Category: Sports

As the frustration throughout the local basketball community mounts, what ever are we to make of your Boston Celtics?

Many feel with two so called “All-Stars” they’re an under-achieving lot. But I’m not so sure they are. I’m more in the Bill Parcells camp that says you are what your record says you are. Which is a 24-24 team that plays with no passion and will be in a dogfight for the Eastern Conference play-in games for a second straight year.

While talk radio is definitely on their case, other media types are not. ABC broadcaster Doris Burke fawns over their “young stars” like she’s their den mother and likable play-by-play partner Mike Breen does the same. Earth to you two, Jaylen Brown is in Year 6 and for Jayson Tatum it’s 5, so they have no excuse to not have figured it out by now. Then there’s Boston Globe basketball writer Gary Washburn, who goes from writing “they don’t know how to win” columns one day, to, after a close win (that usually involved blowing or erasing a double-digit lead/deficit), an endless series of “they’ve turned the corner” pieces. The most ridiculous was calling a win over the 17-30 Pacers 10 days ago “the most important of the season.” That’s right; he said a horribly played (by both teams) lucky win over 13th-place Indiana was the most important win of the year! Which was followed by losses at home to Charlotte and a horrendous one-point loss to 19-26 Portland Friday night, who was playing the fifth of a six-game East Coast swing with their best player Damian Lillard a DNP, as the C’s somehow went the final 7 minutes and 15 seconds without scoring a field goal.

Meanwhile the Mr. Rogers of the NBA, GM Brad Stevens, fiddles while Rome burns by saving a few bucks to get under the luxury tax line by trading for two injured guys who are done for the season.

So the bottom line is the Celtics are a complete mess. And while I don’t take joy in saying this, it’s happening because they are being led by a first-year coach who’s over his head, a GM who was the franchise’s worst hire since Rick Pitino 20 years ago and owners who seem clueless now that they don’t have Danny Ainge around to give them their media talking points.

Then over in the cheap seats, everyone from Tony Maz to Charles Barkley is looking for remedies: dump Marcus Smart, get something for Dennis Schroder, move Al Horford and the big one, break up Tatum and Brown, etc. And with the trade deadline dead ahead the shouting has intensified with people making ridiculous knee-jerk suggestions that won’t do anything productive in the long run.

That’s because you can’t solve a problem until you identify what it is, and few have.

Here are my thoughts on the chatter.

Most Urgent Need: Bob Cousy just said it, Robert Parish just said it, Paul Pierce too and I’ve been saying it since they kept blowing big leads to Miami in the bubble during the 2020 playoffs.

They need a real point guard. There aren’t a lot of Rondo-like pg’s out there, but they need to find one. because they desperately need order in the half court that gets everyone involved.

Get Another All-Star: As I constantly hear this one I ask, how? After squandering a 10-deep bench and seven first-round picks over three years they don’t have the capital to swing a trade for a really good third guy. All made more infuriating by Ainge giving that final first-rounder, Desmond Bane, to Memphis for nothing, where he’s now averaging 18 points per as a starter for the surprising 32-16 Grizzlies.

Break Up Brown and Tatum: It’s hard to consider this when both have had 50-point nights this year. But building a basketball team is like making a cake, where all the ingredients need to be blended together in the bowl before it becomes a delicious cake. And the reality is Brown plays with blinders on like he’s in the gym by himself and doesn’t have a true basketball instinct in his body, while Tatum is not and never will be the leader they badly need.

So my gut says yes, break them up, but not before getting that point guard. Because we really won’t know if they do fit as the foundation for winning until they have a setup that gives each the ball where they can do something with it, over their usual freelancing that inhibits flow and rarely gets others involved or encourages movement without the ball.

How Do They Get Better? Assuming it’s a break-up, they should do what Bruins GM Harry Sinden did almost 50 years ago when he traded his best and most popular player, Phil Esposito, in a five-player swap with the Rangers that got the B’s the next three best players. Which really came down to trading one A+ level star to fill two big holes with A- level players.

For the C’s that would be a pg and a second scorer. A perfect one would have been Tatum to Cleveland for second overall pick, 7-footer Evan Mobley and pg Darius Garland to give them a reset with bigger, and faster emerging players while improving their depth. However, that ship has sailed with the Cavs now a rising team. But they need something like that.

At the end of the day a shake-up is needed. Which should include the coach (I vote Kevin Garnett). If they can find the right point guard now, do it. But the worst thing they can do is make a move to satisfy the yackers.

In the meantime, compete for the play-in round. But do it by giving PT to Grant Williams, Romeo Langford and Payton Pritchard to improve their trade value for the larger renovation this summer. Or, to see if they can become consistent contributors going forward.

So much for the 2021 Patriots season. A mostly enjoyable year, at least until it ended in disaster on Sunday with Buffalo’s 47-17 demolition of the Bill Belichick AC. It was the culmination of a disappointing final month that saw Mac Jones staggering down the stretch as they lost four of their last five to take some of the shine off their seven-game mid-season winning streak that sent expectations a little higher than they probably should have been.

So with the Pats on vacation, here are a few thoughts that have been piling up since they were flying high.

From the Time Flies department comes news of Jon Lester retiring. For those of us on hand it’s hard to believe it was 17 years ago that summer night in town when he blew away 15 F-Cats. Then it was on to a 16-year big-league career that included a scary bout with cancer, a no-hitter, winning the World Series twice with Boston and a third with the Cubs. And while the overall record of 200 wins and 117 loses for a .636 life winning percentage is terrific, it’s probably gonna fall short of the Hall of Fame. But those stats speak to his consistency, as does the remarkable fact he had identical .639 winning percentages pitching for both the Red Sox and Cubs. Well done, young man.

Richard Seymour gets my vote for the Pro Football Hall of Fame for being the bedrock of the best team in the 2000’s that won with defense. In the end it should have five famers at least: Ty Law, who’s in already, no-brainers Tom Brady, Adam V, and Randy Moss along with Seymour. Outside chances go to Willie McGinest and the incredibly productive Wes Welker.

How can anyone not love watching the Chiefs line up inside their five-yard line when they do wild things from wild formations? On Sunday vs. Pittsburgh, there was after Travis Kelce took the snap in the wildcat faking hand-offs, then his own plunge before straightening up to fire a bullet to Byron Pringle for a TD, and then how about that underhand TD toss to Jerick McKinnon from Pat Mahomes that looked like he was bowling? So much fun.

If you missed it, UCLA extended Chip Kelly’s contract through 2026. So next time you see him, Chip’s buying!

And bravo to the U for naming Chipper’s former QB (when he OC at the U) Ricky Santos to succeed the retiring Sean McDonnell.

After Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy mentioned last week that Belichick had tied his nemesis Don Shula at 20 seasons with at least 10 wins, a reader emailed to say since the NFL went to a 16-game schedule in 1978 Coach B had an unfair advantage over Shula because there were only 14 games in his first 15 seasons. Logical, I suppose. But since the Patriots had a 16-win season, four with 14, two 13’s and five 12’s I figured he didn’t need the extra games to reach “just” 10, so I checked. And it was Shula who actually needed the 16 games to reach 10 wins five times (1978, ’79, ’82, ’92, ’94) while for Coach B it’s four times (’05, ’09, ’18 and this year).

I know the Celtics will lose Dennis Schroder in the off-season because of salary cap rules, so if they somehow can get a first-round pick for him at the trade deadline so be it. But since the last second-round pick to make an impact of consequence for them was Big Baby Davis in 2008, dumping Schroder for a second-round pick doesn’t make any sense unless they’re throwing in the towel and want to give kids more playing time even if they haven’t earned it.

While offensive lineman pushing the pile forward after a back is surrounded has become popular in recent years, it seems to me it’s illegal. Because what the OL’s are doing is pushing the defenders in the back and a block from behind is a clip — no?

With Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown having already done it the other night vs. Indiana and Schoerder not far from scoring his 30th point, Celtics announcer Mike Gorman wondered if three teammates had ever scored 30 in the same game. Not having email to the table, I couldn’t let him know about the oddest, most forgotten case of three teammates doing that. It came on March 2, 1962, when guard Richie Guerin scored 39 points, future Celtic Willie Naulls had 33 and rookie Cleveland Buckner had 32 off the bench for the New York Knicks. And they still lost by 22 points, 169-147 to the Philadelphia Warriors because that was the day Wilt Chamberlain had his fabled 100-point game!

Liked Cooper Kupp’s anti-inflation answer when he was on the verge of breaking records for most catches and receiving yards that it won’t mean as much because he’d have done it in a 17-game season and the records broken came in 16 games.

The regular season is in the books and the NFL playoffs start Saturday. Here are some thoughts from looking back and ahead.

Guess we can put a hold on all those Coach of the Year votes for Frank Reich after Indy pulled the gag of the century by falling from odds-on favorite to host a playoff game to missing them altogether, with losses to the worst team in football (Jacksonville) in Week 18 and while resurrecting the presumed dead Raiders in Week 17.

Not that losing five straight to go from the top seed to out of the playoffs wouldn’t happen to most teams who lose their starting QB, or saying I wouldn’t want him. But when a team heavily relies on a running QB as the Ravens do with Lamar Jackson, isn’t what happened to him/them a sooner or later inevitable outcome?

What, Tom Brady can’t shoot his age? Throwing a second best in his career 43 TD passes at his advanced age is astonishing. But it would have been even cooler if he’d gotten one more to make it 44 at 44!
Even with a very sluggish final month Mac Jones had a better first regular season than Brady in 2001. And in being watched through the lens that comes from 20 years of expecting excellence around here, he did it with far greater scrutiny and pressure than Brady, who had none when he took over.

Antonio Brown saying the only reason Brady is his friend is that he’s a good football player doesn’t sound crazy to me.

Of course since AB backstabbed him with the phony vax card after Brady went out on a limb for him despite an avalanche of reasons not to, you can see how Brady might wipe his hands of this mess.

For what it’s worth, if I were putting a team together I’d absolutely take vax status into account in deciding who stays and who goes.

Both Patriots All-Pros from last year, Gunner Olszewski and Jake Bailey, had no impact to negative impact on them this season. The return game did zero, while Bailey was inconsistent on kickoffs, rarely pinned teams inside the 10, and his three blocks were the most since the 1970s.

Mac may have had the best year among the five quarterbacks taken in the 2021 draft. But Tua Tagovailoa wins Alabama Alumni bragging rights among their ex-QB’s by being 2-0 vs. his former back-up in 2021 after Sunday’s win in Miami. It also made his head coach Flores 4-2 head to head against Coach B.

My gut was wrong about feeling N’Keal Harry would turn it around to answer the critics. He didn’t.

Got it right, thought, that Carson Wentz would (sorta) wreck his second team. Indy did go 9-8, but he was basically MIA as they gagged away their season and even in the ballyhooed win over NE he threw for only 57 yards.

If it’s Most Outstanding Player I’ll go with Cooper Kupp for his dominating statistical season. But if it’s Most Valuable Player, it’s Aaron Rodgers because of a superb season at the indispensable position.

Coach of the Year: Coach B was in the running till Week 13 and anyone whose team hangs in to finish 9-8 after a 1-7 start, as Miami’s Brian Flores did, earns votes and makes his firing ridiculous. But, after losing Derrick Henry and using the most players in history thanks to injuries as Tennessee still has the AFC’s best record, it goes to Mike Vrabel.

Under–the–Radar Player of the Year: He’s been around for five years, but did anyone see Chargers all-purpose back Austin Ekeler scoring 20 TD’s? Not me.

Worst Coaching Move: Go for it on fourth down analytics maven/Chargers Coach Brandon Staley retires it, for doofus moves in two games that each cost his team making the playoffs. The first came in Week 16 when he failed to make it on fourth down three times inside the five when all he needed vs. KC was a FG to avoid OT, where they lost. Then on Sunday he failed on fourth and one from his own 18 to gift-wrap a FG that helped Vegas make it to OT, where they knocked L.A. out of the playoffs.

The last time someone did something that dumb was Dallas coach Barry Switzer failing on fourth down from his own 28 vs. the Giants in the 90’s leading to the NY Post headline Bozo The Coach!

Speaking of the G-Men, the best sign I saw last weekend was a guy wearing a Giants jersey and a grocery bag over his head holding a sign that said “fire everyone.”

Playoff predictions

Bucs (2) vs. Eagles (7): Can Brady win again for TB? He takes the next step this week. TB

Cowboys (3) vs. 49ers (6).: Jimmy G shows critics they’re wrong about him. SF

Rams (4) vs. Cardinals (5): I don’t trust either team in the clutch. Rams

KC (2) vs. Pitt (8): Karma only goes so far for Big Ben. KC

Buf (3) vs. NE (6): Losing three of their last four when the D couldn’t get the needed fourth-quarter stop in all three sapped all my Pats confidence. Bills

Cinn (4) vs. Oak (5): Trick-or-treat teams where both look great at times and not so much others. So I’ll close my eyes and pick. Bengals

Finally, what should stand out above all else about the late, great John Madden is not leaving coaching with the best winning percentage in history. It’s how he stood by Darryl Stingley after he was paralyzed in a preseason game vs. Oakland, including calling Patriots Coach Chuck Fairbanks to demand he not get on the plane home and get over to the hospital ASAP, because Stingley was 3,000 miles from home and alone, then making it a point to visit him as much as possible as he remained in Oakland. RIP, Big John.

Here are a few predictions for 2022, some real and others of the fantasy variety that would make sports in the year ahead a lot more fun.

January: While everyone in Patriot Nation is picking on N’Keal Harry, no one in Patriot Nation notices expensive import tight end Jonnu Smith finishes with more penalties (all senseless and/or ill-timed) and dropped balls than catches.

February: On the strength of a 1,500-yard, 15-TD season Cincy wideout Ja’Marr Chase edges Mac Jones for Offensive Rookie of the Year.

After TB12’s four-interception outing as the Bucs lose to eventual SB winner L.A. in the NFC title game, the Brady-vs.-Belichick chatter finally grinds to a halt.

After he’s named NFL Coach of the Year, Dolphins owner Steve Ross quietly burns the announcement he drafted to fire Brian Flores after his team started in a 1-7 hole before recovering to get into playoff contention in January.

After a chance meeting with Wyc Grousbeck while getting booster shots at Hooksett Walgreens, I convince the Celtics owner to fire Brad Stevens as GM and replace him with me. A day later the NBA announces a shocking four-team trade that lands Jayson Tatum and Ben Simmons in Cleveland, Caris LeVert, Malcolm Brogdon and Lauri Markkanen in Philly, point guard Darius Garland, rookie (second overall pick) center-forward Evan Mobley, PF Domantas Sabonis and the aging and overpaid but still effective Kevin Love in Boston, as the blowing it up Pacers get four first-round picks, Grant Williams, Aaron Nesmith and the expiring contracts of Al Horford.

March: As the new NFL season begins, the Pats finally release N’Keal and put the franchise tag on free agent DB JC Jackson. An “I told you so column” follows, because I said last March they should lock him up less expensively then.

Brady says he’ll retire after 2022 as Yoko holds him to pledge to not play past 45. Joining Brady in the geezer home after 2022 is Dont’a Hightower, who hangs them up after trying to win SB No. 4 in his 11th season.

April: The baseball lockout rages on to blow out opening day. In a shocking draft stunner Bill Belichick trades out of the first round to select a safety in Round 2 of the NFL draft. After doing it in previous years to take the likes of Ras–I Dowling, Duke Dawson, Tavon Willis and other bust-o-ramas, this one actually makes sense with Devin McCourty nearing retirement.

If my fantasy prediction doesn’t come true, the Celtics lose their play-in game to the Knicks, ensuring fan outrage throughout the summer.

May: Baseball owners and players show they aren’t (quite) as dumb as they seem, settling their financial differences in the shadows during a worldwide pandemic.

June: Red Sox reject Hunter Renfroe is five games ahead of Mark McGwire’s pace the year he broke Roger Maris’ homer record.

At 4-5 and ERA in the low fours, Chris Sale has Red Sox Nation thinking the days of domination are gone with $60 large left on the contract.

July: Yours truly is named NBA Executive of the Year for pulling off the best local trade since Theo traded Nomar for Orlando Cabrera, Dave Roberts and good-fielding first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz.

His annual injuries mounting and his trending toward being the next Dwight Howard, Lakers GM/PF LeBron James trades Anthony Davis to Sacramento for the same number of draft picks he gave New Orleans to bring him to L.A.

August: The streaky Renfroe has gone two months without a homer, leaving him 60 games behind McGwire’s pace but still 35 bombs ahead of trade mate Jackie Bradley Jr.

September: Stat geeks continue the embarrassment by insisting to go for it on fourth down every time despite its costing the Chargers a 2021 playoff berth and nearly Cincy as well on Sunday if they hadn’t been the luckiest team in history to be saved from a clueless coach.

October: The Bruins’ season starts on time minus Patrice Bergeron.

JBJR winsThe Mendozza Line Award, given annually to the player with the highest batting average rise above the previous years, after his takes a dramatic 45-point jump to finish the year hitting .207. A, er, steal for bargain-hunter Chaim Bloom at just north of $12 million.

November: Stat geek baseball writers again vote Mike Trout MVP after he leads the AL in WAR, while disregarding the Angels’ finishing 47 games out of a playoff slot.

December: UCLA squares off against Ohio State in the semi-final round of the national college football Championship Tournament at the Rose Bowl. Chip Kelly and Ryan Day are inundated with texts from every freeloader in Manchester who knew them from first grade on trying to get free tickets for the big game. Locals who do get in free are Manchester CC gadfly Matty Welsh, real estate magnate Bill Weidacher and Fratello’s owner Mike McDonough because Matty W doesn’t go anywhere without those two, Kelly’s one-time social studies teacher at Manchester Central Stan Spirou, who’ll be in the Red section though with daughter Nina and the grandkids since he’s also Day’s father-in-law. In a similar which-side-do-I-go fan vice is former West High assistant coach Sean McDonnell, who’ll sit on the UCLA side in the first half to support his former OC at the U and with the Buckeyes in the second half in support of his former three-year starter at QB. Meanwhile the reigning NBA exec of the year gets shut out even though I called Day’s entire career at the U on TV and schooled Chipper back in the day on low post scoring in the late Carignan Men’s Basketball League.

In a year of weird and wild sports stories here are the top ones as I see it.

Covid-19: It’s still here nearly two years after the then-president said, “it’ll just go away,” and now thanks to the omicron variant it’s surging to cause havoc for teams and games in all sports. As cases ebbed after vaccinations started, fans came back to capacity as if they were saying enough is enough, I want my life back!

Tiger Woods car accident: The “great” part of Tiger’s scary accident is it didn’t end the life of an athlete it seemed we knew, like Kobe Bryant, his daughter and the others in the helicopter. But this still shook up the golf world, even though it’s not the first time Tiger has made headlines behind the wheel. But, while the injuries were catastrophic, there he was on the course with son Charlie playing last week at the PNC Championship. While his time at the top has mostly been over since the first time he was knocked unconscious behind the wheel, it was a nice sight to see that he and his family will have more of these moments.
Tom Brady wins after leaving New England: Tom Brady winning another Super Bowl isn’t the biggest part of the story. It’s the way he’s pushing back at Father Time to play at 44. I knew he could still win in the right situation (which New England wasn’t in 2020) because of his giant brain. But I didn’t see a second best in his career 40 TD passes coming, which he’ll likely repeat this year. And when you compare it to how TB’s great rival Peyton Manning was in his final year it seems even more remarkable.

Phil Mickelson oldest to win a major: This story overlaps with the last two as it offers a debate over which is the greater old geezer achievement, along with the irony of Phil hitting an all-time career height in the same year his rival saw his chances for a career revival ended. Not sure if winning the PGA at 50 years, 11 months and three days was the most satisfying of his six majors, but it did take him past 48-years-old-but-looked-68 Julius Boros for the record. A final reminder of how great a career PM has had.
Money lust in college football: The players are better and games still exciting. But the lust for money is bigger than ever. Texas and Oklahoma are hardly the first schools to do it, but they screwed their Big 12 partners by announcing they’ll soon join the geographically incorrect South-EAST Conference. All of which requires much more time away from class for their, ah, student-athletes. They’ll do it for the lucrative benefits of course, as college football careens toward being just one big football conference. It ended with slimy ex-Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly walking out on a team and his players for a second time before a season-ending bowl game to get a jump on recruiting at LSU. Of course, be careful what you wish for, as he replaces Ed Orgeron less than two years after he won a national title for the Tigers. Ditto for Les Miles before him.

Summer Olympics: I generally have little interest in the “hey, look at me” marketing fest now known as the Olympics. Though I’m in the minority. But with Covid infections rising in Japan as the games approached it seemed more irrelevant than usual. Especially when the biggest newsmaker was gymnast Simone Biles pulling out to deal with mental health issues. Which of course ignited a massive social media commentary in support and from the “are you kidding me” crowd.

Jon Gruden email scandal: You know it’s bad when you get fired because of an investigation you had nothing to do with. That was Jon Gruden’s world when his emails turned up in the investigation of the WFT. You could hear Arnold saying “hasta la vista, baby” to the career and last six years on his 10-year $100 million contract.

Urban warfare: To (somehow) outpace Gruden as our first winner of the Bobby Petrino Bonehead Coach of the Year award you’d have to do every on- and off-field stupid thing a coach could do, and amazingly Urban Meyer did it, all during a disastrous 13-game stint in Jacksonville. 

Tampa Bay sports capital: Brady led the usually moribund Bucs to win a SB title, and the Lightning are two-time Stanley Cups champs. So if the D-Rays stat geeks hadn’t yanked unhittable Blake Snell with a 1-hit, 12-K shutout in progress in Game 6 of the 2020 World Series vs. L.A. because the analytics said to, TB would have had reigning champs in three sports all year.

Shohei Ohtani takes on The Babe: He was the first full-time pitcher and hitter since the Babe in 1919. The big difference was Shohei pitched and DH’d, while Babe had to throw from the outfield. But the numbers were eerily similar. Ohtani had more homers (46-29) and was 9-2 to Babe’s 9-5. Babe had more RBI (113-100), outhit him .322 to .257 and took the ERA battle 2.93 to 3.13. It made Ohtani Player of the Year.

Giannis Antetokounmpo game for the ages: I drooled over this enough when it happened. So I’ll just add that seeing the Big Fella go for 51 points and 17 rebounds while battling a significant knee injury was the best “climb on my back and I’ll take you home” effort of the year. That their final was against the Suns, who also entered the NBA in 1968, and it was the Bucks’ first title in 52 years made it cooler.

With Christmas arriving on Saturday it’s time to review who’s been naughty and nice as we hand our annual presents for folks in sports during 2021.   

Chip Kelly: A top 10 recruiting class to get him over the hump in Year 4 on the job because the big seat is going to get hotter at UCLA in the year ahead if he doesn’t.   

Tiger Woods: A return to good health after the horrific car accident to let him pursue what he wants to in golf, as it would be sad to see one of the greatest careers in golf end in such a terrible way.   

Chris Sale: Ditto for you, lefty, as it would be nice to see you regain form and pitch injury-free for the first time since spring of 2018.

Steph Curry: A little perspective. As those water works after you did it show, you and many others in basketball way, way, way over-value the three-point shot. It’s a nice career record you set and I do marvel at your incredible range and accuracy, but give me a break, buddy; in the end it’s just a long shot, not like passing Bill Russell’s record 11 NBA titles.

Ben Simmons: A lump of coal and a DVD of the game where fans in Philly booed Santa Claus on Christmas Day to show him it’s a tough place to play and he shouldn’t be such a crybaby. Of course it would help if he weren’t terrified to shoot in big moments.      

Mac Jones: A Super Bowl title in the very near future to stop the yapping of the haters out there who are doing it to fabricate a weakness of yours because starting the career in Brady-like fashion drives those who hate that Coach B pulls rabbits out of his hat more than anyone even crazier than they usually are.

Donald Parham: A swift and complete recovery for the L.A. Chargers tight end after his scary neck/head injury on Thursday Night Football last week. 

Brandon Staley: A place to hide out in L.A. after blowing that just-mentioned TNF game for first place in the AFC West, a game his Chargers should have won vs. KC, by going for TD’s over the field goal three times inside the five-yard line on fourth downs when they were stopped twice and fumbled on the other one, when one FG would have prevented it from going into OT, where KC won it. Also a copy of the soon to be best seller It’s OK To Admit You’re Wrong When You Screw Up for him saying after the game he was “comfortable” with those decisions despite the disastrous results. Talk about delusional thinking for the holidays! 

Red Sox Nation: Two quality starters, two quality relievers (at least) and a return from whatever world Matt Barnes lived in during the second half of 2021 after being lights out in the first half.

Jackie Bradley Jr: That his return home to Fenway sparks a return to his hitting form of 2018 when he was ALCS MVP and hit a huge homer in the clinching game in the World Series that followed. Why? Because we like JBJR.   

Sox owner John Henry: The perspective to know there’s a fine line between not allowing yourself to be strangled/penalized by an overindulgent payroll and rebuilding the farm system and that you are a major market team financially and shouldn’t be cheaping out to save a few bucks.  

Chaim Bloom: The good sense to know the $20 million per for just three years Kyle Schwarber is looking for is exactly the kind of short-term deal he should be looking for. It’s a bargain, buddy, so as Kramer would say, Go!

USA Men’s Soccer: A nice showing (for once) in the upcoming World Cup this summer.

Danny Ainge: A good luck wish for the new job in Utah and a ceremony to raise 44 to the rafters, as two titles as a player and one as the GM over 20 years of service to the Celtics warrants that. 

MLB and the Players Association: Not that this has a chance of happening. But to have the common sense and wisdom to know that the best deals are the ones when both sides win. 

Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds: Election to the Hall of Fame. Because while using ’roids was kinda sorta illegal, with a number of highly suspected users already in it’s murky to prove. Plus with the grand enabler Bud Selig breezing in, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Ditto for Mark McGwire and Andy Pettitte.

Urban Meyer: A new job where he’ll go back to being the BMOC on a college campus because after his catastrophic 13-game reign in Jacksonville when the trouble started less than a month into his tenure he’ll never work in the NFL again. Hard to screw something up as badly and quickly as he did this one. 

The Patriots Special Teams: A refresher course from the time when the other guys made the big mistakes on special teams, because after seeing three punts blocked punts in their first 14 games, they seem like the good old days now.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: A framed print of Yogi Berra’s quote “It ain’t over till it’s over” to remind him to always play through the buzzer, as everyone in the joint thought OKC and New Orleans were headed to OT after SGA drained a 38-footer to tie it at 110 apiece with 1.8 seconds left. 

Devonte Graham: Nothing we can give the Pelican point guard could top what he got when Christmas came early last week when his desperation 70-foot heave after that dagger from Gilgeous-Alexander banked in at the buzzer to give New Orleans a stunning 113-110 win over OKC instead.  

To all of us, an end to the Covid nightmare so we can all get back to a normal life sometime in the year ahead.