A holiday weekend worth of independent thinking for your post-Fourth consumption: • If one more person asks whether the Boston Red Sox should be “buyers or sellers” before Major League Baseball’s trading deadline, I’m going to buy one of those swimming pool floats that looks like an oversized pipe cleaner and sell it across the […]
hot corner
Posted inLocal Sports
The Hot Corner: Name needs to go, and it’s on us
Sports are all about debate. Lord knows it has taken the place of actual competition for two-thirds of the broadcast day. Can’t believe, though, that we the people are still having an actual discussion about the relative propriety of the nickname “Redskins.” How is this still in play in 2014? That it’s being used by […]
advertisement
Posted inLocal Sports
The Hot Corner: Game’s changing face drives him batty
Maine high school baseball is in serious trouble. Notice I didn’t use “dying” or something of that alarmist genre. Full seasons and tense playoff games were still play with teams of nine. Trophies were hoisted heavenward. Winning coaches were baptized with whatever was left in the cooler. Top-level talent was on display between April snowflakes, […]
Posted inLocal Sports
The Hot Corner: World Cup brings out best and worst
When did everyone else have to like everything we like? And why does every person, place or thing have to be “polarizing?” I’m inspired to ask these questions almost every day, unfortunately, but they’re at the forefront this summer as we all develop our personal physical and emotional reactions to World Cup fever. The world’s […]
Posted inLocal Sports
The Hot Corner: Pointless debate cramping NBA’s style
LeBron James: Malingering, pampered star, or victim of the silent, pervasive racism that prevails in America each day? Well, that escalated quickly. Somebody turns up the heat in an arena to brick pizza oven levels, a guy gets a cramp that won’t quit, and suddenly he’s poster man for everything in the world that’s soft, […]
Posted inLocal Sports
The Hot Corner: Track achieving favored status
We hear the question in press boxes, on sidelines, in classrooms and in casual conversations at the grocery store, when we weren’t savvy enough to put on a disguise before leaving the house. “So, what’s your favorite sport to cover?” I give the copout answer most of the time. “Whatever’s in season.” It’s a legitimate […]
Posted inLocal Sports
The Hot Corner: As Sox deficit widens, patience grows thin
Like any fan whose connection to the team existed when the only hat choices were red and blue, my relationship with the Boston Red Sox is marked by lies and denial. I pretend to have sold my soul for the first world championship. My party line is that anybody who had a piece of that […]
Posted inLocal Sports
The Hot Corner: Theriault’s turn Maine-ly worth your appreciation
A well-known, Maine-raised basketball coach once told me that natives of our state have an “inherent inferiority complex.” Being an ideal candidate and guilty as charged, I recoiled in horror at first, or at least rolled my eyes and furrowed my brow in objection. Then I realized it was said out of deep affection. That […]
Posted inLocal Sports
The Hot Corner: Frustrations with mound trends too many to count
Pitch counts are killing baseball. Well, in fairness, statistical hyper-analysis is killing baseball, but the two are intimately interwoven. It all leads to my indisputable hypothesis that Tony LaRussa and Billy Beane are the Antichrist and Dr. Frankenstein of the national pastime, respectively. It’s all their fault that we can’t watch a major league game […]
Posted inLocal Sports
The Hot Corner: Don’t condemn whole city, fan base for this stupidity
Another week in sports, another uncomfortable national conversation about race. Only this one hit a little too close to home, didn’t it? Sadly, the social media fallout from P.K. Subban’s double-overtime, game-winning goal for the Montreal Canadiens against the Boston Bruins in Game 1 of their Stanley Cup conference semifinal series was predictable. And yes, […]