The Big Story – A look ahead to 2025: It’s our annual set of predictions for sports, 2025 edition.
Sports 101: With the newest members to be announced this week, name the youngest person elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Predictions – What I think will happen:
Ryan Day and his OC/local friend Chip Kelly win their first national championship when Ohio State beats Boise State 28-23 in the CFP title game
Juan Soto struggles to live up to his astronomical paycheck in Year 1 with the Mets with a not bad, but not worth $50 million 28-homer, 91-RBI, .273 BA season.
The Sox are able to find a trade partner/ sucker to take Masataka Yoshida off their hands to let them move Raffy Devers to DH.
In a Super Bowl for the ages the Josh Allen-led Buffalo Bills outlast the Detroit Lions to win the Super Bowl 45-42 in OT.
After his spectacular Cy Young season Chris Sales’ return to health lasts as long as Bill Walton’s famed one-season injury sabbatical did with the Celtics in the ’80s and it’s sadly back on the DL for CS.
Led by uber cheerleaders Brian Scalabrine and sideline reporter Abby Chin, local green teamer homer-ism flashes large when Jayson Tatum is not named the MVP, because Cleveland has the league’s best record behind actual Award winner Donovan Mitchell.
The surprise of the NBA playoffs are the Orlando Magic, whose outstanding, ultra-physical defensive game takes them all the way to a nail-biting final-minute seventh-game loss to the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals.
The youth influx begins as the Red Sox’ ballyhooed Top 3 prospects, Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer and Kristian Campbell, make their Fenway debuts with Campbell becoming the regular second baseman by year’s end.
After winning 105 in the regular season the Dodgers win the World Series by beating the retooled Yanks again.
North Carolina jumps out to a 4-0 start before losing to Clemson and after being coached up by Coach B eventually finishes 9-3 to grab a spot in the much-coveted Scooters Coffee Fresco Bowl.
Wishes – What I hope will happen:
Sox sign Alex Bregman to be their new third baseman to juice/save their advance ticket sales efforts.
After the Sox are unable to trade him in the off-season Triston Casas goes for 30-plus homers and 90 RBI to show how dumb it would’ve been to give up on him because of his injury-plagued 2024 season.
Brayan Bello continues his upward trajectory to lead the Red Sox with 16 wins.
After another terrible draft besides Drake Maye, owner Bob Kraft finally comes to his senses to realize it wasn’t just Bill Belichick behind all those bad drafts since 2014. So he cleans house and hires a real GM to start replenishing their barren roster.
BK also sees how foolish it was to hire a guy who wasn’t ready to be a head coach and lets the new GM hire a new, offensive-minded head coach.
After their Super Bowl loss Lions OC Ben Johnson heads to Foxboro to become HC of the Patriots.
Thanks to the presence of Maye, the newly hired Johnson and a boatload of cash, the Patriots finally land a top-tier wideout by signing Bengals star Tee Higgins in free agency.
In the most talked about move on draft night, with major input from minority owner Tom Brady the Raiders trade up to get the second overall pick from TB’s old team to let Deion’s kid Shedeur Sanders bring his Rolls Royce to Vegas to be their QB of the future.
Meanwhile for dropping down the Pats also get the Raiders’ second pick this year and their first- and second-rounders in 2025. Which gives them a first, two seconds and two thirds in this draft. Then they take the best OL available when LSU left tackle Will Campbell slides to them at 6.
Peyton Pritchard becomes the second off-the-bench player in NBA history to be named Finals MVP.
After his initial interest, Celtics Nation is relieved Elon Musk realizes he’s too busy messing with the country to buy the C’s. Instead the new owner is a crypto king billionaire no one ever heard of. Phew! I think.
Predictions – What I’m sure will happen:
The Red Sox trade Merrimack’s Mickey Gasper to Minnesota for a pitcher I’ve never heard of.
Sports 101 Answer: After retiring at 30 due to chronic elbow pain, in 1972 Sandy Koufax became the youngest elected to Cooperstown.
A Little History – 1973: The new year was rocked when Curt Gowdy announced during the Rose Bowl broadcast that while on a mission of mercy to earthquake-devastated Nicaragua Roberto Clemente died when his overloaded-with-supplies plane crashed on takeoff in Puerto Rico. That summer he became the second youngest person to enter the Hall.
Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.