Saturday, March 3, 2007

The Starving Times

Boston is a complicated Sports town, and can perhaps best be analyzed from afar. There are those who would say that Cape Cod just may be far enough away- both physically and culturally- to properly shot call on the local 4.

The reason I say this is because we are in Sorry Times as far as winter sports go.The Bruins are so absolutely irrelevant that I defy any reader here to name more than 5 of them. This sucks, because Boston was undeniably a hockey town from September through April for most of my life, and they were Good Times.

Boston has the star power of a cloudy night, possesses the draw of an asthmatic hooker, and a 1000 foot giant could probably beat the Bruins by spinning three rows of 6 foot plastic Foosball players against them. There may be no franchise in any sport in the entire world that needs the next great superstar to fall into their laps more than our beloved Boston Bruins.

Speaking of waiting for the next great superstar to arrive, gather 'round and watch the Celtics limp home to a 20 win season that would make M.L. Carr vomit blood. We'll get into the Celtics in a separate article... but the short version is that we need to lose every game possible while hoping that both Kevin Durant and Greg Oden forego their remaining college eligibility.

With both the Celtics and the Bruins blowing like the mighty East wind, there has been an upswing of youth violence in the Boston area.Children are left with the choice of

A) watching the Bruins or Celtics lose
B) Abusing Drugs and Sex
C) Concentrating On Their Schoolwork.

They naturally gravitate towards B, which at least might be fun.I'd drink on Oxycontin and date-rape classmates when faced with those options, as well. Kids tend to think in terms of Now, and often can't see the forest of the future for the trees of the present. The present isn't pretty, presently.

Today's kids stand in unique territory as far as this phenomena goes. If the Red Sox are having a bad year, you can go to the beach. The Patriot bad years occur as school is starting and the holiday season is rolling.... it's sort of over before you realize how bad it is.

Generally- and you can look this up- the Bruins suck during the years that the Celtics are dominant, and the rebuilding years for the Celtics generally occur during seasons in which the Bruins make a deep playoff run. Bill Russell quit as Bobby Orr rose to prominence, and the Big Bad Bruins filled the gap between Havlicek and Larry Bird.

When they both suck at the same time... well, a New England sports fan is has pretty much nothing but an April 15th IRS date between the end of the Patriot season and the start of Red Sox season. That's a long, cold winter of Bitter Loss, and God would probably understand if you had to kill someone on the subway or something.

While waiting for the NFL Draft, there exist a few things which just may bring a smile to the face of the New England sports fan:

- The Patriots went crazy at the mall and came home with Adalius Thomas, or somone with a first name spelled sort of like that.While AT doesn't have a Sprite commercial, he is- by far- the biggest free agent signing that will be made in the NFL this year.

For those of you not in the Know about these kind of things, AT is a 6'2", 270 pound guy who is fleet afoot. While basically a linebacker, he can easily shift over to defensive end... and he even can swing out to play some safety if you want him to. He was good for 100 tackles and 11 sacks last season for a Ravens defense that allowed 9 points a game, and he's a bargain at whatever we're paying him.

He's cut from the Troy Brown mold in regards to versatility, but he will have a far greater play-by-play impact. Kaiser Bill has most likely already mastrubated over getting this guy, and will relish the prospect of unleashing this kid out of a storm of defensive schemes.

I'll share two stories I've read about AT. One involved him swinging out to cornerback to cover Bengals All-Pro wideout Chad Johnson. "Get your big, slow, black ass back to defensive end before I make you look foolish," said the reticent Johnson. When the whistle blew, our new player smashed into Johnson and drove him back about 30 yards. Needless to say, they didn't throw the ball to him on that play.

Another story involved Buddy Ryan, watching that very same play over and over on videotape.Thomas brings a rare package of Size, power, Speed, and Skill to the ballgame. Ryan, the defensive guru who designed the 46 defense that stomped all over the Patriots in 1986, made a point of establishing that moment for posterity.

"Applying the theory of evolution to football.... in 10 years, when every player is 270 pounds and lightning fast, they'll look back and wonder when the great leap forward occurred.. It began right here, with Adalius Thomas."

The Pats were 30 minutes from a cupcake Super Bowl win last season, and the collapse of their elderly linebacker corps pretty much sealed our fate in the AFC title game.All they needed was just a little help at linebacker.. and instead, they're getting a guy who is most likely far better than anyone they had out there.

The Colts are hamstrung by the salary cap, and won't be getting any better. They were barely 3 points better than us last year, and we just pulled an ace out of the deck that I'm betting they won' be able to match.I bet Peyton Manning winced when he saw that we signed Adalius Thomas.

This Pats fan is positively drooling over the prospect of next season, especially with a nice juicy NFL draft waiting to feed more players into our System.


- Another glimmer of hope sliced through that violent gale last Friday like a samurai sword, when Dice K took the mound in Florida against some awe-struck BC kids. His first pitch was ripped for a double, but Dice struck out three and looked to be very, very sharp.

Much like Adalius Thomas, Dice K is apotential superstar with an impossible-to-spell name that just fell into our laps out of nowhere. A rotation featuring him, Schilling, Beckett, and company looks to be right around the best in baseball, and the Manny/Papi combo should give them a lot of leads to protect.

 

- This is a little late for Valentine's Day, but that may be a good thing when discussing Celtic guard Delonte West. Here's a link to him describing his dream date. I won't spoil the details, but it is handy that Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits keeps the Sail-Thru window open late on Valentine's Day to accomopdate romance-minded ghetto yachtsmen.

the mighty mjd sports blog » Blog Archive » I Can Be Romantic, But This Is Real… We’re Going To Eat Some Chicken Tonight

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It could be worse-you could be a Chicago Blackhawks fan. No franchise has ever been more obliterated by its owners.

Anonymous said...

LOL.. you are so funny!  Yeah, the Pat's did good on the AT deal.  I remember when the Bruins were a force to contend with and a cool rival for us NY/NJ people... sorry about that....  May they be reborn someday...

be well,
Dawn
http://journals.aol.com/princesssaurora/CarpeDiem/

Anonymous said...

Dear Green Dragon,
what awonderful entry! thanks a ton
love,nat