BOSTON. On the night the Boston Red Sox came back from a 3-1 deficit to defeat the Cleveland Indians in the American League Championship Series, local college students flooded the Fenway area in a raucous celebration that resulted in 17 arrests. In a novel use of creative sentencing, Roxbury District Court Judge Edward Redd ordered those charged with disorderly conduct to write a five-page essay about their brush with justice or face additional jail time. Gerbil Sports Network's crack team of investigative sports reporters has scooped the Boston dailies, the Drudge Report and the Sporting News, and reproduces several B+ or better papers below:
"What car?"
To the people of Boston:
First, let me say how sorry I am about the rhinoceros. Me and my homies are big fans of Ecko urban-style clothing, and we thought it would be cool if we took "Big Horn", the daddy rhino at the Franklin Park Zoo, out for a stroll down Lansdowne Street. We had no idea that the throbbing "house" music emanating from the discos would cause him to panic. I have personally reimbursed the girl who said her name was "Karen" for the pina colada that Big Horn spilled when he trampled her and her roommates trying to get to the free popcorn.
Please don't tell my parents about this--thanks.
Tyler Preston, Northeastern University
Dear Bostonians:
I can't tell you how sorry I am for burning down Fenway Park. I had no idea it was so important to so many people--it's kind of grungy looking from the outside, and I've never been inside. I just got caught up in a crowd of young people who were tired of blocking ambulances and other public safety vehicles and were looking for something funner (more fun?) to do.
The Judge said if I wrote an essay expressing my understanding of the magnitude of what I have done I would only have to spend one night in jail, which I already did, and that sounded like a pretty good deal, so here goes: To many people in New England and around the world, Fenway Park is (was) like a shrine--the place where poor sight lines, tight seats, drunken fans, expensive beer and limited parking come together to make for a fun family experience. If there is any way I can make this up to all of you that doesn't involve time, money, effort or personal hardship on my part, please let me know.
Tabitha McCord, Massachusetts College of Art
Beastie Boys
Look, I know I'm supposed to be all apologetic and stuff, but I think everybody's being hypocritical about this. I mean, isn't Boston the freaking cradle of liberty? I thought so. Well, if I remember what I learned about the Constitution in high school civics, you've got to fight for your right to party. That's the Beastie Boys Amendment, which was passed when they repealed prohibition. I didn't get into a good college without learning something!
NEW YORK. Nanotechnology, the science of incredibly teensy-tiny things, promises to transform our lives over the coming years with sub-atomic robots that can download songs directly to the human brain. For now, however, nano-scientists say they are satisfied to have achieved the first tangible evidence of the field's potential, recording post-season batting statistics for New York Yankees' third baseman Alex Rodriguez.
Alex Rodriguez
"Come October, A-Rod hits like an American League pitcher batting in the World Series for the first time all year," says Columbia University scientist Morris Schonfeld. "It's a real challenge to detect anything at all."
"If you look closely, you can see his RBI's in there somewhere."
Rodriguez is affectionately known as "Mr. Regular Season" by Yankees fans for his post-season productivity, often driving in a run a decade. "At that pace," noted Lou Berloni of Yonkers, "he'll be in double figures before you know it."
"You need to highlight your cheekbones--they're terrific!"
Rodriguez is also popular among players, who says his role as self-appointed spokesman for the game is as refreshing as a kid who volunteers to take names when a teacher leaves the classroom. "What's not to like?" asks Boston's Jason Varitek, who struck up a pen-pal relationship with Rodriguez after a 2004 misunderstanding in which the Red Sox catcher's attempt to give the man they call "A-Rod" some metrosexual advice on moisturizing was misinterpreted as aggression.
"If I take care of myself, I think I have a chance to be the best-looking Yankee of all time."
Nanotechnologists were able to confirm Rodriguez's post-season impact after his seventh-inning home run in the Yankees' series-ending loss to the Cleveland Indians, ending his incredible streak of 57 post-season at-bats without an RBI. "You can't measure nothing, so that helped," noted Brian Staub, a lab technician at New York University's Center for Nanotechnology Studies. "On the other hand, the only guy he ever seems to drive in is himself."
ALAMEDA, California. HomeQuest Financial, a subprime lender that has been cited for loan and foreclosure abuses in a number of states, today announced that it would set up a charitable fund tied to individual performances in baseball's postseason play as a way to give back to homeowners who have suffered during the current housing market collapse.
"There's the hammer, it's going--going--gone!"
"We realize in retrospect that maybe we could have done things just a teensy bit differently," says HomeQuest CEO Martin Upchurch. "If we had known people weren't going to repay our loans, we would have charged them bigger fees upfront."
Don Larsen's World Series no-hitter.
Under the program, HomeQuest will donate $100 for every balk, $200 for every batter who hits for the cycle, and $300 for each no-hitter thrown during the post-season, beginning with today's NL Wildcard playoff game between Colorado and San Diego and ending with the final out of the World Series.
"Peavey's got a no-no going into the 8th. Don't jinx it by saying anything."
"It's a way for us to say 'Thank you' to all of those familes who vacated their over-leveraged houses peaceably so we didn't have to resort to extreme measures," Upchurch says. "We really appreciate it when we don't have to rent German Shepherds to secure our properties."
"That wasn't a balk. Clemens started to pitch, then got bored and went home to Houston."
But, a reporter asks, balks, no-hitters and hitting for the cycle are extremely rare events, meaning that HomeQuest's exposure is minimal at best. Does Upchurch really expect the dispossessed to benefit much from a program that is so narrowly tailored?
"Talk to the people in marketing," he says. "I'm more of a big picture guy."
BOSTON. This town, known for its cynical sportswriters and diehard sports fans, has always been tough on professional athletes. Ted Williams, the last man to hit .400, sarcastically referred to sports reporters who covered the Red Sox as "Knights of the Keyboard"; the terms the ink-stained wretches used to refer to Williams are not printable on a web site that does not offer parental controls.
Williams: "Well, Bob, I'm seeing the ball well these days, and I'm smelling your bad breath."
But not until the invention of the Internet have Boston's sports heroes had a weapon they could use to fight back against the men and women who, as A.J. Leibling once put it, buy ink by the barrel. And the first cyber-savvy jock to do so is Curt Schilling, hero of the 2004 World Series who pitched the Sox to victory in game 2 with a still-bleeding ligament sutured down to the outside flank of his right ankle.
Schilling's Bloody Sock
Schilling's blog, which appears at www.38pitches.com, has turned the tables on sportswriters who dump on athletes who lose balls in the sun, or miss slam dunks, or drop passes in the end zone. Schilling is a man of letters who can deconstruct an errant turn of phrase with the best of them, a skill he uses with special pleasure in picking apart the prose of his nemesis, the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy.
Everett Shaughnessy
Shaughnessy was dubbed the "Curly-Headed Boyfriend" by former Sox outfielder Carl Everett, a slugging outfielder known for his skepticism about dinousaurs and the Apollo moon missions.
"Hey Carl--I'm a dinosaur, and I'm going to the moon!"
Here's what Schilling had to say about Shaughnessy's column in today's Globe.
"Hey there, just catching up. Did you see the CHB's hackneyed cliche 'Ainge has a bull's-eye on his back after last week (sic--and how I love to use that little word) moves.' Where does he get this stuff? Re-runs of Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour?"
Ted Mack: "You didn't win, but the consolation prize is a year's supply of Serutan--the laxative that is 'Natures' spelled backwards."
Schilling has set himself up as the E.B. White of sports prose, prodding scribes to push themselves in much the same fashion as sportswriters demand peak performance day after day from highly-paid athletes. "Steve Buckley couldn't change Red Smith's typewriter ribbon," Schilling noted on Monday after the Boston Herald columnist had split an infinitive in his haste to file a story from the West Coast last week. "I don't think I'm the first person to notice that he also ended a sentence with a preposition during interleague play."
E.B. White: "This isn't Charlotte's Web. Get your stinking butt off my manuscript!"
Visitors to Schilling's site say they prefer his writing to that of the many sourpuss scribes who follow the Sox around the country, their guts hanging over their belts from lack of exercise, their complexions blotchy from too much greasy airport and ballpark food.
William Bendix, as Chester A. Riley, and Curt Schilling, as himself.
"You've got to take care of yourself if you want to survive in the sportswriting game," says Schilling, who is said to be a direct descendant of William Bendix, star of the long-running 1950's television show "The Life of Riley".
Bob Ryan: Don't stand between him and the buffet.
"You don't get a body like mine overnight," Schilling said as he shook his head while watching the Boston Globe's Bob Ryan chow down on the post-game buffet in the Sox' clubhouse. "It takes years of neglect."
SHERBORN, Massachusetts. This quiet town in the suburbs west of Boston features a traditional town green, a Colonial-style inn, and something a bit more sinister; a croquet lawn that is the site of viciously-competitive contests between teams from the American Croquet Association.
Sherborn, Mass.
The ACA was formed in the early twentieth century by six "original member" clubs up and down the Eastern seaboard, and has managed to remain out of the sports pages through the native shyness of its old-line members. "A good WASP gets his name in the paper when he's born, when he's married, and when he dies," says Putnam Everly III, coach of the Boston Brahmins, repeating an old New England saying about white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. "Plus, by the time we finish everyone's so drunk we forget to call in the scores."
But the courtly game that was borrowed by the British from the French in the 14th century and never returned has been rocked in recent years by accusations that top players are "juicing" their swings with the same anabolic steroids that made a mockery of long-standing home run records in major league baseball. "You look at some of these guys, back in their forties they could 'send' somebody maybe thirty yards with the wind at their back," says Edward "Bink" Terwiliger, a reporter for Croquet Today, the leading--actually the only--magazine to cover the sport. "Nowadays, if you don't launch a guy out onto Route 27," the state highway that runs alongside the lawn, "you're considered a wuss."
The good old days.
The most egregious violator of the long-standing code of ethics that kept the sport clean from the 1850's through the end of the twentieth century is Roderick "Treasury" Bonds, a stockbroker who plays for the New York Plutocrats. "Treas is the man," his teammate Warner Herrick says. "Man, when he puts his foot down on his ball"--the first step in "sending" an opponent's ball after striking it with one's own--"I just hide and watch."
"Treasury" Bonds prepares to "send" an opponent's ball.
But the prodigious blows of bashers like Bonds have caused an equal and opposite reaction--a backlash among old-line fans who long for the days of intellectually-stimulating matches instead of wood-on-wood explosions. "This isn't the game I grew up with," says Millicent Minot, heiress to the Minot Mechanical Tape Dispenser fortune.
Just do it!
So as Bonds walks onto the lawn for today's match he is greeted by a chorus of boos from the customarily-reserved gallery of fans seated on the Sherborn Cricket Club's veranda. "I wouldn't have an affair with your wife for all the alimony in the world!" one elderly gentlemen in a cable-knit sweater and Panama hat shouts. The others begin to chant "STER-oids! STER-oids!" in an effort to break the New York slugger's concentration as he lines up a shot.
The crowd gets ugly.
Bonds ignores the crowd and hits a shot that effectively blocks his opponent's path to the first wicket. A torrent of cucumber sandwiches rains down on the lawn, and officials stop play to eject two troublemakers who have had a few too many Bloody Marys.
"Blow it out your Depends, you losers!"
Nathaniel Highsmith is first up for Boston and hits a rare double-tap, a fault that causes him to lose a turn and exposes him to the merciless Bonds, who promptly causes his ball to strike his opponent's, setting up a "send". Bonds lines up his shot like a hunter drawing a bead on a deer, raises his mallet, then swings forcefully down--into his own foot!
"You'd better move!"
A hush descends on the crowd as Bonds writhes in pain; although the rivalry between New York and Boston is intense and often bitter, the spectators rise as one and applaud quietly as Bonds is carried off on a stretcher. "I thought you hated him, Daddy," a young boy says as he sees his father wipe a tear from his eye.
"I do, but the only doctor in town who isn't playing golf today is the veterinarian," the man says with a lump in his throat. "I hate to see a great thoroughbred put down."
As someone who watches a great deal of baseball from the comfort of an easy chair, beer in hand, I often ask myself the question, "How do major league umpires manage to stay in such lousy shape all season long?"
Bruce Froemming
The answer is, it isn't easy. "You don't get a body like this overnight," says Bruce Froemming, the most senior active umpire in the big leagues. "It takes years of neglect."
"I asked for a kielbasa and you gave me a freakin' Phillies Frank, you mook!"
Froemming's routine consists of a day of strength conditioning followed by a day of aerobic exercise. "I tear the tops off ten small bags of potato chips followed by 12-ounce curls of lager beer bottles," he says. "And I don't mean light beer," he adds. "If you want to develop an explosive style for the called-strike punch-out, you must use regular beer."
Manager sandwich, hold the mayo.
On his aerobic exercise day, Froemming warms up with twenty-meter dashes from his car into his local McDonald's franchise for an Egg McMuffin, followed by jump sprints from his living room couch to his kitchen to fetch pork rinds and more beer. "You've got to keep drinking, " he says. "You need to stay hydrated."
Joe West and Brian Gorman, umpire's locker room, Fenway Park
The very nature of an umpire's job makes it difficult to stay out of good shape. "You're out there in the fresh air and the sunshine every day getting exercise," says AL ump Joe West. "Sometimes after a game I have to force myself to go back to the all-you-can-eat buffet for thirds or fourths--it takes discipline."
Young ump wannabes will soon be able to gain weight the Blue Crew way with a home exercise DVD approved by Major League Baseball. "Stay in Shape the Umpire Way" is a forty-five minute workout video that features some of the game's greats putting a group of overweight boys through their paces to Pachelbel's "Canon", the slow-as-molasses classical piece made popular by the movie "Kramer vs. Kramer".
"Daddy, please make the music stop."
"It teaches the kids to slow down," says MLB Commissioner Bud Selig. "It's very helpful for the delayed 'out' call at first base."
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Michigan. In this upscale suburb of Detroit, the only line longer than the one at Starbucks is the one for playing time on the town's forty T-ball fields in the spring.
T-ball fever–catch it!
“It’s terrible the way things get backed up if you have a rainy spring,” says Cheryl Brown, a former stockbroker who’s now a stay-at-home mom raising three boys, ages 8, 9 and 10. “No family planning at our house,” she says with a laugh.
“There’s a drive–it might, it could, it does get out of the infield!”
So last year Cheryl’s town took the drastic but necessary step of floating a $400 million bond issue to finance the construction of the first domed T-ball complex in the nation. “It may be expensive, and it may drive a lot of old people out of town, but Jason’s got karate at 11 on Saturdays, and Mikey has Cub Scouts at noon, and I can’t be running back and forth all over town” in her 13 mile per gallon Ford Expedition. “Think of the damage I’d be doing to the environment!”
“I know you have to go, honey–we’ll be there in a minute!”
Cost is no object to younger families here and in other wealthy suburbs as the first wave of T-ball “Superdomes” opens up this spring in northern latitudes where warm weather won’t kick in until mid to late June.
“Evan–here’s your Evian!”
“It’s a real problem,” says Bill Urquardt, town manager of Dover, Massachusetts. “We had a choice between increasing our tax rate by $4,000 per single family home, or letting our second graders get wet.” When the alternatives are placed in such stark contrast, the choice in most cases is easy. “The second graders stay dry, unless they spill bottled water on themselves,” Urquardt says.
“As far as I’m concerned, your little brat can get electrocuted on a metal bench!”
When a town opts for a domed t-ball stadium, it means many senior citizens are forced from their homes, causing hard feelings that may take years to smooth over. “That’s the bad news,” says Urquardt. “The good news is, most of them will be dead soon.”
“Time to hit the showers–you’ve lost your fastball.”
For senior citizens who are displaced by higher tax rates, the fact that they are helping a new generation learn the basics of America’s national pastime offers little consolation. “I saw Ted Williams play,” says Dorothy Darby, a 90 year-old resident of Dover who was forced from her home last spring. “He never had a domed stadium, and he was the best hitter who ever lived,” she says, her eyes misting over at the thought of the man they called The Splendid Splinter. “Of course he was a jerk too, but that’s beside the point.”
Ah, the memories! Every Boston sports fan has them. For those who are new to Boston, or just visiting, here are some "must see" landmarks in one of America's great sports towns.
South Main Street, Worcester, Mass.: While not technically in Boston, in fact nearly forty miles away, it was here that Carlton Fisk hit his historic home run in the bottom of the twelfth inning of game six of the 1975 World Series on the television in my apartment. A recent transplant to the East Coast from St. Louis Cardinal country, I was moved that night to develop a rooting interest in the Red Sox as my American League favorite, a decision with consequences that reverberate to this day for my wife.
Fisk's home run.
One Boston Place, Boston. It was here that the world, or at least the part of the world that I occupied, first learned of the tragic death of Len Bias from a cocaine overdose. A Boston Celtics season ticket holder at the firm where I worked came walking down the hall mumbling "Len Bias is dead" in a somber tone that suggested the President had been shot. The first-round pick that the Celtics used to select Bias--projected to be "the next Michael Jordan"--was acquired in exchange for Gerald Henderson, a starting guard on the Celtics' 1986 championship squad whose steal of a James Worthy pass in game two of the 1984 NBA Finals led to a Celtics victory in overtime.
The tragic death of Len Bias taught us all a lesson that one hopes will never be forgotten; never trade a starting shooting guard for a draft choice.
Len Bias is the tall guy.
Massachusetts Turnpike, Framingham exit. Okay, so it's not even in the same county. Still, it is here that David Henderson hit the home run on the radio of a Toyota Corolla against California Angels' relief pitcher Donnie Moore in Game 5 of the 1986 American League Championship Series as my fiancee and I were returning from a getaway weekend at a Vermont bed-and-breakfast that did not have a TV. With only one strike needed to clinch the Angels' first-ever pennant, Henderson homered to tie the game, and in the 11th drove in what proved to be the winning run with a sacrifice fly off Moore. The teams returned to Boston where the Sox won two straight games to advance to the 1986 World Series.
Moore, who had long battled depression, was subsequently traded to the Kansas City Royals, which didn't help. He ultimately committed suicide as California fans and the media never forgave or forgot that he "blew" game five. In Donnie's memory, I recall for my wife this significant moment in baseball history whenever we pass this exit.
"Kansas City sucks, but at least Tampa Bay doesn't have a team yet."
Nino's Pizza, Cambridge Street, Boston. It is here that I once had a slice of pizza with my friend Vince and noticed an autographed picture of Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito eating in the same booth we were sitting in. This is my only link to the 1972 Boston Bruins, the team that won the franchise's last Stanley Cup. Esposito was known for his gritty play in front of the net, which often produced second-chance goals. He is the punch line to the most famous graffito in Boston sports history. "Jesus Saves" wrote an anonymous author with a religious turn of mind above a urinal; "Espo scores on the rebound!" a wag writes just underneath.
"Let's go to Nino's!"
Jordan's Furniture, Natick, Mass. Not Boston, but closer than Framingham. In the 1986 Eastern Conference Finals, the Celtics face a tough Milwaukee Bucks team led by Sidney Moncrieff. Celtics center Robert Parrish sprains his ankle as we're shopping for a couch--and comes back out after half-time to play hurt! There's a TV with the game on at the sales counter--I can't tear myself away as I watch Parrish gut it out in a demonstration that inspires his teammates to sweep the series. My wife asks me whether I prefer a bluish-green sofa, or one that's covered with red chintz. I say "Go with the blue-green one." She has buyer's remorse as soon as the thing is delivered and blames me. Parish retires in 1997, outlasting the couch by several years.
"Don't sit on the couch if you're sweaty!"
Beacon Street, Boston. On November 23, 1984, my girlfriend and I are scheduled to have dinner at a fashionable restaurant with her smug sister--an investment banker--and her husband. It is the fourth quarter of the Boston College-Miami game, with Miami leading 45-41. "John and Della are waiting out in the car," my girlfriend says. "There's only time for one more play," I say--"tell Della to blow it out her panty hose." My girlfriend starts to get all teary-eyed. "You and your stupid sports!" she says. "All right," I say and turn off the TV. Gerard Phelan catches Doug Flutie's "Hail Mary" pass and BC wins, 47-41. Thankfully, I have since been able to see the replay a few times.
"Cancel that reservation!"
Suggestion: Next time, call the restaurant and tell them you'll be a few minutes late, the ball is about to be snapped for the college freaking football play of the century.
"Look at the cute little kitty!"
Looney Tunes Records, Newbury Street, Boston. In 1987 I sell the only Michael Jackson album I ever owned--"Thriller"--at this used record store. Chuck Sullivan, son of New England Patriots' owner Billy Sullivan, organizes the Jackson Family "Victory Tour", which includes Michael, Jermaine, Tito, Randy, Marlon and Jackie Jackson--in fact, every Jackson since Andrew.
Andrew Jackson: He couldn't make it.
The tour is a financial disaster, leading to the sale of the Patriots to Victor Kiam, then to James Orthwein, who threatens to move the team to St. Louis. Instead, Robert Kraft purchases the team, and three Super Bowl victories are the improbable result of this "Butterfly Effect"--the notion popularized by mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz that the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas.
"Attention ladies and gentlemen--game five is cancelled."
Hanscom Field, Bedford, Massachusetts. It is here that, on October 28, 2004, I was scheduled to board a flight for St. Louis to see Game 5 of the 2004 World Series, which ended on October 27, 2004. Also not in Boston.
Bucky Bleepin' Dent.
Greenwich Village, New York. While technically outside the 617 area code, it is here that Bucky Dent hit his historic home run off Mike Torrez on a television in an apartment, propelling the New York Yankees to victory in a one-game playoff to decide the 1978 American League Eastern Division champions. I sat on a couch between two college classmates, both Yankee fans. I suppose it could have been worse, but only if I had been there in person.
ST. LOUIS, Missouri. Detroit pitcher Kenny Rogers, the oldest starting pitcher to win his first career postseason game but also the most immature, agreed with MLB commissioner Bud Selig to undergo a full body cavity search before taking the mound in game five of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
"C'mon--I double-dog-dare you!"
"Fine," said Rogers, "but I'm not cleaning up my locker."
Rogers was accused of using a foreign substance to "doctor" a baseball in the Tigers' win over the Cardinals in game two, but Selig said results of tests were inconclusive. "It may have been foreign to you, but it was native to Kenny."
Selig: "It was gross."
Rogers has had discipline problems in the past, attacking two photographers before a 2005 game against the Los Angeles Angels. Criminal assault charges against him were reduced when he agreed to complete an anger management course and had one of the photographers' heads mounted for display in his den.
"I did not pick my nose, you doofus!"
"I admit I had something on my hand," said Rogers as he pushed a reporter and an elderly woman seeking an autograph for her terminally-ill grandson to the ground. "I'm not going to tell you where it came from."
Bill Gluck, current president of the Society for American Baseball Research or "SABRE", said that the application of slippery or sticky substances to baseballs by pitchers is a common occurrence, and was in fact legal during the 19th century. "Guys like Joe 'Milk Train' Evans of the Cleveland Blue Sox would apply earwax, snot, or even toe jam to make a pitch dip precipitously as it approached the plate."
"Milk Train" Evans: Pioneer in use of goopy crud.
Rogers' battery mate Ivan Rodriguez, the first Hispanic-Russian-American catcher to play in the World Series, denied that Rogers used #### or gradu. "It was a form of phlegm, but it wasn't a booger," he said. "I don't want to get into specifics, but when Kenny pitches I don't need to use pine tar."
Rodriguez: "With Kenny pitching, I don't need pine tar!"
Rogers' history of aggressive behavior towards the media was cited by Baseball Tonight writer Mike Olson as the reason reporters were reluctant to press him on the issue of the mysterious brown spot on his hand in game two. "One time I asked him how he was feeling, and he said my wife wears her underwear for two days in a row, which is not true," said Olson. "Another time I asked him what time it was, and he threatened to come to my house and kill my gecko."
"He's like foaming at the mouth, yelling 'You want a piece of me?'"
Whatever Rogers used, it worked, as he extended his post-season scoreless pitching string to twenty-four and a third innings, and increased his league-leading Reporter Punch-Out Average to 2.41 per game.
There is, in this great land of ours, a cadre of fanatical extremists who move among us undetected, like a virus poised to attack when our resistance is low.
They survive on dried fruit and energy bars, like yuppie Bedouins. They move like gypsies from one location to the next, working in different locales in the morning, at noontime and at night, to avoid retribution. Like nomadic rug weavers, they carry the tools of their trade—water bottles and CD's with uptempo music—on their backs.
