Now that I've broken my blog duck for 2011, I can go back to tackling the question of what to do with myself now that all my teams have won. Hint: it includes less sports. But still, I'm curious as to why the biggest September collapse in history doesn't bother me much, while the mere mention of Rex Ryan makes me want to kick an infant. I'm accepting ideas for an explanation.
In case you're curious, though, here's a summary of what life will be like once your teams win everything there is to be won:
1. You'll have your life back. 2. You'll look for some exciting new sport on which to waste that life.
For me, that's been soccer. Which reminds me, I haven't watched soccer in almost two hours, brb! I'll leave you with this:
The Boston Bruins are 16-4-4 through 24 games, tied for first place in the Eastern Conference (with three games in hand on their competition) and second-best in all of hockey. In those 24 games they have lost by more than one goal just once. They were 11-1-1 in November, losing only one game outright out of thirteen. They are 9-1-1 at home, winning their last nine in a row outright.
Their depth chart has gone from "thin" to "overflowing" in a matter of months. Nine forwards are on a pace to score 20 goals, despite disappointing seasons from Michael Ryder, their main free-agent acquisition from the summer, the usually reliable Marco Sturm, who caught fire only after 10-12 games, and Patrice Bergeron, their best forward prior to his head injury last year. (Bergeron has as many even-strength points this season, eight, as fourth-line grinder Stephane Yelle.) The team has barely missed them.
With the veterans struggling to find their scoring touch, the youngsters have taken control of the offense. Rookie winger Blake Wheeler is 2nd on the team in goals, but justifies his ice time by doing more little things than a college kid should know to do. David Krejci and Phil Kessel in particular have made enormous strides this season. The formerly nifty Krejci has become a formidable scorer on rebounds, and is damn near invincible while carrying the puck. Kessel's one-on-one moves are the best on the team, and his wrist shot is as good as there is in the league. And Lucic, despite concentrating on his physical game, is knocking home rebounds and making good on the Cam Neely comparisons. Overnight this team has become immensely talented offensively, far more so than they are credited with due to their defense-first reputation.
As for the defense, with rookie Matt Hunwick's emergence they now have seven reliable blueliners. Andrew Ference was having the season of his life before his injury, eradicating the unreliable, just-barely-good-enough defensive play doubts we'd come to expect from him. Zdeno Chara, Dennis Wideman and Aaron Ward have played their usual bulletproof defense. Mark Stuart, despite being assigned to the third defensive pair, has established himself as a top-four defender. Shane Hnidy is far from the weak link he should be. They could probably use someone good enough to send Hnidy to the bench and Hunwick back to Providence (say, pending UFA Jay Bouwmeester?) but if that doesn't happen it won't be the end of the world.
That's due in large part to their goalies, Tim Thomas and Manny Fernandez, who have proven to be damn near unbeatable. The pair has a combined 2.04 GAA and .933 save percentage, each of them sharing in the excessive win totals. Thomas alone has stopped an ungodly 94% of the shots he's faced. Fernandez' frequent play of late could be a prelude to a trade and a Tuukka Rask call-up... but that is probably just wishful thinking, as Fernandez' $4M salary makes him untradeable. Still, you never know. The main thing here is that Thomas has totally won me over as a valid starting goaltender. After three years of the same nutty stats, three years of expecting yet another overachieving Bruin goaltender to fail like they always do, I am a believer. He has had the best season of any Eastern Conference goalie, and he deserves to start the All-Star Game, never mind just taking part.
Claude Julien has certainly put to rest the ridiculous rumors about his departure from New Jersey, has he not? Certain elements of this team's performance (players never taking risks beyond their abilities, the constant churn of new players who fit in without missing a beat, the ridiculously low stats of both goaltenders) make you wonder what Lou Lamoriello could possibly have been thinking when he let Julien go in the middle of a 100-point season. The rap was that Julien wouldn't lead the Devils to playoff wins, but taking Montreal to a seventh game up here, despite significant injuries to Chara and others, sure looks like success to me, especially after the Habs absolutely owned them (8-0-0) during the regular season. The more the Bruins win, the more indefensible Julien's firing appears.
And it goes without saying that this is the first Bruins team since the Bourque/Neely/Oates era that was built to last. Peter Chiarelli has actually fixed this team. For real. No smoke and mirrors, no phony baloney. He pursued talent and keeps it happy. He instilled an organizational theme that the coaches and players have executed. He has re-instilled a sense of pride and dignity to an organization known for its lack of same.
Sidebar The differences between professional, level-headed Chiarelli and raging prick cocksucker asshole Harry Sinden could not be more dramatic, and could not favor Chiarelli any more strongly. Ahhh, if only the internet had been around during Sinden's heyday. Many an outraged blog post would have been written at his deserving expense. Imagine how pissed he'd have been if he were trying to make his usual trade of a Hall of Famer away for being insolent, when here I come with a hilarious Photoshop of Harry and the player he just traded for:
Or is that his 1997 family reunion? I just don't know. End sidebar.
Speaking of Herpes Harry, the only level of management that isn't getting a handie from me is ownership. If the Jacobses put all of the above pieces in place, then their success happened entirely by accident. Because we all know it didn't have anything at all to do with the clowns who ruined Boston hockey in the first place. This wonderful revival is happening, like the Indians in Major League, fully in spite of ownership. Let me put it this way: if the Jacobs family funds a cure for cancer, and pays to elevate the entire population of Darfur province to the American middle class, then maybe I'll think about reconsidering them. Maybe. Until them, I hope they get raped by a pack of S&M elephants every morning at 8:30.
While this team is likely to regress at some point for any number of reasons (the young players will slump; the goalies will start letting a few in; the blue line injuries will haunt them) they have nevertheless registered themselves as a legitimate Cup Contender. THe past two seasons of Bruins hockey had looked like the worst of the Neutral Zone Trap All-Stars. But this team is now something far more substantial. The leashes are off.
While his physique is certainly staggering, as are the stories Pat Murphy tells in the above link, neither Dustin Pedroia's glistening biceps nor Murphy's expletive-laden war stories are as staggering as the statistic reported today in the Globe's Extra Bases blog:
Here’s one of the coolest stats you’ll see this year: Dustin Pedroia has swung the bat 1,114 times this season. He has connected with 1,027 pitches and missed 87. Think about that. It’s the best percentage in the majors this season.
The stat is repeated in a Pedroia feature in the main paper. As it should be. Yikes. You'd think a stat like that would be evidence of below-average plate discipline, except that he has 45 walks... mediocre, but only 7 fewer than the Greek God of Walks himself. I'd like to see some other whiff figures, just to see who else is in competition, but regardless it's awfully impressive.
Red Sox They signed up their only two potential offseason losses, and did so cheaply. It's a testament to the Red Sox organization that a couple of smart guys like Curt Schilling and Mike Lowell, both of whom had enormous market value, took less to stay. After watching the Dan Duquette era, this is maybe the best part of the revival: that Boston actually is a city where ballplayers will sign for less, and that the previous statement isn't just something the fans tell themselves to justify their cruel treatment of the local losers. Anyway, it's positive news w/o any qualification on it.
I'm still curious what they intend to do with Coco Crisp, and whether they intend to toss their hat into the Johan Santana derby. Theo Epstein is usually active at the winter meetings, so I'd expect one of those two things to become a major hot stove story.
Patriots They had their C-game last night (especially on defense... wowee!) and still won pretty effortlessly. I found that quite comforting, actually. They popped out a turd and won anyway. Good on them.
More urgent/important is the purported "discovery" by Andy Reid that the team's weakness is its secondary and short coverage by the linebackers. DUH! Once you get past Asante Samuel, it's a hell-hole in there. Even Rodney Harrison has been awfully silent. If there's no pass rush, then of course they will be exposed. While the whole "blueprint" meme is pretty on-target... the notion that Andy Reid "discovered" this strategy is just stupid. Yes, the way to beat the Patriots is to stop their four unstoppable defensive linemen (including the soon-to-be-very-rich-elsewhere Jarvis Green) and not throw towards Samuel. Also, I just discovered that the "blueprint" for preventing typos is to use a spell-checker before hitting Send. COMPLIMENT ME JOHN MADDEN FOR BEING SMART AND FAT
The other troubling thing was to see Randy Moss shut down so effectively. Wes Welker stepped up, but seeing Moss get shut down in the cold brings a lot of late-season Vikings collapses to mind. Something to stow away for later.
Celtics They are playing like garbage. Really. Paul Pierce in particular is leaning back on his old tricks... take the ball, ram it past double-team, hope they don't strip me. Low-percentage shots. What made me fall back in love with the team was their ball movement, not Pierce's scoring aggregates. When the C's go on their scoring runs, it's because they're finding open shooters; when they drop behind, it's because they get lazy with their shot selection. Between Ray, KG and PP, they WILL move the ball if they choose to. It's that simple.
Anyway, the other message is that America had better not sleep on Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins, because they're both making the most of their newfound job security. This season is shaping up to be Rondo's coming-out party; he makes plays, and he's hitting open 18-footers with the greatest of ease. Perkins has brick fingers on offense, but his always-tight defense is all that will really matter.
In conclusion, last Saturday's fuck-you buzzer-beater was absolutely beautiful, for so many reasons. The bush-league Bobcats talked shit all through the timeout leading up to the inbounds pass. I sat there, watching Jeff MacInnis shoot his mouth off to fucking Kevin Garnett, and thought "they're gonna steal the ball, and they're gonna win." And sure enough, Eddie House stole the ball, and forgotten man Ray Allen sent the Bobcats to bed. What a moment.
Bruins Amazingly, even the Bruins are growing on me. They aren't going anywhere, but I have to tip my cap to favorite whipping-boys Tim Thomas and Dennis Wideman.
Thomas is a hockey verison of David Eckstein; too short, nobody wanted him, what a competitor, blah blah blah. So I hate him, and I truly detest when his fans give him credit for winning and look the other way when his mediocrity returns to the surface. But this year, Thomas actually is the reason they're winning. He has to save 30-35 shots a night for the team to win (because their blue line situation is so atrocious)... and he's actually doing it. So I give credit. It may not last, but I'll take it while we have it.
Wideman, meanwhile, is already visibly better than he was in October. He's starting to mix net-positive plays in with his trademark bonehead turnovers. More credit given there for starting to get his act together. Still not seeing much value (he's not even remotely physical as a defender) but any improvement is welcome.
The last thing I want to say is: Marc Savard. Can you Bruin bastards PLEASE play up to this guy's level? Or at least hit the empty nets Savard gives you twice a night? This guy's got worth-the-price-of-admission passing skills, and they're lost on offensive doofuses like P.J. Axelsson and Old Man Murray. Pearls before swine.
Revolution Sorry, boys... I'm pretty much done with you. The "choker" business may be overblown, but that collapse was just awful. And you could see it coming. It really was a choke. Ugh.
A tradition unlike any other... Papelbon making a joyous ass of himself.
Now that we've served the hot dog, time for some relish.
In short... this is just as good as 2004, but also nothing at all like 2004. They're opposite halves of the same coin: one year they did it when nobody thought they would, and one year they did it when everyone thought they should.
This championship was so exceedingly normal that there is no excuse, period, for further reference to collapses and whatnot. The Red Sox franchise is for real, and they're not going anywhere for quite a while.
So who else is coming to the parade? Lehr, you in?
One last thought: fuck you, Scott Boras, for ruining the 8th inning. Die in a fire. (Hey, there was already a DIAF tag! Wonder what's in there...)
