Portland Sox Fan

…and I’m not talking about OJ…

Somebody screwed up when editing an official court document for the BALCO case, and one of the new Yankees is named (link here). Only a matter of time before other names come out now that Sheffield has been implicated.

So what does this mean for certain records? Should those implicated have * put next to them? Should they be excluded from HOF consideration? Quite a can of worms…

For those who are statistically inclined, Baseball Prospectus’ relitively new PECOTA rankings predicts great, great things from the Sox pitching staff. You can check it out here. I honestly haven’t read up much about PECOTA, but I do remember last year it said that Jeremy Giambi was going to have a bad year…

But guess what, folks…not to Boston. CBS confirms this deal really is happening. Of course, it was ‘confirmed’ 100 times when it was a Sox trade…but I bet this is going to happen.

The New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers have agreed to a trade that will send Alex Rodriguez to the Bronx in exchange for Alfonso Soriano, SportsLine.com’s Scott Miller has confirmed.

According to a high-ranking source, an announcement is expected next week, as some minor details still need to be worked out. However, both teams are confident everything will be finalized within a few days. The Yankees will send a minor-league pitcher to Texas as well.

So what do you think? Personally, I’m not broken up about it. Yes; it makes the Yankees better…but only marginally so. And if Arod plays 3rd as is speculated, that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of…because Jeter isn’t a quarter of the defensive SS that Arod is.

Last time I checked, the Sox offense was still more than capable, and the pitching is vastly improved. Is the Yanks pitching better or worse than it was in 2003? We all know the answer to that one.

This funny article is from The Onion last week. Prophetic?

And a certain Major League pitcher chimed in his thoughts on this possible deal…and closed with this fantastic quotable quote:

“…focus on the fact that the best Boston Red Sox team in the last 100 years takes the field in 7 days, for a ride that is guaranteed to be the most memorable of any of our lives over the next 8 months, and enjoy the hell out of it.”

The Sox have been my life since I was 8 years old and for the last 30 years I go through the same rituals every season.

Every Summer I was one of those kids who sat with a transistor radio under his blanket and listened to Sox games and could tell everyone what happened the night before, I could tell you Fisk’s single knocked in Rooster and Doyle then Lynn thumped one into the pen for the 4 run 8th inning rally only to have Bob Stanley or Bill Campbell, or Mark Clear (Insert your favorite Sad-Sack Closer) serve up a gopher ball to some rinky-dink SS that hadn’t hit a Major league homer before. The Sox would hold on all summer long just enough, so you thought they had a chance.

Then the fall would come, these memories are just so painful that I classify October as the worst month of the year. I literally can close my eyes and see Armbrister, Dent, Torrez, Zimmer, Gedman, Stanley, Buckner, Perez, Rose, Morgan, and of course the latest members of the peanut gallery Grady and Boone tormenting our boys. Hell, if I was PSF and I got as far as he did on his Game 7 walk I might have started a ‘Forrest Gump’ and just kept running and running….

Then came the winter, I would wake up every morning during the winter meetings and listen if Sox made a good trade, which they hardly ever did, or did something stupid again, which they usually did. I can still remember staring at radio and thinking Fi

The other day, I pointed you to an interesting thread that Schilling was doing over at SoSH. I gave you some excerpts to give you a sample of what was being said over there. Now, all of a sudden, there seems to be some issues with these quotes.

Due to the brewing ‘controversy’, let me add more of Schilling’s words to his initial post:

Got no problem with BDD posting this stuff to his site, but as I have asked before I would ask members of the media to keep this stuff here. If you are in the media and really actually care about this kinda thing then you will have 7 months to actually ask me any of these questions if you want, no problem. (emphasis added by me)

It is my interpretation that Schilling wants this to be a back and forth between he and the fans; not media speculation based on some comments he’s making. There is some interesting discussion going on regarding this at Bronx Banter, Bambino’s Curse, and Baseball Primer. What do YOU think?

EDIT: And my interpretation is apparantly wrong.

One thing, and I am not sure how people will take this, but I am posting in this forum, and would appreciate it if my posts in this forum could remain here. I have done this same thing in Philly, and while in Arizona but both spots had forums that were private, I am not sure it’s asking all that much, but I would appreciate it if the posts here could remain here please. If any member of the media has issue with something said here I can be reached rather easily in any number of ways. If that’s an issue it’s understood, and I’ll figure something else out, but please consider all of my posts here to be preceeded with “Off the record” from this point forward. Link

So football is over. The Pats are the World Champions. As Terry Francona says in a commercial aired just after the victory, “That’s gonna be a tough act to follow.”

So nqw the REAL countdown begins. The only thing between now and Opening Day is March Madness; at least to me. I couldn’t care less about the NBA, or the NHL. I get briefly distracted by NCAA basketball, but February/March are lean, lean times sports wise. Yes, spring training starts…but for me at least, it’s only a band-aid for the first couple of weeks, then I just want the season to start.

Seems Ellis Burks is coming back:

Ellis Burks, who was Boston’s No. 1 draft pick in 1983 and played the first six seasons of his career with the Sox, has come to terms on a one-year major league deal to return to the club at age 39. Burks, the leading contender to be the team’s righthanded DH and top righthanded pinch hitter, arrived in Boston yesterday and will undergo a physical today, his agent, Jim Turner, confirmed last night.

And that’s about it for Sox news, I suppose.

Not only am I a diehard Pats fan ecstatic at this victory….

….I had Pats 2 Panthers 9 in the local American Legion pool!

Which means Adam V. won me $500!

Afer two weeks of waiting, the Super Bowl is finally here. Isn’t it interesting how two years ago, when the Pats were playing the supposed superior team, they were given no chance by most…and now, two years later, the Pats ARE the supposed superior team…yet the spread is only 7, and it seems that people are split 50/50 between who will win today.

Is this because people have learned from 2 years ago? Or is it that to some longtime NFL observers, it is hard to shake the “Patriots as the Patsies” image?

Here at Casa de PSF, the game will be observed in a low key fashion. I’m making a turkey, some of my in-laws are coming over, and there are a gaggle of videos for the kiddies on the upstairs TV. I’m about to head off to Mass, and dressed my 3 year old in her Patriots jersey. Methinks I wouldn’t have gotten away with that if the wife was not at work.

Oh; and I have a case of Saranac.

EDIT: I just watched my tape of the last Super Bowl. Watched the first half and fast forwarded to the last drive of the game. Still gives me goose bumps.