What's so great about baseball? A 5-4-3 Triple Play.

In all of Red Sox history spanning over 100 years, this was the first "round the horn triple play" ever turned by the club. In the 20th century, only 60 of this variety - third to second to first - have been completed. It is considered one of the most difficult feats in major league sports.

In a previous post, I wrote that the "straight steal of home," which was accomplished by Jacoby Ellsbury in 2009 against the Yankees, was one of the rarest feats in baseball, but it turns out that the round the horn triple play is even more rare.

Seven World Championships in 10 years!

Bruins 2011


Celtics 2008


Red Sox 2007


Patriots 2005


Red Sox 2004


Patriots 2004


Patriots 2002

Now what this means is that there is still time for EIGHT Championship teams in a decade.

Red Sox 2011?

Here's an amazing thought. In 2001, no Boston sports team had won a championship since the 1986 Celtics -- a 15 year drought!

In 2001, the Pats had never won a championship, the Celtics hadn't won since 1986, the Bruins since 1972 and the Red Sox since 1918.

Now the Patriots are the team with the longest drought. They haven't won a championship in six years. Amazing! It's changed the psyche of the Boston sports fan.

Patriots - Dolphins DirecTV commercial

I laugh every time I see this. This pretty much nails New England sports fans. Someone on YouTube pointed out that this couldn't work with the Jets because there would be vandalism charges and jail time.

Manny's Redemption?

Manny Ramirez returned to Fenway Park for the first time in almost two years this past weekend. He received a mixed reaction by Boston fans who clearly have mixed feelings about Manny Being Manny. I was surprised to see that he returned to more boos than cheers. I say it's time to forgive Manny and receive him as one of the four great Hall of Fame left fielders that include Williams, Yaz and Rice who have played at Fenway.

The following appeared today in the Boston Globe:

Ramirez told Red Sox Spanish Beisbol Network play-by-play announcer Uri Berenguer Saturday that he regretted his transgressions in Boston. “There’s no reason I should have behaved that way in Boston,’’ Ramirez told Berenguer in a 45-minute private conversation in Spanish.

Berenguer said that Ramirez no longer speaks of retirement, and said that the length of his career will be determined by a higher power. Berenguer said Ramirez has found God, reads the Bible on a daily basis, and quoted scriptures constantly during their conversation.

Ramirez went 5 for 12 in the series, including two hits in each of the last two games, with a home run and a stolen base.

It's fun to be a Boston sports fan in May!

Up until last week, I was bemused by the fact that I could watch the Bruins in playoff hockey, the Celtics in playoff basketball and the Red Sox by flipping back and forth between channels during commercials. Or I'd go to a sports restaurant and watch all three at once.

What other city has that?

In case you are wondering: None. That's who. Only in Boston.

It's fun to be a fan in the Golden Era of Boston Sports!

And maddening ...

The Bruins

First, a word about the "great collapse." No one expected the Bruins to go anywhere this year. So when they knocked off the Sabres and went up by three games to none while the eighth seeded Canadiens were waiting in the wings, everyone began expecting the Stanley Cup to come back to Boston for the first time in almost 38 years. I distinctly remember the morning at the bus stop in 1972 when every kid in Framingham wore a Bruins cap and talked about Bobby Orr's and tried to act out his game winning goal flying through the air.

But 2010 was not to be. It was the fourth greatest collapse in postseason history by any professional team. To put it in perspective, this playoff run was made by a woefully inconsistent, streaky team that got as far as they did because they played as well as they could in three playoff series, but then lost four in a row just like they did many times in the regular season. It is maddening, but perfectly believable. On the bright side, they'll be back in the playoffs next year and the year after.

As Forrest Gump would say: "And that's all I have to say about that!"

Celtics

Ten down, six more wins to go!

In a recent blog post, I asked, Can the Celtics flip the switch?  I argued that they could still beat any team any time they are all healthy. They can go in a moment from being a sometimes-good-sometimes-mediocre team that blows big leads late in games, to being the Celtics that have won 17 World Championships.

In the postseason, they've become the creaky old veteran team that makes every young NBA star look bad. What is beautiful about this Celtics team is that they are so old school. They play team basketball. They have the "Big Four" in Allen, Garnett, Pierce, Rondo and the deepest supporting cast. Every other team they have faced has one superstar that they can neutralize. They made the best player in the NBA, Lebron "King" James, look so awful he actually quit trying in game six of the quarter finals. They are in the process of making Dwight "Superman" Howard look even worse. Then they can beat you offensively with four different players -- one per quarter.

I'll go further out on a limb with a prediction. The Celtics are going to sweep the Magic by taking the next two games in Boston and arrive with fresh legs to play over-rated west coast team. They are now 62.5 percent of the way to their 18th banner. Then they have Rajon Rondo coming on strong. The Celtics will be playoff bound for years to come.

Red Sox

As Mark Twain would say, "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."
40 games into the season, the Sox have won 20 games and lost 20 games.

"Everyone knows that the season is ovah!"

Right?

Not so fast. What has done in the Red Sox so far is inconsistent pitching and numerous games lost by one or two runs. The prognosis at the beginning of the year was that they had the best pitching staff in baseball -- a fearsome starting line-up with three aces and three more quality starters. They had Gold Gloves in half their defensive positions. On paper, they were supposed to be the best defensive team in recent history. The big concern was an aging offense in Ortiz, Varitek, and Lowell with too few younger sluggers in the starting line-up.

Ironically, the pitching and defense has been bumpy to say the least. But this will right itself. Still people are saying that this team is too far behind to gain any ground on the Rays and the Yankees, who have played stellar baseball in the first month and a half.

But hold the phone!

As of today these are the offensive statistics for the Red Sox:

First in the Majors in Runs Scored (210)
First in the Majors in Hits (378)
Second in the Majors in Home Runs (55)
Second in the Majors in Total Bases (636)
Third in the Majors in Slugging Percentage (.454 SLG)
Third in the Majors in On Base plus Slugging (.804 OPS)

This is without two of the key members of their starting line-up, Mike Cameron and Jacoby Ellsbury, who have been out for almost all of the season so far, but will both be back by next week. When the starting pitching clicks into place, the Red Sox will go on a tear that could last most of the season. Six games behind in the Wild Card standings is nothing at this point in the season. I won't guarantee they will win the division. But I predict the Red Sox will be in first place either in the division or the Wild Card at some point before September.

Let me pick a random date: How about July 23rd? That's day I have right field box seats at Fenway Park. It will be vs. the Detroit Tigers -- Johnny Damon's triumphant return from disgrace -- the first player since Babe Ruth to win World Series rings with New York and Boston! That is a good omen if there ever was one. I'll write a blog entry on July 24th and report on where they are at in the standings.

Patriots

Hey, it's May! If you are thinking about football already you are not from Boston.

The Big Bad Bruins are back!

The Bruins and the Flyers are facing each other in the playoffs for the first time since 1978!

If you lived in New England in the 1970s, you know the Bruins' archrivals were the Canadiens and the Flyers. Montreal were the skaters and Boston and Philly were the fighters. Bruins and Canadiens fans were known for their knowledge of the game and Flyers fans were not. They used to boo the Canadian national anthem in Philadelphia. Boston radio sportscaster, Johnny Most, used to say, "They hate us because they have to live there and we don't."

Most also once said on the air, "Mrs. Abdul-Jabbah, Ya son is a cowahd!" If you don't know who Johnny Most was, you still might know his famous holler during the 1965 Celtics championship game, "Havlicek stole the ball!"

But I digress.

The point is that the Bruins met the Flyers in the playoffs four times from 1974 to 1978 and split the series match-ups 2-2.

I was at game one of the Stanley Cup semi-finals in 1978 with my friend Doug. We were high school sophomores and had to get the "T" from Riverside to North Station. My mother gave us season ticket seats that strangely no one at her work place wanted. We sat in the loges, two rows of balcony seats that hung out over the ice. (This is where Red Auerbach used to sit during Celtics games.) Less than a minute into the game, all the Bruins and Flyers players' gloves were on the ice and they were going at it. I remember my friend screaming, "This is EXCELLENT!" Yes, it was playoff hockey in the Boston Garden. This was the Boston team most likely to go all the way in 1978.

The only downside was that game one went into overtime and we ran the risk of missing the last train back to Riverside if we missed it. We hadn't left the building when the Bruins scored a goal in the first few minutes of overtime to win it. I remember Doug jumping up and down in the "tunnel" as we heard it on the transistor radio I was carrying as we also heard the crowd erupt inside. The Bruins won the series 4-3 and went on to lose in the Stanley Cup finals.

This year, the first game of the Bruins-Flyers series was won by the Bruins once again in the first few minutes of overtime. It was deja vu all over again. I was watching the game and got up for a second and missed it. That's what makes hockey "the fastest game on ice." If you blink for a micro-second, you can miss the outcome of the game.

The real irony though is that if you asked Boston fans a few weeks ago which team had the best chance of next winning a world championship, they would have been divided between the other three teams. Right now, it's the Bruins who look the best.

Below: Bruins players attack a harrassing fan in Philadelphia in the 1970s.

Can the Celtics flip the switch?

One down, fifteen to go!

The Celtics won the 2007/2008 NBA Championship as the team with the best record and home court advantage throughout the playoffs. In the first two rounds, they looked like a team playing on cruise control. They sauntered through the playoffs with the presumption of the divine right of kings. The Celtics took four of of seven against the Atlanta and Cleveland by winning every game at home and losing every game on the road. It was frustrating to watch the 2008 Celts struggle against inferior teams after they had amassed 66 wins in the regular season. But then they "flipped the switch" against Detroit and L.A. showing they were the best in the NBA because they were the best defensive team.

The last two years saw the Celtics playing much of the season with injuries to the "big three" and a depleted bench. Finally, the whole team is healthy and the bench is deeper than it has been since June 2008. The team still showed gross inconsistency in the home stretch of the "preseason" -- as we are now once again accustomed to think of the prelude to NBA playoffs in Boston. The team has been insisting that they were running on cruise control, protecting the health of their starters for the playoff run. During that time, it has been frustrating to watch them blow big leads in the fourth quarter running out of steam after showing flashes of brilliance and dominance early in games.

Can they flip the switch again? Can a team with tired old legs turn on the defensive prowess they showed in 2007/2008 and make a run all the way to the finals? The regular season showed that Boston is capable on any day of being the better team against any opponent either at home or on the road. But can they do it for 16 wins in the playoffs?

If game one against the Heat was any indication, then we see in the fiery indignation of Kevin Garnett something like the transformation of Prince Hal into King Henry V:

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. - Henry V. Act 1. Scene 1.

Here's the key. The Celtics need to finish off the Heat in four or five games and enable their starters to rest for a few days. Then as the fourth seed, they will find themselves squared off against the best team in the NBA, the Cleveland Cavaliers, in the second round. It's simple matter of getting past the second round. Then they have an even shot at an 18th banner. (The Celtics don't hang anything but World Championship banners in the Garden.)

Kevin Garnett is out tonight with a suspension. If the Celtics can win game two at home, having a rested Garnett for the next two games in Miami will be a plus. This is it. With the Bruins not likely to go too far in their playoff run, it's the best chance for another world championship in Boston.

At least until October, that is.