The Big Story – Spring Training: Baseball games are back as the spring training exhibition season is under way.
Sports 101: Name the two players who won the most World Series and how many they won.
News Item – Red Sox Update: Notables from spring training.
In his first appearance, major off-season acquisition Garrett Crochet got tagged for four hits in 3.1 innings. But he gave up no earned runs and struck out an impressive seven batters.
Overhyped prospect Marcelo Mayer lived up to it for one day anyway, by going 3-3 with a homer and a triple in a win over Minnesota.
Wilyer Abreu might be warming up to win the Wally Pipp Award because with him likely out for opening day that could open up right field for baseball’s top prospect Roman Anthony, who knocked in four runs with four hits in his first 13 at-bats.
InjuryUpdate: In addition to Abreu, it’s looking like starters Brayan Bello and Kutter Crawford will be on the DL when the season starts, bringing on a pitching crisis from Day 1.
That might be good for one-time Pirates top pitching prospect Quinn Priester, who they got in a swap of former first-round picks that sent Nick Yorke south last summer. Priester was a disappointment in Pittsburgh, but he’s got a live arm that gave up just one run in his first two starts.
News Item – Unsigned Free Agents: JD Martinez leads the list of the five biggest unsigned free agents as camps opened. The only one who might help Boston is former Yankees reliever Dave Robertson. He’s 40, but the ERA was 3.00 last year over 69 appearances. The others are starters Kyle Gibson and Jose Quintana along with Sox alum Jose Iglesias.
And according to Pete Abraham’s Baseball Notes column in Sunday’s Boston Globe JD and Iglesias are joined by fellow unemployed Sox alums Daniel Bard, Matt Barnes, Adam Duvall, Joe Kelly, Craig Kimbrel and unlikable Alex Verdugo.
The Numbers:
4 – under .500 teams — Orlando, Atlanta, Miami and Chicago — headed for the NBA’s Eastern Conference 7-10 play-in tournament.
5 – hits in Alex Bregman’s first 10 Red Sox at-bats.
268,000 – dollar amount solid citizen Jimmy Butler’s Miami landlord is suing him for in unpaid back rent and damages to his apartment.
Of the Week:
Thumbs Up – Team Owner Quote of the Week: From lifelong Long Island Mets fan and now owner Steve Cohen on why heblew through their planned payroll budget to sign Juan Soto and re-sign Pete Alonzo: “Because I want a winning team.” When’s the last time John Henry said something like that?
Thumbs Down – Mindy Kaling: The Dartmouth alum gets it for admitting/announcing on Jimmy Kimmel Live she’s switched from being a lifelong Celtics fan to a Lakers fan since moving to L.A.
Embarrassingly Clueless Comment of the Week – Brian Scalabrine: For the Cheerleader saying the current NBA has gone to a “new level of physicality” during Friday’s Celtics-Cavs game. Would somebody please show him videos from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s when guys routinely took people’s heads off on drives to the basket? Or what the Laimbeer-led Pistons did night in and night out to teams in the ’80s and ’90s. Scal’s the latest from a younger generation thinking life started with them.
Random Thought:
A headline (from ESPN.com) I thought I’d never see: Watson drops 30 on UCLA as USC Wins the BIG TEN.
Sports 101 Answer: Not hard to guess the team they came from, as Yankees Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra each won a record 10 World Series.
A Little Baseball History – Yogi Berra: Much is made (often by me) of the fact that Bill Russell played 13 years with the Celtics and won 11 NBA titles. But you don’t often hear that baseball’s greatest winner, Yogi, played for 17 years and missed the World Series only three times. Which would have bettered even Russell’s mark if the NBA didn’t have a multi-team playoff system, because title 11 came when the C’s finished fourth in the East in 1968-69. Otherwise it would have been 10 in 13.
Final Thought – Joe Mazzulla: Does anyone out there think it will ever occur to Joe he needs to find a way to get his team to stop blowing the gigantic leads they regularly blow? Which they once again did in Friday’s loss to Cleveland.That’s a coach’s job isn’t it?
Email Dave Long at [email protected].