Buzzer Beater

Final thoughts from the Sports Editor

When I first started at the Melrose Weekly News in January of 2007, I had no idea how to score a gymnastics meet, a swim meet or a wrestling meet — and I’m still a little foggy on cross country. But through countless hours of observation and the utter fear of sounding stupid, I’ve learned a lot covering sports in Melrose.
As I write my last article as Sports Editor of Melrose Weekly News, I can look back at the last three and a half years and feel confident in knowing that I learned a lot, learned it quickly and had a ton of fun along the way.
Because of the job I held, I saw high school records fall; I interviewed a World Series MVP, a U.S. Olympic athlete and got sound career advice from Dan Shaughnessy; I’ve seen Fenway Park from the press box and home plate and I’ve walked the parquet floor of The Garden. Of course I’ve also frozen my butt off at hockey games in Belmont, stood in the pouring rain at lacrosse and driven around aimlessly looking for Boston English High School.
I’ve learned that Melrose, like every other town, is very political — and sports is no exception to the politics. Sometimes it’s what you know, other times it’s who you know. Athletes, whether high school or professional, are not exempt from the scrutiny of their community. Sometimes they are held to a higher standard, and yet other times they are given a free pass. Melrose is no exception.
What I often forget in covering roughly 25 varsity sports a year is that despite the excitement of records being broken and dramatic runs through state tournaments, is that these are after all kids — children, essentially. Kids make mistakes. They do stupid things that they may regret for the rest of their lives and no one regrets it more than they.
Mistakes are what make us grow. You touch the stove as a two-year-old and you learn that’s not something you want to do again. Hopefully the student-athletes of Melrose are learning from their, and others’, mistakes.
I think Melrose is a good community with good kids, good parents, good coaches and a good athletic department that tries to hold kids accountable for their actions. It’s not as easy as it seems from the outside (see above, “politics”).
The next time a student-athlete does something regrettable, ask yourself this: Would you give back all the buzzer beaters, upsets, walk-off wins, rivalries, tournament runs and other proud moments to take back a regrettable decision? I don’t think you would; I don’t think they would; and I know I wouldn’t.
It’s been fun Melrose. I rooted for you harder than I rooted for my own high school when I was a student athlete (Malden, class of ‘90). You did for me exactly what high school sports is supposed to do for its athletes: Made me a part of something positive and taught me a lot in the four year process.

Calling it a season

August 30, 2010, the day you can mark as the end of the Boston Red Sox season. Don’t worry about the fact that the calendar reads that they have 31 games left — it’s over.
After holding leads in the sixth inning or later in all three games with the then Wild Card leading Tampa Bay Rays and managing just one win, the Sox have shown what they are made of.
They are a team with a poor bullpen, inconsistent starting pitching and position players who, if the entire team were healthy, would never have seen game time this season.
As much as we all want to “Believe” and “Cowboy Up,” it’s time to face reality. Never mind “there’s a lot of baseball left.” If the teams ahead of you keep winning, it doesn’t matter what you do, and the Yankees and Rays aren’t loosing and continue to flip-flop A.L. East and Wild Card spots.
Going into their three-game set with the American League’s worst team (Baltimore), the Sox were a distant seven games behind both New York and Tampa. That’s a lot of ground to make up and if they’re relying on guys like Ryan Kalish (.231), Bill Hall (.238) and Mike Lowell (.234) to come through in the clutch, well, don’t.
Managers around baseball, the A.L. East in particular, have said that the Sox lineup is still a threat to opposing teams. Scanning down the lineup and reading the names of David Ortiz, J.D. Drew and Victor Martinez might sound threatening but consider this: Those three “sluggers” are hitting a combined .270 while earning a combined $34.7 million this season.
Understandably, the Sox have endured injuries at every position — more than any other team in the league, by far — three catchers, three outfielders, two first basemen, two second basemen and so on.
Done for the season are Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia and Mike Cameron. Jacoby Ellsbury (.192) remains something of a mystery — the “Where’s Waldo” of the clubhouse.
In complete acts of desperation, the Sox have exhumed the bodies of Kevin Cash, Alan Embree, Carlos Delgado, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Scott Schoenweis and have parted ways with once highly-touted Ramon Ramirez and Jeremy Hermida.
Come to think of it, the season may have been over a month ago, when Theo, Terry and Larry failed to acquire a single arm to bolster an unreliable bullpen or a single bat to fill the spot of Jason Varitek, Youk, Pedroia, Cameron, Ellsbury, Lowell or any other A-listers who were battling injuries. If the ownership gave up a month ago, it seems like it’s time for the rest of us to call it a season too.
But I’ll be watching the Sox this weekend at Fenway... the White Sox, that is. Manny Ramirez will be in town with his new team and I, for one, will be cheering him on.

Tattered Sox

The Red Sox have limped their way to the half-way point on the 2010 season, and the fact that they are five games out of first place in the American League East and trail the Tampa Bay Rays by three games for the A.L. Wild Card shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise. The fact that they’re doing it without some of the key players in the League is nothing short of remarkable.
Looking at the Red Sox disabled list, a team could be formed — and a darn good one at that — at every position, consisting of players the Sox can’t use.
Tonight’s starting pitcher, Josh Beckett, out with a sore back since mid-May and expected to return sometime at the end of July. In the bullpen you have Clay Buchholz (hamstring), Manny Delcarmen and Junichi Tazawa.
Doing the catching is our fearless captain Jason Varitek. Booted with a broken bone in his foot, Tek can’t throw out sour milk anymore.
Playing first base, Victor Martinez, who also has a broken foot, or thumb or something somewhere in between, he was never very clear where it hurts. The only bad thing about being able to play multiple positions is when you go on the D.L., the team has multiple positions to fill.
At second base, Dustin Pedroia. He and Tek have matching boots and crutches — cute isn’t it? No. The red-hot little big man is going to be out another six weeks minimum.
Playing shortstop is the oft-injured Jed Lowrie, who has been on the DL since an ankle injury from a game of dodge-ball in the third grade. A few signs of the prospect he was thought to be made brief appearances last season, but don’t expect to hear his name announced at Fenway in 2010, unless it’s in the context of “Will the parents of Jed Lowrie please report to customer service to claim their missing child.”
At third base, the disgruntled veteran, under appreciated and overpaid Mike Lowell. That hip of his just doesn’t want to get right, unless he’s going to be in the lineup, then he’s fine. Just ask him.
In left field, Jeremy Hermida, who was acquired as a fourth outfielder, but soon became an everyday player. Hermida banged into Adrian Beltre (questionable at press time) and suffered some sort of rib injury, handing him the same fate as a dozen other “everyday players.”
Which brings us to center field. Jacoby Ellsbury appeared in a whopping nine games this season before he too pinballed off Beltre coming in from left field and ended up with cracked ribs, a sore abdomen and a tummy ache. I don’t normally enjoy saying “I told you so,” but if Ells had stayed put in center field instead of moving over for veteran (read as “old”) Mike Cameron, it would have never happened. Nonetheless, Ells has been the “Where’s Waldo” around the clubhouse as he “rehabs” at various facilities in South Florida and Arizona.
The Sox currently (knock wood) don’t have a disabled player in right field, but J.D. Drew and Cameron have both taken time off to heal their bumps and bruises.
Still waiting for the other shoe to drop? Kevin Youkilis (who can’t BUY a ticket to the All-Star Game) and Beltre have recently survived (or sucked up) minor injuries and have avoided time on the D.L.
With key injuries at nearly every position, the Sox have somehow managed to stay in the hunt and the three day break at the beginning of this week couldn’t have come at a better time.
The bright side? The injuries have given life to the stories of Darnell McDonald and Daniel Nava, introduced us to Eric Patterson and Gustavo Molina, re-introduced us to Kevin Cash and even backed us into a corner and forced us to cheer for Bill Hall.

Middle School football stepping on Pop's toes?

Sports is a business. There’s no way around it. No matter what level, or in what town, it’s still a business. And with every business there comes competition. Yet, according to comments recently posted on a website focusing on the North Shore, the new Melrose Middle School Junior Red Raiders football team is muscling its way onto the scene and pushing the long-standing Pop Warner program out of town.
The Middle School team (part of the Melrose Recreation Department), expected to begin this August, will take away some 60 seventh and eighth graders, who may have otherwise played on Pop Warner ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams. But, according to Melrose Pop Warner President Scott Brinch, there is room in town for both.
While Brinch believes that there may not be an ‘A’ and ‘B’ team this summer, Melrose can follow the models of Winchester, Brookline and Newton, which have middle school teams and Pop Warner ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ teams — and very successful football programs.
So what’s the problem? There really isn’t one. They are similar programs, and, as Melrose High School head football coach Tim Morris pointed out, the Middle School team is just an “alternative” for middle school aged kids.
Morris also pointed out that the Middle School team will not have a weight restriction on its players. In the past, an eighth grader who was over the 160 pound limit set by Pop Warner football, had no place to play football in Melrose — too big for Pop Warner, too young for high school. The Middle School team is expected to field a seventh grade team and an eighth grade team, leaving no one ineligible for play.
Both leagues begin their pre-season in August and participate in an eight game season. Similarities end there. While the registration cost is higher through the Recreation Department at $200 per player, Pop Warner charges $150 and also has a mandatory $100 in fund raising requirement, or the parent may contribute the $100 on his/her own — possibly totaling $250.
With the backing of the Friends of Melrose Football, it seems the fundraising for the Middle School team will be left up to the boosters.
Also, the Junior Red Raiders will hold practice after school as opposed to evening hours and has no weekend requirements; Pop Warner games are played on Sundays.
Was there a need for another football program in Melrose? Consider this: Melrose Pop Warner ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams combined suited up fewer than 50 participants in 2009, Brinch reported, and at the informational meeting held on March 24 for the Middle School team, 60-70 names were taken as interested candidates, according to Morris. It seems there was a need, and that need has been answered by the Recreation Department and the Friends of Melrose Football. And it seems that those in favor of Pop Warner are afraid of a little competition.

50 things you dont really need to know about me

this is harder than it seems. at first its hard to come up with 50, then it becomes hard to stop at 50. anyway, heres me in 50 lines:
1. i once got hit in the face with a shovel. it wasnt an accident.
2. i blow my nose in the shower...(and sometimes pee)
3. there are things about my childhood that i dont care to know and are probably preventing me from becoming an adult.
4. by the time i was 30 years old i had lived in exactly 30 different places of residence. ive stopped counting since then.
5. im smarter than you think i am, but not as smart as i think i am.
6. the same can be said for how funny i am.
7. i threw my brother through a sliding glass door when i was eight years old. he later told me tabasco sauce tastes like strawberries. touche.
8. i walked into a sliding glass door just days ago while text messaging. karma.
9. when he was 13 my brother moved away from me. i took it personally. i was 9, how was i supposed to know it wasnt about me?
10. when i turned 13 i moved to where he was.
11. i was involved in a drive-by shooting.
12. i got TB and had my appendix removed in china. not what i signed up for.
13. it took me 7 1/2 years to get through college and i graduated with a 2.9. ive never held a job that required my degree.
14. i took bowling and curling as part of my college curriculum. i aced them both. they dont count towards your GPA.
15. im often too lazy to eat.
16. im overqualified, underpaid and underappreciated -- and doing nothing about it.
17. im pretty sure i'll inherit my gradfather and fathers prostate.
18. basball takes over my life for about eight months of every year. i blame and thank my father for that.
19. for as long as i can remember ive tried to not be like my father. every day i discover another way that im exactly like him.
20. i could eat pizza every day.
21. i dont blame manny ramirez. he hated his job and tanked it. ive done that. i may do that tomorrow.
22. i want to be a father more than anything else in this life.
23. im sorry i dont keep in touch more.
24. i havent cried in years and i dont know why.
25. i watch reality tv -- to escape reality.
26. i have five tattoos and at one point or another in my life have had five different piercings.
27. i have manny ramirez's baseball card from when he was in high school and jacoby ellsbury's rookie card.
28. i marched in the macys thanksgiving day parade.
29. i rode my bike from iowa to maine with my father who was 67 years old at the time.
30. i am absolutely terrified of bats.
31. i havent finished a book in years.
32. i dropped out of college...twice.
33. ive eaten donkey penis. theres really not much to explain.
34. im very competitive and willing to prove it.
35. i do my own manscaping.
36. i worked at taco bell for one day.
37. i have more than a small addiction to doritos.
38. im allergic to tree nuts.
39. i was in a "rap band" during college.
40. i dated one of my college instructors. she gave me a B.
41. ive never lost anyone close to me. im not ready.
42. my mother is an amazing lady.
43. im too young to have back problems and too old to have pimples.
44. id sooner give up breating than give up coffee.
45. i think beer is a more sophisticated beverage than wine. beer drinkers on the other hand...
46. i have a copy of 'the catcher in the rye' in chinese; havent read that either.
47. im considering a career in sports betting.
48. ive had three stepfathers -- all named Bob.
49. i love shopping at Target.
50. ive got more skeletons than iParty.