Liking the Bruins More and More These Days...

Following up on Kyle's great post the other day about people's alliances to Boston teams, I'm starting to like the Bruins more and more. Want to know why? As they say, a picture's worth a thousand words...

Image courtesy: Boston.com & NESN.com

10 Things I Think I Think

Anyone here read Peter King of Sports Illustrated? I'm assuming most of you have. He writes a weekly column called Monday Morning Quarterback -- a must read if you follow football at all. My main reason for mentioning him is that within his MMQB column, he has a section called "Ten Things I Think I Think." Given my lack of contribution to Big Papelbon (other than in the comments section), I felt like I needed a more substantive post with some current thoughts on the Boston sports scene. Here goes:

1. Missed the Celtics season opener the other night. Saw the highlights on ESPN though and I'll tell you what... the 2009 Celts are going to be a tough team this season provided they stay healthy. What a great combo of veterans (Pierce, Garnett, Allen, 'Sheed, House and Daniels) and youth (Davis, Perkins, Allen and Williams).
2. Following up on point number one, LeBron IS a human highlight film. However, I'm going to reiterate that if he doesn't learn to be more reliant on his teammates (Shaq might help that), championships are going to continue to be elusive.
3. Cliff Lee. Game 1 of the World Series. WOW. Enough said.
4. Sounds like the Red Sox might make a run at Ben Sheets. Yeah, I know that the last few science experiments with Mssrs. Penny and Smoltz didn't work out so well. But this one's got nothing but upside considering the fact that they've already got three legit studs in Beckett, Lester and DiceK and a stud in the making with Clay Buchholz. Sounds like the Sox interest in Adrian Gonzalez is also heating back up. The idea is that Gonzalez (40 HRs in 2009) would play first and Youk would bounce back to third.
5. What about them Patriots? True, they last two teams they've played are a combined 0-12 but good teams beat bad teams soundly. And the Pats have done just that winning 59-0 and 35-7 respectively -- both times in bad weather. Looks like Brady's fate will rise and fall based on the presence of his security blanket, Wes Welker. Nice to see them at 5-2 going into the break. I pity the next nine teams that have to play them.
6. University of Texas has two teams ranked number three in the country right now. Everyone in Austin knows that the men's football team is one of them. How many Longhorn fans/Austinites know that the men's basketball team (preseason coaches' poll) is the other?
7. Good to see the A-Rod we all know and love (kills it in the regular season/chokes in the post season) resurface for the World Series. He's batting a stellar 0-8 with 6 strikeouts. Even if the Yankees win, this makes me oddly happy.
8. If Garnett, Allen, 'Sheed and Pierce can all stay healthy this season (yes, that's a huge IF), the Celtics could win 70 games. Just sayin'.
9. Regarding the Bruins (5-5-1), I hope they do well this season. Beyond that, I got nothing for ya. Not the biggest NHL fan.
10. Best wishes to Brad Mills, former Red Sox bench coach, who was named manager of the Houston Astros. Hopefully he'll bring a little of that Boston/Philly mojo to the 'Stros. It would be nice to see them get back into the hunt.

Friday Musings, April 26 (Saturday Edition)

Today is draft day in the NFL. Interestingly, in spite of this being one of the deeper drafts in recent years, few of the top 10 draftees are household names. In fact, unless you follow college football religiously, you may not know any of the top picks with the possible exceptions of Mssrs. Ryan (BC) and McFadden (Arkansas).

The big question in my mind is do the Patriots sit tight and pick at number at number 7? Or do they trade down in the draft and pick up two later round number ones. My money is on the latter but who knows - it's hard to read the minds of football savants Pioli and Belichick.

Onto this weeks musings...

• * It's too early to get too high or too low with the Red Sox but these last few games are killing me. Last night's 5-4 loss to the D-Rays was one of those losses that you could see coming. The Sox couldn't get out of their own way leaving 10 guys on base and hitting into double play after double play. The guy that is really killing the Sox right now is Ortiz. Because he's done so much over the last few years, we should all be willing to cut him a season's worth of slack. But if he can't get it together, something has to be done - not sure what that "something" is but maybe a few games on the bench or a move into the 6-9 slot in the line up.
  
• * Props to the Bruins for proving me wrong. The showed some serious testicular fortitude by making their series against Montreal interesting. It would have been very cool if they could have knocked off the Habs but honestly, the B's had too many injuries/shortcomings to go deep into the playoffs. Not a bad season all in all.
• * The Pistons can't be feeling good about being down 2-1 to the Sixers right now. My guess is that Detroit will come back and win the series but instead of a 4-0 sweep, they need to go at least six games. Loving the Celts being up 2-0 (and hopefully 3-0 after tonight).
• * Speaking of love, how smart is Theo Epstein looking right now with young stud after young stud coming up through the minor league system. Justin Masterson looked phenomenal in his surprise outing the other day. Jed Lowrie is delivering "as advertised" and that's in addition to already solid citizens like Dustin Pedroia, Jon Lester, Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Bucholtz and Jon Papelbon.
  

Many more thoughts but if I want to get this post out today, I've got to keep it short and sweet. What's on your mind this week?

Toivonen for Soderberg Trade

An amusing e-mail exchange between me and my man Joey M. following yesterday's Tovionen for Soderberg trade. Thought you all might get a kick out of it

-----Original Message-----

From: Boston.com Newsletters [mailto:newsletters@boston.com]
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 5:01 PM
To: Aaron S.
Subject: Breaking Sports Alert: Toivonen traded

Hannu Toivonen has been traded to the St. Louis Blues in exchange for forward Carl Soderberg.

To read more, visit http://www.boston.com

-----Original Message-----

From: Aaron S.

Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 5:00 PM
To: Joe M.
Subject: FW: Breaking Sports Alert: Toivonen traded

Is this a good thing or bad thing? I know Toivonen is decent (he was our goalie, right?). Is Soderberg any good?

-----Original Message-----

From: Joe M.
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 9:47 AM
To: Aaron S.
Subject: RE: Breaking Sports Alert: Toivonen traded

Hey, what's up...

Not sure if it is good or bad, never heard of Soderberg, unless he is the guy that directs movies... then it would be good..

Honestly..Who f*ing cares... the B's are so irrelevant it is not even funny. Not sure which team in pro-sports that is mired in failure that you can compare them to...

You can't compare them to the KC Royals/Tampa Bay, because the B's have spent money, but not well.

You can't compare them to the Washington Redskins, because they have spent money and gotten little performance for it... because as crazy as Dan Snyder is he at least will go after the big name proven guys without hesitation... and not sit on his hands while free agents that could help go to other teams without any B's interest

You can only compare them to themselves..haven't done anything in the playoffs in years on the rare occasion they have made it... and 36 years since last Cup...

( Although the Celtics are going to make a run at them soon )