Musings from Mandy

I'm back. I don't how long for, and how regularly I'll be able to post here, but as Katie said, I have a request -- could you please start blogging again? We have won a world series and lost a superbowl. and you have nothing to say?? seriously?!" It's true. The 2007 Red Sox series was fantastic. It was a dream come true. It showed 2004 wasn't a fluke. It gave us more swagger. It started off with me coming very, very, very close to dying in Texas, not to mention warding off hypothermia and I came very, very, very close to commiting homicide in Michigan. I went to more than 20 Red Sox games and I will still probably be paying off my credit card for those games and the nights out after in 2012. It was full of the savvy veterans and lovable rookies. It was the walk-off from Manny while at the Baseball Tavern surrounded by a bunch of crazy drunkards and my 3 favorite drunks. It was sitting on the couch hungover in sweatpants and watching the Pat's domi...

My grandparents on my Dad's side originate from Prince Edward Island in Canada, and, I have somehow become "Canadian" as far as my friends are concerned. But, I can't help that I love Canada. The people are nice, the cities are safe, Montreal might be my favorite North American city, and you get 30 cents on the dollar. Not to mention that the drinking age is 18, which, doesn't matter now, but mattered when I was 19. Anyway, Sportsguy loves Canada too, so I'm passing along what he has to say. Canada might be 15 years behind the United States in every respect -- this would explain the ongoing affection for Bryan Adams -- although that time-warp factor is also one of the reasons Canada remains my second-favorite country behind Australia. (Some of the others: the superb national anthem, Bobby Orr, the NHL draft, Molson commercials, the Edmonton crowd, the city of Montreal, John Candy, Canadian money, Canada Cup '72, the sneaky sense of humor from every Can...

*First off today, some very sad news out of Arizona. Former Red Sox pitcher Rod Beck was found dead in his Arizona home . He was just 38 years old. Foul play is not suspected. Some of the Red Sox remembered Beck yesterday . *Sportsguy compares Durant and Oden . Will he ever write about baseball or football again? Probably not. He also has a diary of the NHL draft . I know, I'm as surprised as you are. *The White Sox GM is unhappy with his teams play and is going to make some moves . Rumor has it that the Red Sox are first in line for Mark Buehrle right now . We trade Lester or Jacoby, Theo is going to have a very unhappy SoxGal on his doorstep. The big names that have come up so far are Clay Buchholz, Michael Bowden, Jacoby, and Jed Lowrie. I guess also in the trade the Sox will give Buehrle a 5 year contract extension. "I'm not a big Buerhle guy at all,” Eckersley said this morning in an interview on Boston sports radio station WEEI. “Talk about pitching to contact. Every...

For those of you still at work, SG has a new blog entry on the fight this weekend and R$o$g$e$r signing with the Yanks, including my favorite line of the day above from the mailbag.

The NBA from LVP to MVP, Part I By Bill Simmons Page 2 First, the good news: We'll forget the lackluster regular season once the NBA playoffs kick off with a barrage of spectacular matchups, assuming everything breaks correctly. I don't need to sell you on the Spurs-Nuggets, Lakers-Suns or Cavs-Heat battles, but a Jazz-Rockets series works for any true basketball fan, and you don't like sports if you can't get excited for Nellie's run-and-gun Warriors battling his old Mavs team, or Toronto laying its feel-good season on the line against New Jersey and Public Enemy No. 1 (Vince Carter). First of all, I am so sick of reading about SG's take on basketball I could poke myself in the eye. Secondly, I hate when columnists say stuff like, "you don't like sports if you can't get excited for Nellie's run-and-gun Warriors battling his old Mavs team, or Toronto laying its feel-good season on the line against New Jersey and Public Enemy No. 1 (Vince Carter...

Q: I find myself actively HATING the new Red Sox. Since winning it all in 2004, it has been a complete nightmare for me -- from the out of control bandwagon of Pink Hat wearers, etc., to the Chavez Ravine-esque feel of games at Fenway now (arrive in the third, leave in the seventh!), to the well-moneyed cabal of front office carpetbaggers with a "hometown boy" dangling at the forefront like a Tammany Hall vote wrangler at the docks of old Manhattan, to the string of bad personnel moves -- we are mirroring EVERY SINGLE bad aspect of the post-2000 Yankees. Everything that every fiber of my being loathes. Their obsession with catching up to the Yankees has made them forget about what got us the title in the first place: a TEAM.--C. Fleming, Boston, Mass. SG: You know, I felt twinges of this reader's anger this winter, because the truth is, I never wanted to root for a team that bought championships like the Yankees, even though our 2004 payroll was easily nine figures and w...

Would you like to buy Manny's neighbor's grill? Click here . *Manny talked yesterday to Karen Guregian and Amalie Benjamin . I usually don't like KG but I liked her piece on Lester yesterday and I liked this effort today. *Tedy Bruschi was on WEEI yesterday and talked about a few things. Mike Reiss has a partial transcript here. *Bill Simmons is going to save Holy Cross basketball . Finally, Happy first day of Spring! Also, Eileen turns 47 today, so a Happy Birthday to her as well.

Thoughts while wondering how I went wrong picking Oral Roberts over Washington State... *Tank Johnson was sentenced yesterday to 120 days in jail for violating his probation. He was also sentenced to 80 days house arrest, which, he has already served. What exactly do you have to do to get house arrest? Because, quite frankly, I'm down. I have been meaning to organize my closet, there are a ton of netflix on my list that I haven't had time to watch, some books I'd like to read. I'd also like to learn a language. I'd also probably take up video games and rent the a few seasons of 24. *Sports Guy kept a running diary of yesterdays games. I know a lot of people get down on SG, but I still love him. Just want to let that be known. *" Hey Kids, Do Drugs" How do people get to be so stupid? Honestly. *Curt has a post, Why the Media Sucks . I have often said that I wish Curt would stop talking and just play, ect. That being said, his blog helps me g...

Bill Simmon's has some thoughts about the Super Bowl ...including this little tidbit... It's also the place where I finally met Tom Brady -- not because he knew my columns, but because one of his friends knows a good friend of mine from back home. Poor Brady was trapped inside a roped-off area hiding next to the bar, with his buddies shielding him from any unexpected approaches, almost like an offensive line. He's extremely friendly and jarringly tall (a legitimate 6-foot-5). We ended up commiserating about the Pats-Colts loss for a few minutes (needless to say, he was still kicking himself about the 21-3 lead) before one of the Farrelly Brothers appeared out of nowhere and I ducked away -- if we were introduced, either he would have taken a swing at me for my "Fever Pitch" review, or I would have taken a swing at him because it was his fault that I had to see Jimmy Fallon high-fiving Curtis Leskanic 45 seconds into the greatest sporting moment of my life. So that...