NSN Blog

George Commo's Blog - Friday 5-17-13
For a period, maybe a period and a half it seemed like ... well it seemed like a regular season game. After the intense first round playoff series they had just finished the game between the Bruins and the Rangers just didn't have that feel. But as it went along the first playoff meeting between the two teams in better than forty years started to ramp up, and by the time they reached overtime it was another Stanley Cup playoff classic in the making. And when Patrice Bergeron set up Brad Marchand for the game winner, it was more evidence of why Stanley Cup overtime is the most exciting in sports.
Talk about exciting ... and exhilarating, and excruciating ... try the ending of the Kings/Sharks Western Conference semi-final game last night in LA ... Sharks led 3-2 late ... but two Sharks penalties led to two Kings powerplay goals just 22 seconds apart and LA grabbed a two games to none series lead with a wild 4-3 win. The Stanley Cup Playoffs ... you cannot beat them!

These NHL playoffs are killing me, but I love it!
Not getting any sleep!

I think Rich Alercio is a great choice as the new head football coach at St.Johnsbury.
The first coach in Castleton football history was 'born to coach football!"

George Commo's Blog - Thursday 5-16-13
Another nice outing for Jon Lester last night and the Red Sox put together a big inning in their win over the Rays at the Trop ... be interesting to see if they score eight runs in an inning at any point again this season ...

Brian Cashman has gotten a lot of praise for all of the good moves he made to have the Yankees where are so far this season, and they are well deserved ... but one mistake he made was not bringing back Raul Ibanez ... if only to avoid what Ibanez might do when returning to Yankee Stadium in an opponents jersey. Ibanez hit two homers and drove in six runs last night as Seattle lambasted Phil Hughes and New York 12-2. The veteran Ibanez has three homers total so far in the first two games of that series.

Pitching matchup of note ... in between periods of tonight's Bruins/Rangers game one it might be worth your while to check out the other Rangers ... the baseball ones. They'll be hosting the Tigers tonight in a matchup of two of the games best, Justin Verlander and Yu Darvish.

Here are a few historic sporting events that were better because they ended up in championships:
1. The US Olympic hockey victory over Russia which ended with the gold medal
2. The Red Sox win over the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS which ended with a World Series championship
3. The Celtics epic comeback against the Lakers in game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals which ended in a championship.

A few events that were historic, but made bigger because the deal was closed.

My point is that if the Bruins don't go on to win the Stanley Cup their historic comeback in game 7 over Toronto is merely a footnote in history. Looked at in historic perspective, but nothing more.

There are exemptions I think like Carlton Fisk's game 6 home-run in the 1975 World Series. the Red Sox never closed the deal, but it's hard to imagine that homer would be looked at any bigger even if the Sox went on to win the series.
I think the same could be said about the Red Sox' "Impossible Dream" pennant in 1967. The Sox lost in the World Series that year.
Or how about Bobby Thomson's home-run for the Giants in 1951? The Giants lost the World Series to the Yankees that year. Hard to believe that homer to be looked at any bigger than it already is as well.

What do you think? Let me know.

Three Ring Soxcus

When things are going bad you find ways to lose, or they find you and help you lose. Last night a routine infield pop up turned into a circus and costing the Boston’s Red Sox(roll music now) 2 runs with two outs in the inning. Surely they would have gotten out of the inning with a tie game but the questions beg would they have scored another run anyway? The answer is obvious, they didn’t and wouldn’t have even under a new set of circumstances. This 2013 version of Beantown’s baseball squad is looking eerily similar to the 2012 version. And that is definitely not good. As I stated before, and aptly I might add, if the Sox continue to get zero output offensively from guys like Will Middlebrooks, and the slumping Mike Napoli it’s going to be a long season once again. Napoli and Middlebrooks struck out a combined 5 times last night. Jonny Gomes added to it with 3 strolls back to the dug out as well. It’s ugly. In fact, it’s really ugly right now. Shane Victorino left 5 guys on base. When your 2 hole hitter leaves 5 GUYS ON BASE, that means your 3 and 4 hitters aren’t getting a chance to drive those guys in! That means you are losing more than you are winning. Something better happen really soon or this circus is going to have the same bad ending that the last circus we watched had. Ugh. Oh and by the way, John Lackey is 1 and 4. And for those of you who say he hasn’t pitched that badly I would offer his ERA of 4.05. He gives up more than a hit per inning. No velocity. Done.

I didn’t get a chance to blog about the B’s epic comeback on Monday night as I was on the road yesterday. I admit I turned away from the game for about 5 minutes and watched the beginning of “Hanna”-which is a really good movie from perspective anyway. Then when it was 4-2 I said to my self, ‘self, you gotta watch this’. Man, am I glad I did. Why don’t they play with that urgency all the time? It was one of those sporting events that you will never forget where you were when it happened!

For some reason my daughter and I got on the conversation of fast pitch softball and I told her about The King and his Court. She couldn’t believe he struck out people from 2nd base. In fact, a good friend of mine, who passed away this winter unfortunately, faced Eddie Feigner. He bet The King he would get a hit off him. Feigner upped the ante and said he would bet $100 bucks he wouldn’t foul one off, AND he’d pitch from 2nd base! Feigner won the $100 bucks. Did you know that in a charity softball game that The King struck out, in succession, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Brooks Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Maury Wills, and Harmon Killebrew! That’s crazy. I would have gone to that show and paid tons to watch!