on the criterium-style course in Central Park.
Khannouchi, the former world-record holder, is another runner who always seems to battling through one injury or another. However, Khannouchi turns 36 in December and knows that he doesn't have much time left if he wants to make an Olympic team or run fast times. Actually, the Nov. 3 Trials could be Khannouchi's last shot.
It could be the last shot for a lot guys, too. But you can read/watch all about that on your own. The New York Road Runners - host of the Central Park Trials - has put together a comprehensive web site complete with profiles of the runners and the uncompromising course. Runner's World site is loaded with interviews of the top runners and the latest news.
My favorite bit from the RW site is the interview with contender Brian Sell, who when asked the reason why he puts in the 150-mile weeks was for his mileage was for his "body or his head," just laughed and said, "head."
"I don't have any advantages over those guys in terms of talent so knowing that I ran 20 to 30 miles more per week it gives me the strength."
Sell's answer is better than mine when folks asked me why I ran 100-mile weeks when preparing for a marathon.
"Because that's what it takes."
Truth be told, it's more for my head than for anything else.
More: Breaking down the Trials... sort of
*** Speaking of my head, my hour-a-day plan has entered its second week though there have been a few hiccups here and there. One was a two-day visit to the hospital for our youngest boy, Teddy. The little fella got a virus/cold that resulted in a 103-degree fever. Because he is just seven-weeks old, his doctor decided around-the-clock care at Lancaster General was the smart plan.
So yeah, I skipped a day.
Meanwhile, I ran from my house near Franklin & Marshall College/Lancaster Country Day to Columbia, Pa. on Sunday during the hottest part of the day, and today I did 10 in 69:05 (splits: 34:36; 34:29) aching from a spasming calf and an old-fashioned head cold.
Needless to say it was a struggle. And frankly, if I feel this way before the Harrisburg Marathon I'm going to take the DNS. That could mean a full calendar year without a marathon...
But that won't last. My manager (wife) and I went through the schedule and crunched the numbers and decided to target The National Marathon in Washington, D.C. on March 29.
The plan is to regain my strength and drop some weight for the next eight weeks before putting my 14-weeks plan into full effect.
The training plan? Here it is with unexplained jargon:
Week 1 2 miles easy + 2 x 2 miles @ 5:35/mile + 9 miles easy + 3 miles @ 5:35/mile + 2 miles easy
4 miles easy + 5 x 1 mile @ 5:10/mile + 5 miles easy
Week 2 20 miles in 2:15
2 miles easy + 10 miles in 58 2 miles easy
Week 3 4 miles easy + 8 miles in 48 + 1 mile in 5:35 + 6 miles in 36 + 1 mile in 5:35 + 2 miles easy
knockdown in 33, 32, 31
Week 4 22 miles with 5 miles in 28
knockdown in 32, 31, 30
Week 5 22 miles in 2:28
2 miles easy + 10 miles in 58 + 2 miles easy
Week 6 20 miles with 12 in 72
knockdown in 32, 30, 29
Week 7 22 miles with 5 in 28, 10 easy, and 5 in 28
knockdown in 31, 30, 28
Week 8 22 miles in 2:27
4 easy + 10 in 57 1 mile cool down
Week 9 23 miles with 12 in 72
knockdown in 31, 31, 27
Week 10 22 miles with 5 in 28
knockdown in 32, 30, 29
Week 11 22 miles easy
4 miles easy + 5 x 1 mile @ 5:10/mile + 5 miles easy
Week 12 BLAST WEEK
Week 13 22 miles easy
5k or 10k race
Week 14 * 13 easy * 10 easy * 4 miles warm up and cool down + 3 in 16 * 6 miles easy * 4-5 miles easy * 3 miles easy * 4 miles easy
I’m not going to pretend to be a football expert or even someone who knows anything about football aside from what was learned at J.P. McCaskey High School in the late 1980s. So with that in mind please excuse me if the next question is… well, dumb.
Anyway, here it comes:
Why is Andy Reid still the coach of the Eagles? Or, at the very least why isn’t he at least sitting on the ol’ hot seat?
Is this not a fair question?
Perhaps Joe Torre’s “firing” means any coach or manager – no matter how successful – is fair game. In that regard maybe Andy Reid’s biggest crime is the same as Torre’s in that they were too successful. Torre, of course, managed the New York Yankees for 12 seasons and took them to the playoffs for an unprecedented 12 straight years. He won the World Series four times, lost it twice and racked up 1,173 regular-season victories.
But, Torre did not win the World Series since 2000 and was not able to take the Yankees back to the Series since losing to the Marlins in 2003. Clearly, such a long drought was unacceptable to the Yankees’ new bumbling and egomaniacal bosses.
Never mind the fact that the egomania was built on the back of Torre’s success.
Football, of course, is a different animal than baseball. There are many more players and coaches and much more specialization. They have meetings about having meetings in football and truth be told, almost all meetings are a waste of time. Worse, they have meetings on the field before every single play. Baseball, it sometimes seems, is also becoming far too specialized, which makes for a less-interesting game to watch. Even worse, the coach actually walks onto the field to discuss strategy, which seems really odd.
Is there another sport that allows the coach to go onto the field during the middle of the game? Hell, tennis doesn’t even allow coaches to sit on the sidelines.
Anyway, the only reason I ask about Reid and his future with the Eagles is more because of Charlie Manuel than Joe Torre. After all, for three seasons Charlie Manuel was scrutinized over the tiniest bit of minutia regarding his job performance and his personality. Fans and media called for Manuel’s head because, as they pointed out, he wasn’t smart enough. They based this on the notion that he couldn’t pull off a double-switch and because he was from Virginia and talked funny.
You know, because the double-switch is the most important move a baseball manager ever makes and because that Philly accent sounds so intelligent. And yes, I was using the sarcasm font.
So if Charlie Manuel can win more games in his first three seasons than any other manager in franchise history save for the guy who had Grover Cleveland Alexander pitching for him, and get the team to the playoffs for the first time in a decade-and-a-half while some folks are genuinely upset over his two-year contract extension, why isn’t Andy Reid feeling the heat?
Look, I know the Eagles just passed through the most successful era in franchise history and that they got to the NFC Championship for four seasons in a row. But it’s over. According to people that know better, the Eagles do not have the players needed to fit into their schemes. Even with the pass-happy offense, Reid’s Eagles don’t seem to have the receivers they need to make now immobile quarterback Donovan McNabb more effective. Actually, the Eagles did have the receiver they needed to make the rather pedantic offense good, but they ran that guy out of town because he was a diva.
Seriously, how does a coach help run the best player on the team out of town and still keep his job? Lawyers are always looking for a precedent when contemplating trying a case – is there a previous instance of a coach “firing” the best and most effective player on the team and staying on the job?
Again, I’m no expert on the NFL or the Eagles so excuse my ignorance. But as an outsider looking in from a cursory view I don’t understand why Reid isn’t feeling more pressure. Or maybe he is and I just don’t know enough to make a more intelligent point. But how come it’s OK for him to continuously take the “responsibility” for a bad game, or to tell the press that he/we “must do a better job?” He did it again after the loss to the Bears yesterday when quarterback Brian Griese marched his team 97 yards with less than two minutes to go for the winning touchdown.
He does this ad nauseam to the point that it should make one nauseous.
It seems that he has used the “responsibility” and “better job” edict so much that there ought to be consequences by now. Worse, the mistakes that necessitate such excuses are chronic and have been for a long time.
Nevertheless, it’s hard to argue with the track record no matter how angry fans seem to be after watching the games on Sunday. The Inquirer notes these facts in the Oct. 14, 2007 issues:
Since Reid took over as the Eagles' coach in 1999, the 31 other teams have combined to fire and hire a total of 91 coaches. Discounting rookie head coaches, 36 of the 91 never made a playoff appearance with the team they coached. Nine others failed to win a playoff game.
Under Reid the Eagles have been really good. But it doesn’t seem as if the Eagles are going to win their first title since 1960 any time in the near future. This idea would remain unchanged even if the Eagles were 3-3 instead of 2-4.
Anyway, I’m not one of those guys who profess to know everything. That’s why I ask… maybe I just don’t get Andy Reid.
Am I the only one?
Other observations
- There was no way that Manny Ramirez would have thrown out Kenny Lofton at the plate during the seventh inning of last night’s ALCS Game 7. But Lofton not scoring the run that would have tied the game at 3 is not why the Indians lost the game… but it didn’t help.
- It’s official: The Red Sox and Yankees have traded places. The Red Sox are the big-monied team that is maniacally organized and always seems to have the means to get the right player to step in at the perfect time, while the Yankees are the team that replaces the manager despite going to the playoffs year after year.
- Is there a more entertaining/maddening player than Manny Ramirez?
- Terry Francona is heading to his second World Series in four seasons with Boston… how come the Phillies can’t get a guy like that?
Oh yeah… never mind.
- Finally, the Phillies released their schedule for 2008. They open the season against the Nationals on March 31 after another one of those exhibition two-game series on March 28 and 29 against Toronto.
Other highlights include a two-game series in Colorado on April 21 and 22 before the return matchup at the Bank on May 26, 27 and 28. Interleague-wise the Phillies host the Red Sox and Angels starting June 16.
For the rest of the schedule, click here.
Here’s my Saturday night:
Sitting downstairs with my laptop, remote and 1,529 Comcast Digital Cable channels, I found myself drawn to two different shows that were on simultaneously. One was Game 6 of the ALCS where the Red Sox bludgeoned the Cleveland Indians thanks in part to a pair of players that were once tied to the Phillies. One, of course, was the pitcher Curt Schilling, who came up big in another huge game. The other was J.D. Drew, whose first-inning grand slam pretty much ensured that there was going to be a Game 7 on Sunday night.
As the rout carried on into the middle innings I flipped to the epic movie, Fight Club where I found myself riveted to that scene where Ed Norton pummels the holy living hell out of Jared Leto in a hard, spare concrete basement. Folks who have seen the film agree that it’s a pretty ridiculous scene. It’s where Norton as Tyler Durden beats Leto, a soldier to the “movement,” with an unbridled rage and fury that leaves the onlookers to ponder the meaning of the beating. With Leto prone and Norton forcing his knees onto his chest to gain leverage in order to rain blows onto his face well past the breaking point, the camera switches to Brad Pitt, Norton’s alter ego, who simply shakes his head with disgust at the sight of Norton's handiwork.
Clearly Norton/Durden didn’t "get it" at all, Pitt/Durden implied.
Nevertheless, Leto returned to the so-called “Project Mayhem” undeterred. With his face grotesquely swollen and most of his teeth scattered back on that basement floor, Leto’s character chastises Norton in a later scene for not sticking with the Nietzsche/Robin Hood principles of Project Mayhem. The message seems to be that Leto is clearly a "believer" who realizes that everyone has to take a beating every once in a while. Norton, on the other hand, is conflicted about his role as leader of a “guerrilla terrorist of the service industry.”
So as I’m flipping back and forth between the two beatings I was trying to figure out if I could apply the scene in Fight Club to either the Red Sox or Indians. Are the Red Sox like Leto in that they remained resolute in achieving the goals of Project Mayhem despite the beatings in three straight games that left them on the brink of elimination?
Or are the Sox more like Norton, who in the end of the movie has to destroy his alter ego in order to (re)gain control of himself?
Quickly I realized that my inner dialogue was just talking bleep. I was just looking to spice up a Saturday night spent in front of a laptop and TV.
Yes, it was all a stretch. The Red Sox and Indians is just another baseball series that will come down to one, final Game 7 tonight. Fight Club is nothing more than a movie based on a novel that, according to the author Chuck Palahniuk, is about “a lonely person looking for some way to connect with other people.”
I suppose that’s one way to look at it. I also suppose that when it comes down to it I was looking for some way to make the ALCS meaningful and relate it to the esoteric – yet mainstream – pop culture.
And I failed. It just doesn’t work.
Be that as it may, it should be interesting to see the Red Sox Daisuke Matsuzaka pitch in Game 7. Remember when he first arrived in the U.S. last spring? Remember how he was supposed to be the second-coming of Walter Johnson because he could pitch 900 innings a season and throw 300 pitches a game with his wacky, gravity-defying “GiroBall?”
Yeah, well, Matsuzaka went 15-12 with a 4.40 ERA in 32 starts in 2007 for the Red Sox. From a statistical standpoint, Matsuzaka is less like Walter Johnson and more like Paul Byrd but with more whiffs per nine innings.
There’s a very strong possibility that tonight’s game at Fenway could very well be Curt Schilling’s last with the Red Sox. That is, of course, if the Red Sox do not win the next two games of the ALCS against the Cleveland Indians to advance to the World Series to face the Colorado Rockies.
Schilling, though, is likely headed toward free agency and one more contract (possibly for two years?) before closing down a pretty stellar career. Will it be good enough to get him into the Hall of Fame? Probably, eventually. Schilling was one of the best big-game pitchers of his era, and was certainly better than Roger Clemens in the playoffs.
Better yet, if one wants to know how good Schilling was, just ask him. Actually, read his web site or just follow the TV cameras… if there is a bright light shining somewhere, Schilling likely will be trying to stand in front of it.
Anyway, there will likely be a lot of attention paid to the notion that Schilling could be pitching in his last game for the Red Sox during tonight’s telecast of Game 6 of the ALCS on Fox. In fact, Tim McCarver and Joe Buck with song-and-dance man Rosenthal… whathisname… Ken, that’s it… anyway, Tim, Joe and Ken will probably bring up the idea of Schilling returning to Philadelphia to pitch for the Phillies in 2008.
It’s doubtful, though, that the trio will bring up the notion of Schilling upsetting the harmony in the clubhouse or anything of that nature. But then again, you never know. That could be a topic for discussion since those playoff games on late-night TV tend to last five to six hours. Plus, the idea of Schilling returning to the Phillies and wrecking havoc in the clubhouse is a fair topic. It could happen. Oh sure, some might argue that if Brett Myers didn’t mess up the clubhouse chemistry then how could Schilling?
True. But then again, Schilling is reasonably intelligent. Smart people are more difficult to write off as a mere nuisance.
But back to the real point… perhaps the most interesting element of the ALCS thus far hasn’t been the notion of Curt Schilling pitching in his final game for the Red Sox. Instead, it has been Josh Beckett’s first playoff appearances for Boston. In that regard it would be fair to say that Beckett has been noteworthy.
Just a little.
In three playoff starts this year, Becket is 3-0 with 26 strikeouts with one walk in 23 innings. His ERA is 1.17, his WHIP is 0.43 and he is the reason why the Red Sox are still alive in the post-season and still have a chance to go to the World Series. Based on Beckett’s playoff run with the Marlins during the 2003 season in which he was named World Series MVP, it looks as if the younger right-hander is taking over for the older dude as the best big-game pitcher of the era.
In nine playoff appearances, Beckett has 73 strikeouts in 65 2/3 innings with a 1.78 ERA. For comparisons’ sake, Schilling had 73 strikeouts in 72 1/3 innings for a 1.62 ERA in his first nine playoff appearances. His 10th was Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.
The numbers, the right-handedness and the big-time outings in the playoffs are not the only similarities between Schilling and Beckett. They both also seem to be royal pains in the ass.
Schilling’s track record in that regard is well documented as everyone in Philadelphia certainly remembers. He was, as ex-GM Ed Wade pointed out, the horse on the day he pitched and the horse’s ass the other days of the week. That’s easily Wade’s best line ever.
But as far as Beckett goes, his horse’s assiness is starting to gain more momentum. Phillies’ fans might remember the incident from the pre-season exhibition game at Citizens Bank Park in 2006 when Beckett trash-talked at Ryan Howard so much and for so long that the Phillies’ gentle giant finally had enough, tossed his glove aside and called Beckett out.
Conveniently enough, Beckett safely had a dugout full of teammates and a railing between him and Howard lest he be turned into the slugger’s personal hand puppet. Which may have been the case during Game 5 of the ALCS when Beckett repeated the potty-mouth act with ex-Phillie Kenny Lofton, who after flying out took a special detour back to the dugout via the pitchers’ mound where he acted as if he had the intention of slapping Beckett.
Again, Beckett was safely nestled in a cocoon of teammates so Lofton couldn’t get close enough to take a whack.
Note:Apropos of nothing, here’s something funny about Lofton: he has a rep as a bit of prima donna in his relations with the press as well as a clubhouse lawyer, but for some reason I always found myself rooting for Lofton to clean house when he was in a few minor fracases over the past few years. That’s interesting to me.
It keeps going with Beckett, too. Coincidentally, or at least so they say, the Indians hired Beckett’s ex-girlfriend to sing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning stretch while the pitcher waited on the mound for her to finish. Needless to say, Beckett was asked about the “coincidence” during the post-game press conference, and, well, let’s just say he gave a pretty honest answer.
Take a look:
Warning: the video contains a popular vulgarity and Josh Beckett. Do not play the video in front of children or anywhere else where it would be deemed inappropriate. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw8zHUjwvCo]
See. He didn’t have to do that, though it’s definitely more interesting that he did. Speaking of spicing up a post-game press conference and Boston-area pro sports, a Dallas radio station sent a dude to ask questions of the Patriots’ Bill Belichek and Tom Brady speaking in the rat-a-tat-tat cadence of the old newsreel reporter. The incident made quite a splash because writers working on a deadline have no sense of humor about what questions are asked and when and what the responses are/aren’t.
This is understandable, but then again, anything that makes humorless scribes whine and complain even more than the typical once every three seconds is hilarious to me.
Here it is:
Warning: the video contains Bill Belichek [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZTGJKnwIu8]
Truth be told, however, I have to say I'm a little peeved at the old timey newsreel dude from Dallas. Actually, "peeved" is the wrong wrong. "Jealous" is more like it. You see, Matt Yallof and I came up with the idea first. In fact, I double-dared him to burst into the coat closet-sized visiting manager's office at Shea Stadium and pepper then manager Larry Bowa with questions about "the local nine."
Then I set the over/under for when he would get punched in the face by another media member or Bowa at 90 seconds.
Nevertheless, Matt and I thought the gag was so funny that we spent the entire drive back to Philadelphia from Shea speaking only in the old-time radio announcer's voice. I'll admit that it was a hoot for the first hour of the drive home, but then I began to feel sorry for our driver/photographer, Chris Smith... the things he had to tolerate.
But that doesn't mean we ever broke character. Plus, I think there was a point where Matt turned his rendition into a bit for a TV story. He had a fedora, an old Smith-Corona and a clipped, rapid-fire monotone. Needless to say, all of this together spelled TV gold.
Blast from the past I was reading through some of these old posts the other day and came across this from Dec. 13, 2006 regarding a special clause in Adam Eaton’s newly signed three-year contract.
It reads:
Upon signing, Eaton received a certified doctor’s note from the best psychiatrist in Philadelphia addressed to the commissioner’s office, informing them that he must wear an iPod while pitching to drown out the inevitable boos that come with playing in Philadelphia. This, the doctor argued, will keep Eaton’s fragile psyche in check, allowing the city’s residents to sleep in peace without worrying about another “ugly incident.”
No, it this wasn’t written by Nostradamus, but maybe it should have been.
There was time up there in the hinterlands of Happy Valley when a certain football coach could carry on his business in town with impunity. If there was a professor or another local pinheaded intellectual rolling through stops signs, then by golly, it was up to the football coach to restore order by making the necessary traffic stop.
Anarchy might be a concept that the intellectuals like to discuss and stroke their pointed beards over, but here in the real world anarchy doesn't get you to a Bowl Game, Poindexter!
After all, whose name is it on the library where they stash all those books the professors love to read and write? It ain't no philosopher... yeah, that's right; it's the football coach, smarty pants.
Better yet, it used to be that the football coach ran that little college town in the same way that Porky used to in that eponymously titled film. Ol' Porky even had the local law enforcement signed up for duty. In fact, when making the rounds about town the sheriff and his boys would occasionally come across a few of Porky's men who may or may not have had a little too much moonshine and were causing a "disturbance" or something like that.
But rather than take the miscreant to the lockup and run him through all that fingerprinting and photographing rigamarole, the local law would just take the deviant over to Porky's house to let him deal with it.
Hey, no sense getting worked up over boys just being boys.
Once upon a time the "Porky's Model" was how it was done up there in Happy Valley. Say a footballer had one too many after practice (or study hall) and decided to fire a crossbow into the dorms or, say, he may have teetered over the edge into felony rape and sexual-assault charges ... well, the State College PD and the campus cops could have just turned it over to Coach. No sense getting worked up over it.
Let the boss handle it. That's what he's here for.
But there's a big problem nowadays. It seems as if the times have changed up at State. It also seems as if those pinheads in academia and those degenerates in the media have finally started to take that whole "accountability" and "discipline" malarkey to heart. But this time it just doesn't apply to tailgating and rooting for Ol' State to win the big game and letting the boys be boys. Nope, instead they want to know things. Like, for instance, why the football coach won't tell the taxpayers in the Commonwealth how much his public-subsidized paycheck is for.
How gauche!
Then they want to know just who does the coach think he is when he "gently chided" a woman driver who may or may not have rolled through a stop sign. I mean come on, Coach... you know how those gals are behind the wheel. She was probably putting on her makeup and didn't see the sign. No wonder her husband was shouting, too. Cut him some slack, Coach - he has to live with her!
But oddly enough, those vultures want to know why the coach has not discussed the running back who will stand trial for felony rape and sexual-assault charges when the star player allegedly attempted to have sex with a woman sleeping in his apartment. "What makes this assault different ... is that she was punched in the kidney in order to gain compliance," assistant district attorney Lance Marshall said outside the courthouse. "This case is more unusual than our typical sex assault case" on campus.
Yes, and you want to know what else makes it different? In the first five games of this season, the running back rushed for 302 yards and six touchdowns.
It's a good thing that it's a star football player from Penn State that stands accused and not a lacrosse player from Duke. Otherwise, the school might cancel the rest of the season and suspend the program.
But something like that would never happen at Penn State, would it? Not with Mr. Clean/Joe Paterno running the show. After all, when asked about the charges levied on his running back, the football coach, understandably, got angry...
At the guy asking the question.
Here's an excerpt from last Wednesday's media teleconference:
Question: Bonnie Bernstein reported on ABC's telecast that you told her Austin Scott was off the team. He's no longer on the depth chart. What's his status?
Coach: You want to talk about anybody that we're playing? I'm not going to talk about it. Austin Scott's got to work some things out.
Yeah, like trying to stay out of jail, right?
Meanwhile, when asked if four of his players who were reportedly involved in an on-campus fight the night after the Iowa game would see action this weekend, The Coach said: "It depends how well they practice."
Come on... it was just a fight. It wasn't like they raped anyone.
Sheesh!
Now here's the thing that gets me: when I was a kid growing up in the so-called "Penn State Country,"[1] I read the football coach's biography. Actually, I didn't get the whole way through it, because after a while it was all about Penn State and football - two topics that generally bore me to tears. But I have to admit that I was enchanted by the coach's description of his grammar school and high school days in Brooklyn and how one specific Jesuit Brother used to make him stay late after to school for special assignments in Latin and literature. In fact, it may have been the most interesting section in any jock lit book I have ever read.
I wonder what that old Latin and literature student would think of the tired, old ball Coach who hasn't quite learned that things aren't the way they used to be.
[1] And rooting like hell against them. Rooting for Penn State, to me, is like rooting for Goliath. The same goes for Notre Dame, the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox and Duke's basketball team. American ideals are better served when those teams lose.
Just last night I was reading about the Yankees’ executives meetings in Tampa. It all seemed so odd – the execs were holed up in one of the Steinbrenner family compounds, only surfacing to tip the Domino’s man (I figure the Yankees would eat Domino’s… that just seems to fit) and perhaps even to breathe unrecycled air before diving back underground.
Meanwhile, outside the self-important NYC media gathered to delve so deeply into the most important story involving The Empire, watching from just off the Steinbrenner property line as if they were witnessing the election of a pope.
If the White House press corps worked half as hard as the Yankees beat writers, who knows how the world situation might be right now. But I know one thing for certain – President Gore would have his hands for with those Yankees scribes, that’s for sure.
But in going through the frantic and breathless dispatches from Tampa as if it were Ed Murrow describing the “orchestrated hell” of the English Lancasters’ raid on Berlin in December of 1943, I thought to myself, “Geez, what an awful thing to do to yourself.”
And I wasn’t just thinking about the NYC media staked out in Tampa. Nope, those jackals can take care of themselves. Instead, I was thinking about Joe Torre.
What did Joe Torre do to be treated this way? Was winning all of those baseball games and going to the playoffs all of those years really so bad?
Answer: Yes.
After 12 seasons with the Yankees in which every single one of them ended in the playoffs, including four World Series victories and six American League pennants, Torre was being dangled for the sharks by the team’s brass as if he were chum at the bottom of a metal bucket. Apparently that’s what 12 straight playoff appearances and a 1,173-767 regular-season record gets a guy like Torre.
Guys with half the accomplishments but 10 times the ego get to strut around like models on the runway. Only instead of thin and stylish women, we get to watch tired, frumpy and pasty middle-aged white guys bluster on using words like “tradition” and “history.”
What, they just can’t say, “Thank you… ” and leave Torre the hell alone?
Obviously not. Instead, Steinbrenner and his minions held meetings about having meetings that were followed up with the meetings in Tampa. All the while Torre was left to twist in the wind.
That is until today. Finally, Torre did the admirable thing and told the Yanks to take their managerial job and the 12 consecutive playoff appearances – a run that neither Miller Huggins, Joe McCarthy nor Casey Stengel could touch – and stick it.
Oh, the Yankees wanted Torre back for 2008. At least that’s what they will say of the one-year, $5 million deal Torre was offered. To “motivate” Torre, team president Randy Levine explained that the one-year deal was loaded with incentives contingent upon a World Series appearance.
“We thought that we need to go to a performance-based model, having nothing to do with Joe Torre's character, integrity or ability,” Levine. “We just think it's important to motivate people.”
Yes, because a grown man who was paid $2.5 million more than the offer in 2007 who has been in the Major Leagues since turning 19 in 1960 needs motivation. Yes, thank Randy Levine for being the one to make that slacker Joe Torre to see things the proper way. Heck, if Torre would have done things Levine’s way they would have won the World Series twice in 1998.
Geez…
Obviously, the Yankees made Torre and offer he had to refuse. Clearly they want to go in another direction, which is the team’s prerogative. After all, Don Mattingly, Joe Girardi, Tony La Russa and Bobby Valentine are circling like buzzards to pick at Torre’s carcass. But Torre’s departure likely means the official end of the Yankees’ more –than-a-decade long run at the top of baseball. Alex Rodriguez, the likely MVP of the American League, will probably opt out of his contract with Torre gone. It’s also likely that others will follow A-Rod out the door, like top closer Mariano Rivera, catcher Jorge Posada and lefty starting pitcher Andy Pettitte.
But Scott Boras, the agent for Rodriguez says Torre had to turn down the deal lest the remaining players think of him as “weak.”
“It is difficult, near impossible, to accept a salary cut,” Boras told the Associated Press. “Successful people can afford their principles. They understand if they accept the position, there is a great risk the message to all under him is dissatisfaction.”
Then there is that whole fired-for-winning chestnut. It’s doubtful that DreamWorks Studios could have conjured up the special affects to make Torre’s situation even halfway believable. Better yet, maybe Spielberg and the gang can figure out a scenario in which Larry Bowa takes over as manager of the Yankees.
Please, please, please, please, please...
OK, here’s the deal. I’m moving all my running stuff from the other site to here. It might be a pain in the rear for people who just want to read about the running stuff and not the extraneous crap about baseball and whatever else it is that I prattle on about, but tough. That’s just the way it’s going to be.
Besides, the subtitle at the top of this page specific highlights “endurance sports.” To me, that means my marathoning is fair game.
Be that as it may, the truth is that I had not updated that site in a little while. Truth be told, I’m kind of bummed about that. Not because I enjoy the navel-gazing (I suppose I do), but because I haven’t had much to report. You see, my wife and I (actually, she did most of the work… I just grabbed a leg and tried to stay north of the equator) had another baby boy less than two months ago. Combine the birth with the fact that things have been a little busy at work with the Phillies going to the playoffs for the first time in 14 years and it’s easy to understand how a daily running regime of 15-miles a day can slip by the wayside a bit.
Hey, it happens. Besides, from what I’ve been able to decipher, most people don’t run 15 miles a day, anyway… what the hell?
As a result, I felt that there wasn’t much to report. After all, between the end of September and the first week of October I think I went out to run just five times. Worse, I was actually in my favorite running spot on the earth and all I did was drink coffee, walk around town and buy a goofy hat.
But I’m not done yet. Oh, I might be a little slower and short-winded, but in an urban setting, I’m still tough to catch. In fact, last week, after about five days of inactivity, I decided that I would run for an hour a day until I got my legs and lungs back. My guess is that I’m covering approximately 9 to 10 miles a day, but that’s not the important part. The consistency is what I’m after. Since I signed up for the Harrisburg Marathon before things got crazy, I figure that I will extend my hour a day up to 90 minutes daily the week before the Nov. 11 race. That way I can finished the thing with the ability to walk to my car afterwards.
In other words, Harrisburg will be one of those days where I’m simply adding to my collection. Perhaps the Northern Central Trail Marathon, two days after Thanksgiving, will be another “collection” run.Long-term I’m thinking about the National Marathon at the end of March and/or the Boston Marathon in mid April. I’m not sure which yet, though I’m leaning towards Boston just because I think I’ll need all the time I can get to lose the “baby weight” I added over the past two months.
All I want is something in the 2:30s and then I’ll go off to be an ultra-marathoner without complaining like a good boy… just one more time — that’s all I want.
As it stands the current plan is going OK. I’ve done seven straight days of at least an hour of continuous running over rolling terrain. One of those days was a 10-miler in 66:47 on grass, which was cool. The thing is, though, is that I don’t remember it being this difficult. It wasn’t always this hard, was it? Maybe the unseasonably warm weather has something to do with my tight calves and slow(er) runs… yeah, that’s it. It’s been hot. That’s the ticket.
Anyway, for all the numbers people, here’s my last week before the baby arrived:
Week of August 20-26
Monday, August 20 10 miles in 67:12 Another cool day. I went out early so that I could go to a baby appointment… it looks like the big day is coming on Friday.
Anyway, I was slow to warm up again, but once I got going I didn’t want to stop. However, based on my last three days and my hip, I’m going to go light today. I’ll go extra hard on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
splits:
1st 5: 33:41
2nd 5: 33:31
Tuesday, August 21 20 miles in 2:14:45 Had some tightness in my left hip and quad, especially in the middle of the run and on downhills. However, I still wanted to do some LT over the last 4 to 5 miles and I was able to do it for a little bit for as long as my hip would hold up. I think if I was pressed that I could have done the last 10 in 60 to 62.
We’ll see how things go for the rest of the week. The idea is to crank out some miles on Wednesday and Thursday if the baby is expected to show up on Friday.
Wednesday, August 22 18 miles in 2:01:07 I actually felt good for a change. Oh sure, I still had some hip tightness and everything that goes with it, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it has been over the past week. It was fun feeling strong and essentially painless for a change.
Interestingly, I don’t think I have ever done a pair of 2-hour runs in consecutive days… I’ll have to check, but I doubt it. I also have done three 2-hour runs in my last four times out. Perhaps the inevitability of ultrarunning is lurking a little closer?
However, I’m not out of the woods yet. Plus, I still felt the slow down as I progressed. But, I went through the first five miles in 33:37 and it took very little effort.
Thursday, August 23 18 miles in 2:04:40 I was sloooooow from the beginning, but it was OK for a change. In fact, this run had a bunch of different things in it: I went slow, hit some hills, tried to keep a solid pace on the flats and then bonked over the last four miles.That was fun.
Either way, I didn’t expect anything amazing or blazing from this one considering it was the third 2-hour run in a row and fourth in the last five days. I think I earned an easy day.
Friday, August 24 Zilch We got to the hospital yesterday at 6 p.m. and haven’t left. I got a chance to get out and go home to restock some supplies, but I miscalculated on a chance to squeeze in a quick 5- to 10-miler.
Regardless, it was so hot and humid that they (you know how “they” are) issued a heat warning of some sort. Running in the middle of something like that was only for masochists and me.
Saturday, August 25 Nada Theodore John Finger was born at 2:41 a.m. today. We call him Teddy for short. Ted for shorter. As a result, I didn’t get out to run though I did have a chance until a nasty rainstorm ripped through the area at 8 p.m. Apparently, it knocked some of the power out, though I didn’t notice. After all, I have two kids, a wife and a mortgage – you think I have time to pay attention to the weather report?
Sunday, August 26 10 kilometers in 41:06 Wow! Man did it ever feel good to get out and run! It was nasty, hot and humid, but I definitely felt as though I could have put in some miles. If there was enough time I would have… still, it was really fun to get out.
Upon further review, I went 60, 80, 60 in the ensuing weeks. I even did a 90-minute run in Washington, D.C. in September in the middle of some stinking heat, but I don’t feel as though there was any consistency. Hopefully, from here on out we’ll stay solid.
*** Also, thanks to Marcus Grimm and Mike Salkowski for the good wishes and encouragement. Marcus is on his way to a Boston-qualifier in November, which you can read about here. And Mike is an old dude like me who got caught in the heat wave that wrecked a bunch of marathons last week. Because of that, Mike’s sub-2:30 was placed on hold until the next cycle.
Plus, Mike has the best training site out there. Check it out here.
In perusing the Internets this afternoon, there were a handful of interesting things out there that were worth passing along.
For instance:
According to a story on Fox Sports’ web site by Tracy Ringolsby, Charlie Manuel stuck with lefty J.C. Romero with two outs in the eighth inning in Game 3 of the NLDS against right-handed pinch-hitter Jeff Baker instead of going to righty closer Brett Myers because, Myers wasn’t ready to go into the game.
As some might recall, Baker got the game-winning hit to eliminate the Phillies and Manuel was questioned after the loss in Game 3 of the NLDS why he stuck with the lefty Romero against the right-handed Baker.
Ringolsby writes:
Charlie Manuel is definitely old-school. He handled second-guessing about not bringing right-hander Brett Myers into Game 3 of the NL Division Series to face right-handed pinch-hitter Jeff Baker, who delivered the series-winning hit off lefty J.C. Romero, accepting the barbs. Word, however, is that the Phillies did call down to the bullpen to check on Myers and were told he wasn't ready to enter the game so Manuel actually had no choice.
Meanwhile, Oscar Pereiro, the runner-up in the 2006 Tour de France to Floyd Landis was awarded the yellow jersey to symbolize his “victory” in the race. Rather than give Pereiro the jersey at the Champs-Élysées with all the pomp that goes with such a “victory,” the UCI and Tour de France brass held the ceremony in an office building in Madrid.
Way to go all out for your guy, UCI.
Nevertheless, the interesting part is how long will Pereiro be acknowledged as the “winner.” After all, a final decision in the appeal process for Floyd Landis’ case is not expected until February from the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport. If Landis wins the case, what happens to Pereiro’s yellow jersey then?
Interestingly, Pereiro – who clearly is milking his one and only chance to be celebrated as a champion after he choked on an eight-minute lead in the ’06 Tour was barely a blip on the standings board in ’07 – is full of bluster regarding his “victory.”
“It's good for sport to have mechanisms that can filter out those who cheat,” Pereiro said during the ceremony.
But what about Landis' appeal?
“I now realize the Tour organisers had to wait for a resolution and I was wrong about them even though Landis has appealed again against the decision," Pereiro said during the ceremony.
“This is a very important day for me and I’m not going to ruin it by thinking about any appeal.”
So he would do anything to win?
Still, are those mechanisms closing in on Pereiro?
During the 2006 Tour de France, Pereiro failed a doping test when traces of the anti-asthma drug salbutamol are found in a urine sample. The UCI cleared Pereiro of doping after claiming he had a medical clearance to use the drug. However, there is speculation that Pereiro is associated with the infamous “Operation Puerto,” which based on the Tour de France’s practices during the ’07 race, is enough to suspend the Spanish rider.
That’s especially the case when one considers that Pereiro was adamant about not subjecting himself to DNA testing to clear himself in Operation Puerto:
“It's unfair that cyclists have to prove our innocence. I am ready to do anything, but if I have to use DNA to demonstrate my innocence, I will leave cycling, because it's obvious that cycling like that isn't worth it.”
Apparently, that’s not the case for Floyd Landis. Instead he believes it is worth it to subject his name and reputation to incredible scrutiny by putting himself through the flawed “mechanisms.”