OK, he’s having a lousy year. But last night Bronson Arroyo pitched a six-hit, complete-game shutout. Why can’t the Red Sox get pitchers like that?
Category: Sports
Is Clay Buchholz’s career in jeopardy?
Mike Silverman has a very worrying report in today’s Boston Herald about Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz. Yes, we already knew that Buchholz was done for the 2011 season, barring a medical miracle. We also all knew that Buchholz had a stress fracture in his back.
But now Silverman reports that Buchholz last week was diagnosed with “a new stress fracture (in addition to pre-existing ones),” and that the Red Sox knew before the All-Star break that he “had multiple, small stress fractures.”
That doesn’t sound like an injury Buchholz can reasonably expected to come back from without it happening again. Some players — especially pitchers — just don’t have major-league bodies. Buchholz could be one of them. It would be a shame, given his promise and ability.
We should know more later today, according to the Boston Globe’s Julian Benbow.
Remembering George Kimball
I’m in California on a working vacation this week. But I want to break blog silence to pay tribute to the great George Kimball, a sports columnist for the Boston Phoenix and the Boston Herald who died on Wednesday at the age of 67.
I remember reading Kimball in the Phoenix when I was in high school. Kimball would sit in the bleachers at Fenway Park and write about the Red Sox from a fan’s perspective. His column was called “The Sporting Eye,” after his glass eye, which, as legend would have it, he would pop out in order to entertain and intimidate as the spirit moved him.
Eventually Kimball left for the Herald. I didn’t read him all that much after that because his beat was boxing, which interested me some when Muhammad Ali was fighting and not at all otherwise. But I do have one measly Kimball anecdote that no one else has.
At the beginning of the 1986 Woburn toxic-waste trial in U.S. District Court (the case immortalized in Jonathan Harr’s book “A Civil Action”), Judge Walter Jay Skinner ruled that the media could cover jury selection on the condition that they not report on what had happened until the jury was seated. The Boston Globe and the Herald refused to go along and boycotted the proceedings. I was covering the trial for the Daily Times Chronicle of Woburn, and saw no reason not to sit in. I got a pretty good story out of it, too.
Among the prospective jurors brought in for questioning was Kimball. He was polite and obviously very intelligent. He told the judge that the case would pose a significant hardship for him, since he had to travel to cover boxing for the Herald. (Indeed, the trial lasted five months.) I don’t think Kimball ever expected to be seated, but after he left the room, the judge and the lawyers expressed considerable interest. “Your Honor, he’s a great boxing columnist,” Neil Jacobs of Hale and Dorr, part of the legal team for the defendant Beatrice Foods, told Skinner. (Obviously that quote may be off by a word or two.)
There was quite a bit of discussion regarding the pros and cons of choosing Kimball. In the end, Skinner decided that the trial would, in fact, pose an unfair burden to him, and he was dismissed. But it was a close call. A year later I ran into Kimball at a New England Press Association function and told him about what had happened after he left the judge’s chambers. I don’t remember what he said, except that he appeared to be amused by the story, and glad he’d dodged the draft.
If you want to know more about Kimball (and I’ve told you very little), you must read this appreciation by Michael Gee, who followed Kimball as the Phoenix sports columnist and later joined him at the Herald. This Phoenix blog post by Sean Kerrigan hits the highlights of Kimball’s pre-Herald career. And the Phoenix has posted a classic Kimball story from 1976 on a boxing match between Ali and Ken Norton.
Finally, here’s a great story from the Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World on Kimball’s early days as “one-eyed radical who once campaigned as a ‘two-fisted’ candidate for Douglas County sheriff.” I had no idea.
How’s that trade working out? (XVII)
Why can’t we get players like this?
Dan Shaughnessy by the numbers
Why does Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy keep saying (here and here) that the Celtics were 41-14 before the Kendrick Perkins trade? After all, they were 33-10 without him. No, I didn’t like the Perkins trade, either. But how the Celtics played while Perkins was rehabbing from knee surgery isn’t exactly relevant if the point you’re trying to make is that everything went to hell once he was traded. (Note: Italic section added for clarity.)
Some semi-contrary thoughts about the Red Sox
In case you’re wondering why I’m not ripping Scott Brown for his unconscionable stand on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — no equality for gays and lesbians until the millionaires have their tax cut — well, I’ve been doing it on Twitter. What I’ve got to say about him can definitely be accomplished in 140-character bursts.
Which brings me to this unbelievable week for the Red Sox. The Adrian Gonzalez trade and the Carl Crawford signing are Manny-Schilling-Beckett-level moves, and it looks like the Sox are in a great position to move past the Yankees once again. So may I express a few contrary thoughts? OK, thank you. I will.
- Adrian Beltre and Victor Martinez had stellar seasons in 2010. Gonzalez and Crawford will be better, but how much better?
- Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz more or less have to repeat what they did last year, and either Josh Beckett or John Lackey have to return to form. Can it happen? Sure. But it’s by no means certain.
- Everyone acts as though Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia will pick up right where they left off before they got hurt. It’s not that easy. They both had surgery, and Youkilis’ injury, in particular, sounds exotic and worrisome.
I’m not even mentioning Jacoby Ellsbury (he’ll be fine, and if he isn’t, Mike Cameron and Ryan Kalish can take over), Jonathan Papelbon (he’ll probably have a monster year) and our tendency to overrate local talent (Nick Cafardo would have you believe that the post-surgery Pedroia will be better than Robinson Cano).
Finally, is the money race between the Red Sox and the Yankees bad for baseball? You bet. I would love to see strict revenue-sharing. It’s lousy that teams like the Royals and the Pirates never have a chance, and that the Padres and the Rays have to give up their best talent.
I’m glad John Henry and company have decided to compete under the system as it is, but things really need to change.
Photo (cc) by Bullion Vault and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.
How’s that trade working out? (XVI)
The Cincinnati Reds have signed Bronson Arroyo to a two-year extension. He’ll make $35 million over the next three years after a 2010 season in which he went 17-10 with a 3.88 ERA.
There have been no recent Wily Mo Peña sightings.
Just having some fun, Mike. Today should be a great day for the Red Sox.
The crisis that threatens to marginalize football
Former NFL player Nate Jackson’s commentary in today’s New York Times underscores the crisis that football faces over concussions and their lasting effects. The league’s crackdown on unnecessary roughness will accomplish almost nothing, Jackson argues. And needless to say, it is worthless with respect to college, high-school and youth football.
It may seem unimaginable today, but I honestly believe we may be at the beginning stages of a national shift that could relegate football to the margins, like boxing. With permanent after-effects, including dementia, a not-uncommon outcome, who would want their sons to risk such a fate if they fully understood the danger?
I’m not a football fan, but I don’t dislike it. I’ll watch a few games a year, depending on how the Patriots are doing. So don’t take this as an anti-football screed. I just think it’s become clear that the sport is too dangerous.
A couple of days ago, on MSNBC, I watched Gregg Easterbrook show Chuck Todd a super-high-tech new helmet that’s supposed to offer greater protection. But will that really help? Won’t players hit even harder?
Given all that, I wonder how the game might change if the NFL were to take a radical step like returning to 1940s-style gear — that is, leather helmets and minimal padding. As Jackson points out, it’s the helmets that allow players to turn their heads into a weapon. Combined with a common-sense weight limit of, say, 250 pounds, it might just make football safe enough to play.
Three must-reads from today’s Globe
I usually make the New York Times my first Sunday read, but there’s so much local news going on that I reached for the Boston Globe instead. I’m glad I did.
1. Was it Hunter Thompson who coined the phrase “to make a jackal puke”? Whoever it was, it definitely applies to Todd Wallack’s story on Massachusetts CEOs who reward themselves with ever-larger compensation packages even as their revenues dip and they lay off workers. Special bonus: the poster boy for this bad behavior is Sean Healey, husband of former lieutenant governor Kerry Healey, who paid himself $18 million in 2009 — a 73 percent increase over the previous year.
2. Red Sox beat reporter Amalie Benjamin has a terrific overview of the disappointing season that ends today. She correctly observes that Terry Francona should get Manager of the Year for his skillful handling of a team decimated by injuries and underperformers. Then again, Francona should get Manager of the Year every year. While you’re at it, give a listen to general manager Theo Epstein’s interview with the “Sports Hub” (98.5 FM) — so interesting I found myself driving around on Friday so I could catch the whole thing.
3. I have no intention of seeing “The Town,” but I have little doubt that columnist Kevin Cullen’s profile of Charlestown lawyer Charlie Clifford, defender of small-time bank robbers, is a hell of a lot more enlightening — not to mention entertaining.
Photo (cc) by Keith Allison via Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.
Kerry Healey will not pre-empt the Red Sox
The city’s daily papers strain for significance in reporting on the debut of two shows on NESN, home of the Red Sox and the Bruins. The programs are “Shining City,” to be hosted by former lieutenant governor Kerry Healey, and “After the Game,” co-produced by Linda Pizzuti Henry.
First up is Jessica Heslam of the Boston Herald, who reported on the new programs (sub. req.) on Aug. 13. Although Heslam’s account of Healey’s innovation-and-technology show and Henry’s sports-celebrity program was pretty straightforward, she also wrote:
“Shining City” rolls out as NESN, the flagship station for the Boston Red Sox, beefs up its lifestyle programming. The network has lost 36 percent of its viewers from last year as the injury-plagued Sox struggled this season.
Today the Globe’s Johnny Diaz goes one better than Heslam by not simply laying out the fact that Red Sox ratings are slipping, but also tying it all together with a neat bow. He writes:
The shows, called “After The Game” and “Shining City,” are an attempt by the station to reach new viewers who aren’t necessarily sports fans but who may watch entertainment and science-related shows, as the network’s bread-and-butter programming — baseball games — is declining.
I believe this is called the “if-then fallacy.”
Here is the fundamental problem: It’s not as though Healey and Henry are going to pre-empt Red Sox games, or even the pre-game and post-game shows. Healey’s program will cablecast on Fridays at 4:30 p.m., followed by something called “Pocket Money” at 5 and then “After the Game” at 5:30. There will be plenty of repetitions during the week as well, but NESN will continue to offer a one-hour pre-game show, and Tom Caron will keep right on yelling at you as soon as the game is over.
It’s not that Red Sox ratings aren’t down. They are. But that is irrelevant to the debut of two new programs in time slots that don’t crowd any Sox-related programming. The Sox are still one of the biggest televisions draws in New England, as Diaz himself notes: “Five Red Sox games last week ranked among the top 10 most-watched shows in Boston.”
So why try to tie the new shows to declining baseball ratings? Because the urge to come up with an interesting story line — a narrative — is irresistible. Even when there is none.