Category: Sports

The Big Story – Sox Lead Wild Card Race: So, where are the “the sky is always falling” folks in Boston’s media now? The ones who said the only reason the Red Sox rolled into the All-Star break on a big winning streak was that they just played bad teams? Those people, like the Globe’s Prince of Darkness and radio’s always negative Felger and Mazz, immediately pointed to their 4-5 start to the second half against three NL Division leaders as proof. Except that’s what good teams are supposed to do — play .500 against the good teams and pound the mediocre to bad ones. Which is what the Sox have done by going 19-5 since that winning streak started, including a weekend sweep of AL West-leading Houston. That had them starting the week with the top Wild Card record and in second place just three back of Toronto in the AL East.

So what do they do now? Complain about the not so great haul at the trade deadline — what else?

Sports 101: Name the only team in major league history with a winning record against the Yankees.

News Item – Pags Bags The Sun: Not sure if it’s going to mean the Connecticut Sun are headed to Boston, but former Celtics owner Steve Pagliuca agreed to pay the highest price ever to buy a WNBA team for $325 million last week. But there may be opposition to his desire to move them to Boston, as the league had already ticketed Boston as an expansion site in the near future. Stay tuned.

News Item – Height of Hypocrisy Award: It certainly takes pretty large stones for anyone tied to the Houston Astros to call out another team for sign stealing. But the scuttle was that’s what angered Hector Neris leading to the benches being emptied at Fenway on Saturday.

The Numbers:

.272 – AAA batting average of Kristian Campbell after 32 games to show he’s finding himself after lingering around .200 for the first half of his stay in Worcester.

4 – number on the growing list of professional athletes being investigated for illegal gambling after Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase went on paid leave while baseball looks into his case.

… Of the Week Awards

Thumbs Down – Ryne Sandberg: The Cubs’ great second baseman, who hit 282 homers in his Hall of Fame career, succumbed to cancer at 65. RIP Ryno.

Inning of the Week: It came when Atlanta thought it had blown open a 3-3 game by scoring eight runs in the top of the eighth inning. But amazingly the Reds blew that to smithereens by scoring eight in the bottom of the inning to knot it at 11-11. It was just the third time in history teams have each scored eight runs in the same inning. Atlanta eventually won 12-11 in 10 innings.

Game of the Week: Then the next day the Pirates scored nine runs in the first inning but still managed to lose as Colorado got a 17-16 wild win on a two-run walk-off by a guy I never heard of, Brenton Doyle.

Sports 101 Answer: After sweeping them last weekend, the Miami Marlins are the only team with a winning record vs. NY at 25-24.

Final Thought – And Another About The Sox: Boston’s media crybabies also said the Sox flushed the season down the toilet when they traded Rafael Devers to the Giants. Except that hasn’t happened, or been the boon to the Giants they predicted as well. On the day they got the then insubordinate but now sainted Devers, SF was 44-31, and now they are 55-55. For the mathematically challenged, that’s a worst-in-baseball 13-24 with Devers. While it’s 25-14 for the Sox since the trade that’s taken them from out of the wild card race at 37-37 to owner of the top WC slot at 62-51.

The second thing that they said was the only reason Devers was traded was that the brass wanted to dump his contract. Not true, as I guarantee you if he had picked up a first baseman’s mitt when Triston Casas went down Raffy’d still be here.

But with Roman Anthony deemed ready for the majors they had a bottleneck at OF/DH and someone had to go. They picked Devers and it was the right move for the long term because they got rid of a bad contract that would have forced them to pay a DH $31 million per for seven seasons. Plus Anthony has delivered. In his 46 MLB games, he’s hit .283 with 14 doubles, 2 homers, 19 RBI and a whopping 27 runs scored. For Devers, it’s .233 with 9 doubles, 5 homers, 19 RBI and 14 runs scored. Seems even to me at worst. Plus if the Sox invest the $250 million saved (a major if, I know) in a free agent pitcher like Framber Valdez next winter or revisit trading for Minnesota’s Joe Ryan, who they missed out on last week, trading Devers will be a big win going forward.

Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.

The Big Story – Sox Second-Half Start: In going 4-5 in their tough opening nine-game stretch with the NL’s three division leaders it wasn’t great, but it could have been worse, as they lost the first two games of each series vs. Chicago and Philly as well as losing the opener vs. L.A. before rallying to win the four they did.

Garrett Crochet did what aces are supposed to do by winning twice after Boston losses as he moved to 12-4 with a 2.23 ERA on the year. Which left them 57-50, 6.5 back of AL East-leading Toronto and the second best among Wild Card contenders.

Sports 101: Name the only pitcher to hit a home run in his first major-league at-bat.

News Item – 4 Thoughts from First 4 Days of Patriot Training Camp: (1) Returning OC Josh McDaniels’ early emphasisis for having Drake Maye getting rid of the ball quicker than a year ago. (2) With him already on thin ice, disappointing 2024 second-round pick Ja’Lynn Polk made the hole deeper by missing all four days. (3) The pass rush led by Keion White and Milton Williams got off to a good start in the early drills. (4) Seeing Caedan Wallace now playing guard after being drafted to play left tackle is another reminder of what a bust the 2024 draft has been.

News Item – Clayton Kershaw vs. Whitey Ford: Kershaw is locked in a tight battle with the great Yankee lefty for having the highest win-loss percentage in baseball history among those with 200 or more wins. After going 236-106 in 16 seasons, Ford is the retired career leader. So the Sox’ 4-2 win over Kershaw Saturday had historic consequences as it cut KC’s lead over Ford down from .692 to .690.

News Item – Player of the Week: The A’s Nick Kurtz had arguably the greatest single hitting game in MLB history on Friday. When he went six for six with eight RBI in a 15-3 win over Houston. It included a single, a double and becoming the first rookie in history to hit four homers in a game.

Alumni News – Matthew Judon: The former Patriots linebacker is still out on the street looking for work. This after acting like a 10-year-old in camp last year to get a big bump in pay. The Pats said no and traded him to Atlanta for the third-round pick who became guard Jared Wilson.

But after a 5.5-sack, 41-tackle season he’s found out the Patriots aren’t the only team that doesn’t think he was worth his asking price.

The Numbers:

41 – homers for Seattle’s Cal Raleigh to bring him within one of Javy Lopez’s mark for most homers hit as a catcher in one season.

44 – strikeouts by Red Sox hitters when they lost two of three to Dave Dombrowski’s Phillies.

163 – homers by Kyle Schwarber in three-plus years since the Sox let him walk over the same $20 million per they gave the next winter to Masataka Yoshida — who has 25 Boston homers since.

… Of the Week Awards

Thumbs Up – Alex Cora: For again bucking trends in managing his pitching staff. This time by bringing Aroldis Chapman in to face Schwarber in the seventh inning with the tying run on second. Chapman induced a pop to second to end the threat.

Anti-Rafael Devers Award –– “I’ll do anything to help the team”: That’s what the Sox’ best outfielder, Ceddanne Rafaela, said when asked about playing second base lately to help fill the black hole there and relieve their DH/OF bottleneck as well.

Future Lost Court Case of the Week: Donald Trump was back to telling sports how it can operate again last week. This time by signing an executive order to limit how much college athletes can make by putting a cap on NIL money. The problem is the NCAA settled the O’Bannon lawsuit (that opened the door for NIL) because they knew they’d lose in court on anti-trust issues. Which will happen again because the E.O. also illegally restricts individual earning rights.

A Little History – DiMaggio’s 56-Game History: The most amazing thing about Joe D’s famed 56-game hitting streak lies in illustrating how different the 1941 game was compared to 2025, when 100k seasons by players are commonplace. While DiMaggio hit .408 (91-223) with 56 runs scored, 55 RBI and 15 homers, he struck out only five times over those 56 games and not once during the final 32.

Sports 101 Answer: While more famous for throwing his knuckle ball, Hoyt Wilhelm is also the only pitcher to hit a home run in his first MLB at bat as a NY Giant in 1952.

Final Word – A Little Extra History: If you don’t know, in the game after the streak ended, he immediately went on a 15-game streak. And in 1933 he hit in 61 straight playing with the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League.

Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.

The Big Story – Pats Open Training Camp: With the opening of camp on Tuesday football is back. And after the 2024 catastrophe, there is optimism the Pats’ sinking fortunes since you-know-who left the building may be about to end. It even has some talking playoffs, which seems a bit far-fetched. But with Drake Maye entering Year 2 and a host of new free agent signings led by new/old coach Mike Vrabel being brought home to right the ship, most are expecting a big jump from the 4-15 disaster of 2024. Time will tell.

Sports 101: Name the three pitchers to win a Cy Young, MVP and World Series all in the same year.

News Item – Things to Look For in Pats Camp:

Will Campbell – The top draft pick needs to make the most under-rated job in football the position of stability it hasn’t been since the end of the Brady era.

Receivers – Unless they can make a big jump in production, good-bye 2025 playoffs. And how long before Stefon Diggs goes off the reservation?

Play Calling – How do OC Josh McDaniels and Maye mesh? Will McDaniels force his system on Maye, or adapt it to what Maye does best?

Corners – How good can Christian Gonzalez and Carlton Davis be together? It’s the key to the D because the better they are the longer it takes receivers to get open, which gives the pass rush more time to harass the QB.

Mike Vrabel – After being killed by the passive coaching ofJerod Mayo last year it needs to be my-way-or-the-highway tough from Day 1.

News Item – Alumni News: Anyone else see that ex-Red Sox hurler Drew Pomeranz is still in the majors? I thought he retired years ago. But there he was on Sunday pitching in the eighth for the Cubs as he gave up a pinch-hit three-run homer from Alex Bregman to cement Boston’s 6-1 win. How he’s remained in the majors is another story as he’s 5-21 since leaving Boston in 2018 after going 17-9 for them in 2017.

The Numbers:

0 – wins against eight losses for the once great but now fading Justin Verlander in his first season in SF, when the ERA is 4.99.

3 – legs of winning a career major down for Scottie Scheffler as he breezed home by four shots Sunday to win the Open Championship (British Open) at 17 under par.

… Of the Week Awards

Thumbs Up – Alex Cora’s Analytics Adjustment: If you don’t think the lunacy of analytics has radically altered thinking in baseball, consider that the only .300 hitter in the Sox line-up during Sunday’s 6-1 win in Chicago was .311-hitting Romy Gonzalez, who hit ninth in the order. And it actually made sense. Because if you’re going to move your top hitters to first and second in the order, you should have people hitting in front of them who can get on base instead of a team’s worst hitters who usually hit eighth and ninth. First time I’ve seen someone using common sense to counteract analytics dictates.

Har-Dee-Har-Har Quote of the Week – Tyler Smith: Goes to the Cowboys Pro Bowl guard for saying upon arrival at camp, “Super Bowl champion. That’s always the expectation.”

Well, for those of us who’ve been watching since Barry Switzer won the 1995 SB with Jimmy Johnson’s players, we know Dallas hasn’t been a real contender since the owner drove Johnson out of town because he wanted more credit for the three title teams JJ built from scratch.

Random Thoughts

When did stealing signs become a major baseball crime? Because it once was an art that was looked up to.

After the Pats gave him away for nothing, keep an eye on what Joe Milton does when Dak Prescott goes down with the annual injury.

Sports 101 Answer: The pitchers who won the Cy Young, MVP and World Series in the same year are Sandy Koufax (1963), Denny McLain (1968) and Willie Hernandez (1984).

Final Thought – Thumbs Down – Name Hijacking: I hate the name Commanders. But I hate far more a wannabe king threatening to withhold U.S. taxpayer dollars to blackmail the Washington Football Club into bringing back a name he prefers as Donald Trump did last week. Hopefully the NFL has more guts to stand up to U.S. employee number 47 than baseball Coward-In-Chief Rob Manfred had when he caved to similar demands from the convicted felon to remove baseball’s objection to having Pete Rose on the Hall of Fame ballot even though he bet on baseball and lied about it for 15 years until he needed the truth to sell a book.

Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.

The Big Story – Sox Roll Into All-Star Break: Where are those people now who said they wouldn’t survive trading Rafael Devers? After a period of adjustment they kicked it into high gear without him. After sweeping the Nationals, Rockies and D-Rays, the 53-45 Sox went into the All-Star break on a 10-game winning streak. It left them a leader in the wild card race and just 3.5 out of first place in the AL East. Time will tell if it’s just a delightful hot streak to enjoy or something bigger. But if it’s the latter, with dumping Devers the starting point, what will it be most historically like? (a) John McNamara being fired to ignite 1988’s Morgan Magic?(b) Jason Varitek shoving his mitt in A-Rod’s face to light the fire that turned 2004 into Boston baseball’s greatest season ever? or (c) with Ceddanne Rafaela coming through with heroics almost every night has he morphed into 1967 Yaz right before our eyes? Buckle up and find out.

Sports 101: Who holds the record for most seasons of pitching at least 200 innings?

News Item – Red Sox’ Second Half: They start the second half with nine straight against the three NL division leaders, with games vs. Chicago and Philadelphia on the road, then the Dodgers coming to Fenway.

News Item – Coming and Going: Last Tuesday was an interesting day as the A’s Lawrence Butler led off their 10-1 win over Atlanta in Sacramento with an inside-the-park home run. Then up the road apiece a little later in San Francisco, Patrick Bailey turned a giant 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 SF win over Philly with a three-run inside-the-park walk-off home run. Butler’s was the first time in 82 years (that’s 1943 for the mathematically challenged) an A’s player had led off a game with an inside-the-park homer, while, along with the Cubs’ Pat Moran (1907) and Senators’ Bennie Tate (1926), Bailey became just third catcher to win a game with an inside-the-park homer.

News Item – Rafael Devers SF Update: In his first 18 games with SF Devers is hitting .214 with 5 doubles, 2 homers and 10 RBIs and has struck out 32 times in 84 at-bats.

The Numbers:

.206 – AAA batting average for Kristian Campbell (1 homer, 8 RBI, 80 at-bats) after being sent down to work out issues from a rough six-week stretch with the Red Sox.

350 – career homers reached by Aaron Judge after a two-run shot Saturday. It came in his 1,088th game to surpass Mark McGwire as the fastest to that mark in history.

38 – homers for red hot Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh after two more in a 12-3 win over Detroit to move within one of Barry Bonds’ pre-ASG homer record.

2,000 – career wins for Terry Francona after the Reds beat Cleveland on Sunday.

… Of the Week Awards

Who’s Hot – Aroldis Chapman: The Sox closer has gone 18 games without allowing an earned run while giving up just five hits and striking out 30! That includes Sunday’s overpowering three-up, three-down, three-strikeout effort.

Injured List – Hunter Dobbins: The young Sox hurler is out for the year after tearing his ACL covering first base last week.

Quote – “What a Joke”: So said Phillies shortstop Trea Turner after hearing Milwaukee rookie Jacob Misiorowski was ridiculously named to the NL All-Star team after pitching in only five 2025 games when he’s 4-1 with a 3.83 ERA.

Random Thoughts:

Interesting story to follow in the second half is Clayton Kershaw trying to stay ahead of Whitey Ford’s best ever .690 career winning percentage. CK is back in the lead at .697 after a 4-0 start.

Sports 101 Answer: In doing it 20 times the incredibly durable Don Sutton is the 200+-innings-a-season record holder.

A Little History – Sandy Koufax: Speaking of great Dodgers pitchers, if you’re tired of how dugout micromanagers have taken the game out of pitchers’ hands by yanking them unnecessarily after five innings you might like this. In the last game L.A. played in the Coliseum before moving into Dodger Stadium in 1962, Koufax won a 13-inning complete game on September 20 as he struck out 15 and threw TWO HUNDRED FIVE (205) pitches. For context, Alex Cora used eight Red Sox pitchers multiple times in nine-inning games this year.

Final Thought –Thumbs Up – Alex Cora: Don’t know what’s happened to awaken him from the push-button stat geek manager he’s evolved into in recent years. But twice last week he’s managed with his eyes and instinct instead of automatic pitch count behavior to let Garrett Crochet and Brayan Bello actually pitch cg’s. For Crochet it was a three-hit 9-k, 100-pitch 1-0 win over Tampa Bay, and for Bello it was a 10-2, 107-pitch win over Colorado. Bravo for acting like a real manager to let players win or lose games.

Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.

The Big Story – Gambling Becoming an Issue: Are the chickens coming home to roost for pro sports after buddying up to the legal betting industry? It may be just a blip, but in the last week Cleveland Guardians hurler Luis Ortiz and NBA free agent Malik Beasley came under gambling investigations. They joined umpire Pat Hoberg, fired earlier this year for sharing info with a friend who was betting on baseball, and Jontay Porter, banned for life by the NBA for betting on basketball. All happening in the same time period baseball commissioner Rob Manfred caved to the convicted felon in the White House to remove restrictions preventing the Hall of Fame from voting on Pete Rose for his gambling on baseball. And ditto for the banned since 1920 Shoeless Joe Jackson for his role in 1919’s Black Sox scandal. No charges yet for anyone, but all these cases in a year seems an awful lot.

Sports 101: Name the youngest pitcher to start an All-Star game.

News Item – MLB Update at All-Star Break:

The Blue Jays got hot at just the right time to win six straight during consecutive series sweeps of the Red Sox and Yankees to move into first place in the AL East.

Even though I still can’t get used to their being good, it’s Detroit with the best record in the AL at 55-34, just behind L.A.’s best in the majors 56-33.

Forget the record for just catchers. In hitting homers 34 and 35, Cal Raleigh not only set his own personal best but also tied Ken Griffey Jr.’s Mariners record for most homers by the All-Star break.

With each on pace to hit 50 homers again without the help of PEDs, you can make a case that Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani are the best playing-at-the-same-time duo since Willie Mays and Hank Aaron in the 1960s.

Yankees free agent Max Fried led the majors in wins with 11 against two losses. Detroit’s Tarik Skubal was just behind at 10-2 with a 2.04 ERA to Fried’s 2.27.

News Item – Jurrangelo Cijntje: You think the Ohtani hitter-pitcher story is interesting — how about this Seattle Mariners prospect? And not just for being the rare baseball player who’s from the Netherlands. The 22-year-old is a switch pitcher who held hitters to a .165 average while pitching right-handed and .360 while pitching left-handed. He’ll be strutting his stuff at the All-Star Futures game on Saturday in Atlanta.

The Numbers:

12 – players already have struck out at least 100 times with three more at 99.

… Of the Week Awards

Who’s Hot – Michael Busch: He exploded for three homers on July 4, and the fireworks extended through the whole Cubs line-up as it went for a franchise record eight homers during an 11-3 rout of St. Louis.

Who’s Not – Devers Update: It hasn’t been all roses for Rafael Devers since being traded. He hit .239 (17-85) in his first 19 games out west, which included a streak when he was 1-16 with 13 K’s last week. The power numbers were five doubles, two homers and nine RBI as the Giants went 8-11 during his 19 games with SF.

Random Thoughts:

With Pete Alonso closing in on most homers in New York Mets history it amazes me with 252 that Darryl Strawberry is still their all-time leader 35 years after leaving the team.

Sports 101 Answer: The youngest guy to be the ASG starter wasVida Blue.

A Little History – 1971 All-Star Game: The Oakland lefty was just 21 when he started the 1971 All-Star game, a four-homer game, which included a titanic blast over the roof in Tiger Stadium by A’s teammate Reggie Jackson. Despite giving up three runs in his three innings, Blue got the win when the AL rallied for four in the third, leading to a 6-4 win. It was the AL’s first ASG win in nine years and last until 1983.

Final Thought – Good, Bad and Ugly for the Red Sox at July 4:

At 9-4 with a 2.39 ERA and major league leading 151 strikeouts in 120.1 Garrett Crochet has lived up to the billing, though it would have been nicer if he could have made it to seven innings more than five times in his 19 starts.

Easily the biggest surprise was rookie catcher Carlos Narvaez, who hit .272 with seven homers and 28 RBI in 68 games.

Jarren Duran led baseball with nine triples.

Crochet, Alex Bregman and Aroldis Chapman will represent the Sox in the All-Star game.

The bullpen had a major league leading 11 blown saves to go along with its second-worst 74 errors.

Despite all the nonsense of the first half, the Red Sox were just 2.5 back from a wild card slot on the 4th.

Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.

The Big Story – Sayonara, Celtics Dynasty: It took several years to become an annual championship-contending team and only two days to dismantle it. It happened when Brad Stevens traded Jrue Holiday to Portland for a better scorer who is weaker in every other way except being 10 years younger. Followed up a day later by incredibly only getting back bull-in-a-china shop clunker George Niang for Kristaps Porzingis in a deal between the C’s, Nets and Hawks. Just George Niang for KP? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Sports 101: Name the only pitcher to win 200 games, an MVP, a Cy Young and 3 World Series titles.

News Item – Red Sox Update: (1) The hitting went south in a six-game losing streak since the Raffy Devers trade. (2) They ended that streak by scoring one less run in a 15-1 win over Toronto than they scored during the entire losing streak. (3) Roman Anthony had his first big game then when he was 3-6 with two doubles and two runs scored. (4) At 41-44 the guessing game has begun as to whether they’ll be sellers or buyers at the trade deadline. (5)And the rumors say Jarren Duran is the most likely to go first.

News Item – NBA Year Begins: (1) The biggest trades to kick it off were Kevin Durant to upstart Houston, and the aforementioned Celtic moves. (2) No surprise to start the draft, as the pride of Newport, Maine, Cooper Flagg went first overall to Dallas. (3) Rumors have Lob it to Rob Williams headed to L.A. to fix their hole at center and be the perfect lob threat for Luka Doncic. (4) The genius move to fire their coach by the Knicks drones on with them being down to their ninth or 10th choice.

News Item – Shake Up in ESPN Booth: After its “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” move of firing Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy two years ago, rumor is a change is coming to its NBA booth again. It has Mike Breen again being the only survivor.

The Numbers:

2.5 –millions spent to buy a signed 1986-87 Michael Jordan “rookie” card in California.

101.7 – miles per hour hit on the radar by Shohei Ohtani in his third start after missing last year entirely due to arm surgery.

… Of the Week Awards

Thumbs Down – Dave Parker: Hearing that 1970s/80s Pirates star Dave Parker had passed at 74 was sad enough. But after waiting years he was less than a month from being enshrined into Cooperstown later this month to make it worse. RIP big fella.

Stat of the Week – 11 Walks: The hard to believe free passes the Red Sox issued in a nine-inning 9-5 loss to the Angels when Walker Buehler gave up five runs on just three hits and Garrett Whitlock four more on just two hits because they walked seven and three guys respectively.

Media Fools of the Week – Kendrick Perkins and Steven A. Blowhard: It was pretty rich to hear a five-point-a-game scorer, who could barely make a lay-up and got outplayed by Andrew Bynum in the 2010 Finals, say that a guy who’d already won three playoff games and sent another into OT buzzer-beating shots like Tyrese Haliburton had this spring alone was playing “scared to death.” Ditto for the Division II back-up from Queens turned bloviator, who had 15 measly points on 5 of 23 shooting in his college career at Winston-Salem (according to enemy/provocateur Jason Whitlock), saying “he was glad TH was injured because it at least gave an explanation for his poor performance” as he struggled to play with a bad calf that got worse because he played.

Clueless big-mouths who prove the way to get ahead on ESPN is to say it loudly regardless of whether it makes sense or not.

Random Thoughts:

ESPN’s Jay Bilas loves college basketball and good for him, but his work on their draft show making everyone out to be the next Michael Jordan is a journalistic embarrassment and insulting to those who know that no more than five in a regular year and 10 in a great year will ever leave their mark on the NBA.

Sports 101 Answer: The ’70s and ’80s A’s/Giants lefty Vida Blue is the only one to check 200 wins, MVP & Cy and three World Series won boxes.

Final Thought – Now What, Brad? While the Niang return for KP is insulting to Celtic Nation, Stevens did it for greater flexibility in building his roster, something severely restricted by being above the luxury tax line from a basic agreement that’s anti-dynasty in the name of league-wide parity.However, I am interested in seeing how Stevens goes about reshaping a team to still be an annual contender going forward without Jayson Tatum next year and having the pile of first-round picks Oak City has stockpiled. A tall task.

Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.