Sports Chowdah Update- Are You Ready For Some Football? So Is the NFL; Ain't it Grand? Lucky #1000 For Papi, Francona

PATRIOTS: The philanthropist wife of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft passed away last week. Myra Kraft, 68, had been fighting cancer for an extended period of time.

The daughter of Lithuanian immigrants who settled in Worcester in the 1930s, Myra Kraft was active in the United Way of Massachusetts Bay, Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston and Boys & Girls Club of Boston and managed the New England Patriots Charitable Foundation and Kraft Family Foundation. For the past two years, Myra had served as chair of the board of directors for the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley.

In leiu of flowers, the Kraft family has asked that donations be made to the Myra & Robert Kraft Giving Back scholarship fund for the Boys & Girls Club of Boston.

NFL: Almost as an afterthought, the NFL lockout has come to an end. The final major obstacle appeared to be the implementation of a wage system for rookie players, which was cleared last week and approved by the NFL player's association.

Since then, this has set off a flurry of trades, free agent signings and transactions that had been building for months, since free agents couldn't be signed while the lockout was still in effect.

The New England Patriots acquired Defensive Tackle Albert Haynesworth from the Washington Redskins in exchange for a 5th round pick in the 2013 draft. The Redskins signed Haynesworth to a big money contract in 2008 that included a then-NFL record $41 million in guaranteed money.

The Pats also signed flamboyant former Bengals WR Chad Ochocinco to a 3 year deal, although it wasn't immdiately disclosed what the Bengals got in return [aside from peace & quiet- NANESB!]

Other noteworthy transactions in the past couple of days include the Miami Dolphins reportedly finalizing a trade deal that would New Orleans Saints RB Reggie Bush to South Beach. Free agent quarterback Matt Hasselbeck left Seattle after signing a multi-year deal with the Tennessee Titans after they cut Vince Young.


MLB: Red Sox Manager Terry Francona notched career managerial win #1000 in Saturday's 3-1 win over the Seattle Mariners. True to form, the understated manager downplayed the milestone in the postgame press conference.

[On a personal note, I sometimes shudder to think where the Red Sox might've ended up without Francona. Not just the 2004 and 2007 World Series, but bouncing back from that atrocious 2-12 start this season- NANESB!]

The Red Sox managed to sweep the Mariners over the weekend before playing host to the Kansas City Royals. During that series, another milestone was reached.


On Wednesday's game against the Royals, David Ortiz scored his 1000th RBI with Boston in memorable fashion as he belted a Bruce Chen offering into the bullpen with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 5th to break the game wide open for Boston. The grand slam ties Papi with SS Rico Petrocelli (1963-1976) for 2nd all time in Red Sox history- Ted Williams has 17 to his name.

Dustin Pedroia also extended a career-best hitting streak to 24 games and John Lackey didn't have to worry about much in the way of run support in Wednesday night's 12-5 win over the Royals.

However, the series was bookended by close losses to Kansas City, with Monday night's 14-inning 3-1 loss and Thursday's 4-3 loss. Josh Beckett Gave up a 3-run homer to KC DH Billy Butler and an RBI double by 3B Mike Moustakas to give KC the 4-2 lead in the top of the 4th during Thursday's day game that would turn out to be the game-winner. Dustin Pedroia made it a 1-run game and kept his hitting streak alive with a solo homer in the bottom of the 8th, but Joakim Soria was able to close out the game for KC in the bottom of the 9th after giving up a 1-out single, preserving the Royal's 4-3 win.

The Red Sox will next travel to Chicago from some Sox on Sox action when they take on the White Sox Friday night. Tim Wakefield (6-3; 5.15 ERA) gets the start against Gavin Floyd (8-9; 4.11 ERA) and the game will start at 8:10 PM ET, 7:10 Central.

ELSEWHERE IN MLB: Former Yankees and Expos pitcher Hideki Irabu was found dead in his Southern California home on Wednesday afternoon. Irabu was billed as 'Japan's Nolan Ryan' when he signed with the Yankees in 1997. The San Diego Padres had originally purchased his contract from the Chiba Lotte Marines, but he refused to join San Diego, insisting he would only play for the Yankees.

Irabu had been playing in Japan and for Long Beach in the independent Western League after falling well short of the high expectations for him in New York. Between 2008 and 2010, Irabu was also arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct and suspicion of DUI by police in both California and Japan.

ANGELS: After giving up an unearned run on a wild pitch in the bottom of the 1st inning, the Angel's Ervin Santana threw a no-hitter against the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field on Wednesday afternoon. Santana struck out 10 and walked one (the batter in the 1st inning reached on an error) in nine no-hit innings of work. Santana pitched the 1st complete game no-hitter for the Angels since 1984 behind Mike Witt and their first no-hitter since 1990- 7 no-hit innings from Mark Langston and the final two hitless innings from Mike Witt, again.

The win was Santana's first against the Tribe in 11 starts and the first no-hitter thrown at Jacobs/Progressive Field.

NATIONAL LEAGUE: The San Francisco Giants have acquired Mets outfielder Carlos Beltran for righty prospect Zach Wheeler. Boston, Texas, Atlanta and Philadelphia were among the rumored destinations where Beltran would end up by the trade deadline, but Wednesday's trade ended that speculation.

On Thursday, the Chicago Cubs dealt outfielder Kosuke Fukudome to the Cleveland Indians for minor leaguers Abner Abreu and Carlos Smith. This season, Fukudome had a .279 batting average with three homers and 13 RBI in 87 games with the Cubs.

NCAA FOOTBALL: Former Boston College linebacker and cancer survivor Mark Herzlich was signed as an undrafted free agent by the NY Giants last week.

He was cleared to play after a routine checkup on Monday. Interestingly, Herzlich is one of 14 players to have an NFL Flims camera crew follow him as the league is documenting their transition from pre-draft workout to their first NFL game.

Spring Cleaning Sports Chowdah- Orange (County) Crushed, Sox Sweep Halos in 4; B's Negotiate Way Past Price in 2OT; C's Send Spike Lee Home Unhappy

MLB: After taking the first two games from the Angels, the Red Sox went for the 4 game sweep in Orange county. Not only did they manage to win the final 2 games of the series against the Angels, they got back-to-back shutouts from what many had considered the weakest part of Boston's 5-man rotation.

On Saturday night, Daisuke Matsuzaka brought down his ERA even further by throwing eight innings of one-hit shutout baseball and got run support from a Kevin Youkilis 2-run homer and RBI's from Varitek, Adrian Gonzalez and even Carl Crawford. After giving up a leadoff single to Erick Aybar in the bottom of the 9th (the Angels 2nd hit of the game), Daniel Bard got the next three batters in order to close out the 5-0 Red Sox win.

On Sunday, John Lackey went up against his former team and allowed 6 hits and a walk scattered throughout 8 innings of work while the Red Sox gave him some run support right out of the gate with RBI hits from Adrian Gonzalez and David Ortiz in the top of the first as well as another run coming in on a fielder's choice off the bat of Mike Cameron to jump out to a 3-0 lead.

The Red Sox would add to that lead on a Pedroia sac-fly, 2-run Carl Crawford homer and Adrian Gonzalez single to make it 7-0, and Dan Wheeler would come out in the bottom of the 9th for a 1-2-3 inning to close out the 7-0 win and sweep the long weekend series in Orange County, winning the final 2 games by a composite score of 12-0.

Boston is 5-1 on the Left Coast jaunt of their road trip and 8-2 in their last 10 games. Their road trip will bring them back a little closer to Boston on Tuesday night when they take on the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards. Clay Buccholz (1-2; 5.31 ERA) is scheduled to get the start against Baltimore's Zach Britton (3-1; 3.16 ERA) with first pitch at 7:05 ET.


NHL: Both Tim Thomas and Carey Price were outstanding in net on for Saturday night's game in the Garden. The Bruins were unable to get anything by Price in the first two periods, but managed to take a 1-0 lead 4 and a half minutes into the 3rd on a Brad Marchand goal. With just under 6 minutes remaining in regulation, Montreal came back and found the back of the net on an even strength Jeff Halpern goal, tying the game and eventually forcing sudden death overtime.

The score would remain knotted at 1-1 through the first overtime, but with just under 11 minutes remaining in the 2nd OT, Nathan Horton would break the deadlock.
Tim Thomas stopped 44 of 45 shots faced in both regulation and OT while Carey Price faced 51 shots on Saturday, turning aside 49 of them.

The Bruins take the series lead for the first time by a margin of 3-2 and have the opportunity to close out the series on Tuesday night in Montreal. Game 6 from the Bell center will be braodcast live on NESN, the NHL Network and CBC with the puck dropping at 7:00 PM ET.


NBA: Despite the first two games not being decided until the final 20 seconds of so of regulation, the Celtics dispatched the Knicks in a particularly brutal and efficient fashion on Easter Sunday.

Even after Spike Lee's apperance in One Day at Fenway, I'm enjoying the schadenfreude. Or perhaps because of it. Either way...

The Celtics pretty handily won Game 4 by a final of 101-89 and swept the series with the Knicks.

Kevin Garnett had 26 points and 10 rebounds while Rajon Rondo had 21 points and 12 assists in Sunday afternoon's romp. Big Baby came off the bench for 14 points while Carmello Anthony led the Knick's scoring with 32 points in the losing effort.

After having taken care of New York so swiftly, the C's will now have to play the waiting game (unless they decide the waiting game sucks and play Hungry Hungry Hippos instead), awaiting the outcome of the Miami Heat/Philadelphia 76ers series to find out who their next opponent will be.

Good Friday Indeed Sports Chowdah Update- Sox, B's Working Overtime on the Road; C's Take 3-0 Series Lead on Knicks

MLB: As painful as it was to see some of the missed opportunities and stranded runners, the Red Sox have taken the first two games in a 4-game weekend series against the Angels out in Orange County. This makes it 3 straight road wins for Boston, who have won six out of their last seven after an atrocious 0-6 start.

Thursday night's series opener featured Josh Beckett on the bump throwing 5 innings of no-hit baseball (the bid for a no-no was broken up by an Erick Aybar infield single to lead off the bottom of the 6th). Beckett was working with a 2-0 lead courtesy of a 2-out, 2 RBI Jacoby Ellsbury single in the top half of the 6th. However, leading up to that point, the Sox had stranded 8 baserunners and the lack of production with runners on the bags came back to haunt them when Angels outfielder Torii Hunter belted a 2-run homer to center field off of Beckett in the bottom of the 7th.

Beckett went 8 full innings and threw 125 pitches- just under his career high- and got no decision in the Thursday night game. The game would remain deadlocked at 2-2 until the top of the 11th when Adrian Gonzalez had an RBI double and Jed Lowrie brought Dustin Pedroia home on a sac-fly to make it 4-2 Red Sox. Angels outfielder Pete Bourjos managed a 1-out bunt single off of Papelbon in the bottom of the 11th, but Papelbon managed to get the next 2 batters out to close out the 4-2 win in Anaheim on Thursday night- Bobby Jenks was credited with the win.

Friday night's game was a slightly different story, although Jacoby Ellsbury would start off the scoring in the 3rd by driving in Saltalamacchia. That was added to when a struggling Carl Crawford hit a fly ball to the 'Bermuda triangle' in medium center field that hit the grass as three Angels converged (the error was ultimately charged to Angels OF Pete Bourjos) while Jed Lowrie and JD Drew scored to make it a 3-0 game.

In the top of the 6th Jed Lowrie led off the inning with a double, but made it to 3rd on OF Vernon Well's fielding error. JD Drew then singled off of starter Dan Haren to make it a 4-0 game.

Jon Lester threw 6 innings and 11 pitches of shutout baseball, allowing 4 hits and walking two while striking out 8. The bullpen came precariously close to coughing up the lead, giving up a Jeff Mathis RBI single in the 7th followed by a Bobby Abreu RBI single (and then Abreu reaching home on a passed ball) in the bottom of the 8th.

Papelbon came on in the bottom of the 9th and after giving up a 1 out single to pinch-hiter Hank Conger, got the next two batters to fly out and strike out to close out the game in a paltry 9 innings. Boston hangs on to win by a 4-3 final, with the Sox winning 6 out of their last 7 games (and three straight on their West Coast road trip).

Saturady's game will feature Daisuke Matsuzaka (1-2; 6.43 ERA- and believe me, it was almost TWICE that before his Patriot's day outing against the Blue Jays) against Ervin Santana (0-2; 5.26 ERA). First pitch will be at 6:05 PM Pacific, 9:05 ET.

OTHER RED SOX NEWS: 3B Kevin Youkilis left Thursday night's game after fouling a pitch off of his left shin. He missed Friday night's game but is expected to be in the lineup Saturday night.


NHL: Not only are the Bruins still alive after falling into an 0-2 hole to start off the series, but they managed to pull even with the Canadiens after winning two in a row in Montreal.

The Canadiens started off the scoring in the 1st with an even-strength goal from Brent Sopel. Early in the 2nd, the Bruins would pull even with a tally from Micheal Ryder.

Frustratingly, the B's would then go on to allow 2 goals in less than a minute from Micheal Cammaleri and Kostitsyn (both even strength) towards the middle of the 2nd to give Montreal a 3-1 advantage. However, the Bruins would claw back in the latter half of the 2nd period and get goals from Andrew Ference and Patrice Bergeron to tie things at 3-3 before the 2nd intermission.

Early in the 3rd, the Habs would re-take the lead with a power-play goal from PK Subban (the only power play goal for either side Thursday night), but Chris Kelly (who rejoined from Boston the team after undergoing examination for facial injuries sustained in Game 3) tallies the game-tying goal at the 13:42 mark of the 3rd. neither side was able to break the 4-4 tie in regulation, so the game went to OT- where Micheal Ryder quieted the crowd with a little something like this:


With two goals and an assist on the night, Micheal Ryder was named Thursday Night's Star of the Game (which I find pretty subjective most of the time, but appropriate in this case).

Tim Thomas stopped 34 of 38 shots faced while Montreal's Carey Price stopped 30 of 35 faced. Surprisingly, there was a grand total of 6 penalty minutes in Saturday night's game, with the B's going 0-1 on the Power play and the Habs going 1-2.

Game 5 is set to take place at the Garden on Saturday night- 7PM Eastern Time, 4PM Pacific. The game will be broadcast on both VS and the CBC [and if it isn't too late, then may I make the bold prediction of 'Whoever wins at home first wins the series?'- NANESB!]

OTHER BRUINS NEWS: Defenseman Andrew Ference was fined $2500 by the NHL for making an obscene gesture towards Montreal fans during Thursday night's games [in all honesty, I'm surprised the Montreal fans didn't call the Sûreté du Québec after said obscene gesture- NANESB!].

Ference, for his part, said the gesture was unintentional and that he was merely celebrating his 2nd period goal on Thursday night. I find that hard to buy because...well....have you ever met any Montreal fans? Now....imagine a whole building full of them. Yeah....middle finger is the kindest thing I can think of.



NBA: No last second heroics required for the C's on Friday night at Madison Square Garden- things were pretty much taken care of by the 3rd quarter.

Paul Pierce led the C's scoring with 38 points, followed by Ray Allen's 32 points while Rajon Rondo had 15 points and 11 rebounds in Boston's 113-96 win over the Knicks.

The C's have a pretty commanding 3-0 lead in the series and can close things out on game 4 Sunday afternoon at 3:30 PM ET, 12:30 PM Pacific. The Easter Sunday game will be broadcast on ABC Sports.