Tossing Batting Practice…while wondering why anyone who doesn’t root for the Celtics would want to kill Tony Allen…

I apologize for the brief intermission this month, school, and coaching caught up to me a bit, and my creativity just kind of waned. Anyway back to smarmy mundane and sometimes obvious comments about everyday sporting life.

The good news is Allen probably wont have anything to worry about regarding his safety in Chicago for game 6, if his alleged assailant is a Bulls fan. The guy played tonight like he was a BC hoopster circa the late 70s Henry Hill was showering him with coke and hookers.

I have found Paul Pierce to be one of the most frustrating athletes in Boston sports of my lifetime, but even though I hate the little post up at the top of the key, take a dribble and fadeaway move, it worked perfect tonight and I have to tip my cap to him, he certainly came up when the team needed it most.

I have no idea why Vinny Del Negro keeps calling timeouts to draw up plays, it seems pretty rudimentary to me.
Clear out, pick and roll for Rose, spread the floor with Gordon and Salmons and let Rose make a good decision.
Then again he didn’t do that any of the times he called timeout, thus further proving that nobody intelligent has ever come out of Western. Mass.

I got back from class just in time to see Ray Allen foul out, honestly I didn’t think there could have been a more unpredictable revelation, even if you told me Miki Moore had 40 (I mean he has to have scored double figures once in his life on some level right? He is in the NBA?).
But then I saw Stephon Marbury enter for defensive purposes, late in the game and that took home the big teddy bear in the carnival game of guessing the most improbable occurence in a game.

A big thumbs up to Kevin Harlan for the reverse jinx before Miller’s free throws, when he stated the Bulls had made 16 straight from the line.
Joe Buck and Don Orsillo proudly acknowledge your excellent work.

It’s my favorite time of year, playoff time in the NBA and NHL, and one of my favorite aspects of this time of year is the amount of teams that go up 3-0 in a series. Inevitably whenever this happens, the graphic pops up about the teams that have completed the comeback, its usually followed by the Dave Roberts steal, and it gets a little dusty in here.


I appreciate Big Baby Davis and all the hard work he does, but he really can’t finish underneath in traffic. So it’s frustrating that the Celtics don’t realize this and still pass it to him down there.

Not really a lot to say about the Sox right now, I’m loving the depth of our bullpen, though I can’t help but wonder if Papelbon has gotten a little too big for his britches and is maybe coming back to earth a bit.

I refuse to gloat, (a lot) about a series ion April, we’ve won far too many of those over the years, and surely the Yanks pitching will square itself away, as will its offense.
As long as the Devil Rays keep underachieving I’ll feel ok, the regular season is just a daily distraction until September anyway.

It was awesome to see Ellsbury steal home (that’s the kind of in depth analysis you get here at TBP).

I was at the Billy Hatcher steal of home game got to see it develop because I was sitting in the alley between homplate and the first base dugout in the lower bowl, back when it didn’t cost 1/8th of a semester’s tuition at a private university to sit there.
That was one of the coolest things I had ever seen when I was 11 years old.

It's really great to have Julio Lugo back, I mean he dropped that routine double play ball, where he looked like my grandmother trying to catch a fastball, and clearly his karma extended to everything else around the team, especially Lopez dropping the easy flip to lose the game.

Is Julio Lugo spanish for Tony Allen?


As most of you know I went to one of the most liberal schools in America, basically a student body of crazy hippies. While I always assumed all college students tend to be closer to the left in terms of political and social beliefs, but apparently not.
In a class presentation tonight, I heard one girl refer to a crucial Civil War battle as
“when WE lost the war.” I mean 140 years later, they still haven’t gotten over it, so I guess there’s little to no hope I’ll ever recover from the Super Bowl that shall not be named, or the League Championship series that never happened.
I was speechless at first, then had to use every ounce of self restraint not to laugh, or ask a question about the odd use of the word We.

Later in a presentation a kid tried to argue for less gun control, by stating the number of accidental deaths caused by doctors is far greater percentage wise than the number of accidental deaths caused by guns.
I’m still waiting for the answer on number of intentional deaths caused by Doctors relative to guns.

So our old rivals the Carolina Hurricanes will be coming to Boston for the playoffs. I must dust off my Primeau sucks chant from 1998.
Perhaps some little high school miscreants can replace me, Dunneski and Mule throwing super balls on the ice, and lofting paper airplanes in the balcony during this series.

That will be the extent of the hockey analysis for now, I promise of this series lasts longer than four or five games I might know the names of the majority of the players, (spelling probably not) and with it some hockey analysis.

I did have a “they were better in my day” moment the other night when I heard someone compare Milan Lucic (who apparently is neither a pompous eastern European fashion designer, nor a neighborhood in an Italian city) to Cam Neely.
Despite having seen Lucic (sp?) only a handful of times, I am steadfast in my belief that nobody had the power, speed and scoring combination of number 8.

Somewhere Mike O’Connell, a former youth hockey instructor of mine, is somewhat vindicated as Joe Thornton is golfing already again. I hope he’s a scratch golfer at this point in his career, though I’m sure if you put anything of value on the line (i.e. anything but his pride) he’d fold like an accordion.