Sports Writing

Ortiz looking good in spring training, easing all worries about his shoulder with a broken-bat homer. Woohoo!

Keb’ Mi’ continues trying his best to become a boldfaced name. The wannabe king of some media is going to appear on Queer Eye… Kevin Millar may appear on an episode of Bravo’s “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” Millar said he’s working on a date for the taping, which would be done during spring training, and hopes to persuade a few teammates to participate (Boston Globe)

Ashton Kutcher (damn, I’ve mentioned him twice in the last two days!), Matt McConaughey, Mike Wallace, Johnny Damon, and Jessica Lynch. Damon looks likes he’s going all out for the idiot tag again, with the rawking devil’s horns…

“I thought it was a brilliant play. We almost got away with it,” Rodriguez said. “I was stuck in an alley, boys, there was no place to go. And I gave my karate. I only got to yellow belt, but I gave them my karate. And, again, I think Brandon’s a great pitcher. I played with him in high school.” (Link)

The mr. heathen blog chronicles what happens when a woman takes direct testosterone shots. (Allegedly.) i feel like i’m unable to do housework. no, i’m not kidding. i keep looking at the pile of dishes in the sink and i think “eh, i’ll wait until i start feeling like a girl again.” i have become a mysogynistic asshole. clearly, i would make a poor husband.

Reviews of Canseco’s Juiced are in… Rob Neyer thinks the devil is in the details, while King Kaufman thinks it’s actually a pretty good if somewhat steroivangelical. Bryan Curtis notes the proselytising tone of Juiced, as well as how different the book is from most sports memoirs: all gung-ho about the effects of steroids, rather than the usual “playing through pain” motif.

Also from that same news report: everyone’s mending fences. Here’s Bronson Arroyo (who has an album scheduled to come out) on A-Rod: “It was a situation where he was just desperate. Somebody on our team might have done the same thing. I’ve never seen it happen. I know Curt thought it was kind of a bush league play.”

Dagnabit, Dave McCarty is abandoning the hitter/pitcher experiment: While the veteran, who pitched three times for the Sox during the 2004 season, will participate in some side sessions, his main task will be to try and make the team as a backup first baseman/outfielder. (Link)

Meanwhile, over at Port St. Lucie, Pedro Martinez tries to scale the fence and leave the Mets. (Photo from Yahoo! News)

Say hi to Boomer and Wade!

So there was a mini-uproar as to whether the Sox would be getting their rings at the home opener against the Yankees, and John W. Henry stepped in to say:

Ah, spring is here, and the Sox-Yankees rivalry is really blossoming, with Trot calling out A-Rod: “Like Rodriguez says,” Nixon said, “he’s running stairs at 6 in the morning while I’m sleeping and taking my kids to school. I’m like, well I’m not a deadbeat dad, Alex… He’s got a kid now, too, so I guess he’ll have his limo driver take her to school.”

WAC over at Huntington Avenue Grounds lists Bill James’ 2005 projections. Weird - and a bit worrying - to see so many players listed as ‘high injury risk’. Manny and Millar? Going by the predictions the 4 best hitters on the team will be Manny, Ortiz, Trot, and Millar, in that order. First three seem likely; as for Millar - we’ll see.

Aww man… Tedy Bruschi’s in hospital apparently “suffering from stroke-like symptoms including partial paralysis and blurred vision” (according to WBZ-TV as reported in the Boston Sports Media Watch forums - I see ESPN has picked up the story). Rough. Get well soon.

People are starting to report! Nice of the Sox to let local resident Derek Lowe train at the City of Palms Park facilities (Seattle Post-Intelligencer link - thanks to Red Sox Wire). Lowe had this to say:

Mike Greenwell wants his MVP (pic of Greenwell from the News-Press article.) “He’s an admitted steroid user,” Greenwell said of Canseco. “I was clean. If they’re going to start putting asterisks by things, let’s put one by the MVP.“I do have a problem with losing the MVP to an admitted steroids user.”

And yes, my posts on non-baseball topics are indicating that Spring Training better start soon! Randomly, two trivia questions, in “honour” of Tito’s rear-ending today as he called WEEI: What former Sox player was Terry Francona’s minor-league roommate? Who was their other roommate, and who was that roommate’s brother?

One famous moment in football (that’s soccer, not the American game) is the ending of the 1989-1990 English Division 1 season, immortalised in Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. Arsenal, in 2nd place, played Liverpool, needing to win by 2 goals to win the league. 90th minute, the Arsenal are up 1-0, and Ian Wright pops in and scores the league clincher in the dying seconds of the game. Brilliant.

Signs that Bill Simmons is losing his touch in pop-culture references, from his ESPN Page 2 column: By the way, here was my Grammy’s highlight: My friend Jake and I were trying to figure out what name we would pick if we were budding rap/hip-hop stars - along the lines of Usher or Nelly - and I went with “Tripod” while Jake chose “Zeus” or “Apollo;”