John Oliver and I ... (not really) best buds

Mrs. Last Honest and I went to see John Oliver tonight in Boston. It was a brilliant show, and he told a joke that just laid waste to Patriots fans, which I'm cool with. As a sign of how good he was, it was far from the only joke that mocked Bostonians, and instead of cringing in horror or getting angry, because they were that kind of jokes, people laughed.

I had known either from a story or an interview that Oliver was a Liverpool fan, so it wasn't a surprise when he talked about going to his first game when he was a child, and then he moved on to visiting the Liverpool locker room at Yankee Stadium this summer, in a story that also involved fellow Liverpool fan Daniel Craig. (I won't spoil the story here, plus I could never be nearly that funny, but John Oliver, Yankee Stadium, James Bond and Liverpool is a whole lot of awesome in one place.)

My wife and I were sitting in the balcony, and as he was telling this ultimately fairly harrowing Liverpool story, I wasn't just laughing, but wishing I had a chance to talk to him not as successful comedian and riotous TV show host (him, obviously) and complete nobody (me, obviously) but as Liverpool fan to Liverpool fan.

Because as different as our lives are, we have that in common.

A Last Honest college basketball preview

I've stayed away from the blog for way too long, but the start of college basketball season is enough to make me blow off the dust.

I love college basketball, especially with the new format where the selection committee chooses the men's Final Four teams. Yes, the tournament was great, especially with games all day and night the first weekend, but football rules, and so why not decide the champion the same way football does? Also, since the champion can be decided in just one weekend, that's more time to concentrate on what really matters -- spring football practice and NFL draft previews. (Every minute Dick Vitale gets on ESPN is one less that Mel Kiper Jr. gets, after all.)

For me, the big question isn't just what four teams the committee picks (Vitale, of course, will have 27 teams in the Final Four), but which team will get the automatic ACC bid. As a Syracuse fan, I obviously hope it's the Orange, but they always seem to find a way to mess up, and it looks like Duke is being tipped as the team to beat in the league this year.

But maybe the ACC will get two. Why not? After all, the league has Duke, Syracuse, North Carolina, Louisville and Virginia, among others, but there are no easy outs in the conference. You try going to any of those arenas and win. In any other league, losing to one of the lesser teams is a huge upset; in the ACC, it's just a testament as to the awesomeness of the league.

What other league can say that? Maybe the Big 10, especially now that they've imported Maryland from the ACC. Perhaps you can pencil the league in for a Final Four spot, but I wouldn't use Seth Davis' Sharpie ... just in case.

I know Kentucky's the top-ranked team in the preseason, they went to the final last year and the Wildcats' end-of-the-bench walk-on is probably a low first-round NBA pick, but other than Florida and Kentucky, the league hasn't been any great shakes lately. Probably the best thing for an SEC resume is a close loss to an ACC team. (There is no truth, however, to the started-by-me rumor that, to keep ratings up, ESPN plans to replay the entire football season on the SEC Network in lieu of basketball, complete with alternate ending in the unlikely event that a team from some other  conference is allowed in the college football playoff and dares to actually win the thing.)

What about UConn? After all, they won the national title last year! Yeah, but did they really deserve it? All they did was win a bunch of games at the end of the year. Big deal! If they were the team in New England worth having and had the sterling academics of a school like North Carolina, the Huskies would be in the ACC and not the American.

At least the American and maybe the Big Ersatz are on the fringes of the conferences good enough to send a team to the Final Four if everything goes right. Those other conferences should feel happy that their champions will be allowed in the NIT, which will continue. After all, the ACC teams not picked for the Final Four need something to do.

(In case you're wondering about the women, will anyone beat UConn? There is the question of this season.)

Let the games begin!

A very minor Derek Jeter memory

Several years ago, my wife, in-laws and I went on a tour of the old Yankee Stadium as part of some package where you saw the stadium, took a bus tour around the Bronx and ate lunch at some terrific Italian restaurant the name of which I do not remember.

Needless to say, my main interest was in the stadium tour, although the bus tour was surprisingly interesting, and I already mentioned the great lunch. Unlike a tour I later took in Phoenix where the perhaps-teenage tour guide pronounced Robin Yount's last name "Yunt," our guide at Yankee Stadium was a longtime employee who closed the tour by showing us his World Series ring, which appeared to basically be a convenient play to store lots of diamonds.

It was during the off-season, and a pretty raw day as I recall, but we hit all the important spots, most of which are standard on a tour -- the press box, the edge of the field, the dugout, some of the behind-the-scenes hallways -- and, of course, since it was Yankee Stadium, we went out to Monument Park.

And we went into the clubhouse. With the exception of Anfield, it was like any stadium or arena tour I've taken since, where you can see the clubhouse or locker room, but don't go much past the inside of the door and stand behind a rope. Our guide pointed out all the lockers we'd be interested in, including Thurman Munson's unused locker, and then pointed out Derek Jeter's.

If I remember correctly, it was on our left, in the middle of the group of lockers on that side of the room. Our guide informed us that until September call-ups required its use, the locker next to Jeter's was left vacant in order to hold his fan mail. One of our fellow tour-goers asked if Jeter answered all his fan mail, and our guide's answer is etched into my memory.

"It is a physical impossibility."

The NFL wouldn't actually do this ... would it?

The other day, I came across a Sports on Earth post by Will Leitch in which he wrote that it's OK to watch the NFL and still be disgusted by the way the league has handled the Ray Rice, Greg Hardy, Adrian Peterson and Ray McDonald situations (although he doesn't mention McDonald by name).

I won't go too far into his argument (you should read the post for that), but he basically calls the NFL entertaining escapism and claims you can both enjoy the games and still want the league held accountable for basically doing everything wrong when it came to domestic violence among its players.

My feelings about the NFL have been conflicted in recent years. I still enjoy football, and I still enjoy watching the games, but the league's ridiculous, growing self-importance, aided and abetted by the media, repels me more than it attracts me. (I say that while admitting my fascination with both hockey culture in Canada and soccer culture in England, but then again, I don't live in either place.)

There's also the growing evidence that the players are maiming themselves for our entertainment and some fans' acceptance of it and even insistence that nothing be done to rectify it.

Between the two, I'm watching watching less and less than before, and that was even before the last couple weeks. However, my Chargers were on TV against the Seahawks Sunday, and I watched, and I enjoyed the win. I won't lie. I'm not like the friend of mine (who I don't think was wild about football to begin with), who not only won't watch the NFL, she posts photos on Facebook of whatever she's doing on Sundays while her husband watches football. It's actually quite entertaining.

And that was before recent events.

But then Leitch wrote this.

"We can't be so entranced by the games that we let things slide like we have in the past. You can already see how last week's events are going to be spun: It's not (commissioner Roger) Goodell -- who appears to have, in spite of it all, almost universal support from the owners, his bosses -- it's those unruly players. You're starting to see a narrative develop: Those players are out of control. It's time for the league to get tough. Ray Rice, Greg Hardy, Adrian Peterson ... they're just bad apples. The league just needs to police those players more. They need to come down harder."

When I read that, I thought, "They can't ... can they?" While Rice, Hardy, Peterson and McDonald are all at least allegedly very bad apples, the outrage has been that the league hasn't been tough enough by its own choice. Goodell could have come down on Rice before the in-elevator video was released, when Hardy was convicted, McDonald arrested or Peterson indicted, but he didn't, and neither have the teams absent public pressure.

To make this just about the players, while washing its hands entirely, would be a remarkable bit of verbal jiu-jitsu on the NFL's part.

What's worse, there's nothing to say they wouldn't get away with it.

You know it, and so do I.

Another reason for fans everywhere to hate Boston

"Missing: a seven-pound sterling silver symbol of football excellence. Owner: the New England Patriots. Information: our trophy has been misplaced since 2004 and despite a couple of close calls it has not been returned. The latest information indicates a Southern California surfer named Pete may have it in Seattle."

Just in case you don't get Chris Gasper's point in today's Boston Globe, the Lombardi Trophy belongs to the New England Patriots, even though they haven't won a Super Bowl in 10 years. (Fans in Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo and San Diego, among others, surely feel their pain.)

And the inclusion of the "Southern California surfer named Pete" is a nice touch, given that because Pete Carroll did not succeed as Patriots coach, he's high on the list of People Who Are Never Allowed to Succeed along with anyone from New York (self-explanatory), Joe Thornton (Bruins phenom who never panned out), Peyton Manning (because God forbid anyone dare think he's better than Tom Brady), Phil Kessel (left Boston for more money) and Drew Bledsoe ("He threw lots of interceptions!" "Brady's better!")

Funny thing is, once the entitled yahoo-ism subsides, Gasper points out relatively intelligently that the Patriots have to take advantage of opportunities to win, and this year could be a good one, given Darrelle Revis' arrival, Rob Gronkowski being healthy (for now), the wide receivers having another year of experience and the return to health of both Vince Wilfork and Jerod Mayo.

So maybe the part about the Patriots "owning" the trophy may have been just a rhetorical device designed to get people reading the column ... except for this at the end ...

"The 12-win seasons that are celebrated now will be painful reminders of championships that might have been if the Lombardi Trophy isn't returned to its rightful place at Patriots Place."

So clearly Gasper means it.

If you're a Boston fan and wonder why people who aren't from Boston hate you and your teams, it's stuff like this ... the belief that because your teams have had a pretty nice 10-year run, you're now entitled to championships. For more, see this from Deadspin. (In the interest of fairness, here's the one for San Diego, which made me feel ashamed to be a Chargers fan.)

But this isn't some idiot Patriots fan saying this; it's one of the lead columnists of the major daily in town.

Michael Sam would be a story if ESPN shut its doors tomorrow

I've seen several of these in the days since the Rams cut Michael Sam, especially since he hasn't found another NFL job.

ESPN keeps looking for excuses as to why Michael Sam is unemployed. Maybe they should look at themselves. Their coverage pushed teams away.
— Skip Bayless (@FunSkipBayless) September 1, 2014

(Yes, I realize I just posted from a fake Skip Bayless account, but it's both representative of what I've seen and not profane.)

Eric Wood of the Bills seems to think so, and so did whomever talked to Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report about it.

@RossTuckerNFL blame that on espn. No one wants the distraction
— Eric Wood (@EWood70) August 31, 2014

GM tells me: "Teams want to sign Michael Sam but fear the media attention." To me, that's cowardice. But that's just me.
— mike freeman (@mikefreemanNFL) September 1, 2014

However, the people who complain about ESPN's coverage of Sam are missing a couple of points, one of which is that plenty of other media outlets have spent time on him, including Peter King's The MMQB, but more importantly ... that Michael Sam, and his attempt to make the NFL, is a legitimate story.

Michael Sam is a fringe NFL player, drafted in the last round, cut in the final cuts of training camp, looking for a spot on someone's roster or more likely a practice squad. All of those are true, and not particularly noteworthy, but Michael Sam being openly gay is a big deal, at least for now.

The NFL has never had an active openly gay player. Jason Collins is the first one in the NBA, and that's just this year. Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League have never had one. So he's unique in that way, but there are also societal and cultural implications to a male athlete being openly gay in one of our major team sports, especially the biggest one and seemingly the symbol for so-called "manliness," the NFL, especially when there are a lot of people who want him to fail not because he's not good enough, but because he's gay.

Granted, ESPN's "shower" segment on Sam was absurd, and they, like any other news organization, can be guilty of beating a story to death, but if a team can't deal with the media coverage he'd bring at the beginning, that's on the team, not the media.

It will be a great day when an NFL, MLB, NBA or NHL player being gay isn't a story, the same way a WNBA player or a Hollywood actor being gay isn't really a story for more than a few minutes. (When my father and I were discussing the news that Jim Parsons of "The Big Bang Theory" was gay, something revealed as almost a throwaway line at the end of a larger profile in the New York Times, in spite of the way the Huffington Post reported on it, he almost dismissively said, "I thought everybody knew that already." He, like I, loves the show.)

But for now, it is a story, and for Collins and Sam, it probably will always be a major part of their story, because they were the first.

Yankees legends ... then and now

Pretty much the first thing you see when you get to Yankee Stadium.

You can't be a Yankees fan, or even be aware of the team, for more than about five minutes without being exposed to the history.

A major reason for that, of course, is that there's so much of it between the World Series wins and the number of great players who have worn the pinstripes, but a lot of it is that the team itself puts so much emphasis on its history.

From Babe Ruth Plaza outside the stadium, to Monument Park, to the retired numbers to the fact that Joe Girardi wears No. 28 because that will be the number of the team's next World Series win, the Yankees want you to know this is not a baseball team, but an institution.

Only one single-digit number left, and that'll be gone soon.

My wife and I went to Yankee Stadium yesterday, which coincided with Joe Torre's No. 6 being retired and him getting a monument in Monument Park. Between seeing players like David Cone, Paul O'Neill, Bernie Williams, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada, Tino Martinez and Andy Pettitte and the video highlights of Torre's years with the Yankees, the ceremony was a reminder that those teams from 1996 to 2007 were really something special.

And yet my wife constantly accuses me of hating Joe Torre. She has a point ... kind of.

No doubt, I have my issues with how Torre managed the team his last few years because I think his calm nature, which was such a positive attribute for years, became laxity. It angers me greatly that he didn't have the Yankees bunt on a one-legged Curt Schilling in the 2004 ALCS, or that he didn't come out of the dugout and do ... something ... when the bugs were eating Joba Chamberlain alive in Cleveland.

And I will never understand why a man who had Bob Gibson as a teammate let pitchers, particularly Red Sox pitchers, hit Derek Jeter over and over with no hint of retaliation.

But with all that being said, Torre was a great manager for the Yankees, their most-successful manager of my lifetime. He's more than worthy of both the Hall of Fame and his place in Monument Park, and I enjoyed seeing him receive the latter.

It's hard to see him, but the passenger in the front of the cart is only one of the handful of greatest catchers ever.

On most other teams, Yogi Berra, who rode in the golf cart with Torre and his family from Monument Park, would probably be the first or second guy you thought of if asked the greatest player in the team's history. With the Yankees, you'd probably think of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle before you thought of Berra, even though Berra is probably one of the three to five greatest catchers who ever played the game. (If you want to say Johnny Bench was the best, who else would you say before Berra? If you have any names, you probably don't have many.)

His biographer Allen Barra goes one further, writing in his book "Brushbacks and Knockdowns" (which I recently reread) that Berra was the most valuable team player in any sport of the 20th century, based on his own success as a player, his team's success and the number of pitchers who had their best (and sometimes only good) years pitching to Berra.

And oh yeah, he was part of the D-Day invasion, so not only is he one of the last surviving links to great Yankee teams of decades past, he's one of a dwindling number of surviving World War II veterans.

Simply put, Yogi Berra is a national treasure. Hopefully, he'll be around for quite a few more years to come.

An all-time great, and I saw him from the start.

Derek Jeter didn't play yesterday, since it was a day game after a night game. All the fans saw of him was him escorting Don Zimmer's wife to her seat for Torre's ceremony.

When I stop long enough to strip away all the debates about how good a fielder he was, the fawning articles about his Jeter-ness or the mocking of same, I realize that for the past 19 years, I've watched the career of someone who's going to be remembered as one of the all-time greats of the game. He's not at the very top of the list with Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron or that class, but he's in that next group or two below.

Once he retires at the end of this season, he's going to be sixth all-time in hits, behind five guys named Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial and Tris Speaker. That's pretty decent company.

While there have been better players than Jeter both throughout the history of baseball and over the course of his career -- the thing that has made him so great is that he was somewhere between very good and outstanding for a long time -- I'm not sure we'll see a star like Jeter for years to come. 

His career has been a perfect confluence of factors: the greatness on the field, all the postseason success, his being in New York his whole career, the good looks, the lack of controversy ... and that's going to be hard to replicate. Mike Trout, who is both a phenomenal player and has "All-American boy" written all over him, is probably closest, but he needs to get himself to October.

For Yankees fans, he is the final person still playing who gave those Torre teams (plus the 2009 team) their identity. Those were the teams of Jeter, Pettitte, Williams, Posada, O'Neill, Cone, Martinez, Matsui and Mariano Rivera, and once Jeter is gone, none of them will be left.

On the field, the Yankees, with Stephen Drew at shortstop, beat the White Sox 5-3. Yet I wonder who will provide the identity of the next great Yankee team, when and if that happens.  

Back to the Cape

The Cape Cod League on a summer evening... happiness.

Reason why my wife is the best wife in the world No. 2372 ... as we were leaving the gym last Friday night, out of the blue, she suggested going to Cape Cod for a baseball game the next night.

Needless to say, I required no convincing.

We chose Falmouth's game against Orleans at Guy Fuller Field, in part because we like going there and in part because it was the game closest to where we live outside of Boston, and we didn't want to hit any more traffic than we had to, although it still took us 90 minutes to get there. (Coming back, it took an hour.) Also, due to repairs to the lights, the game started earlier, meaning we wouldn't get home late.

Just chillin'

My wife and I used to live on the Cape, and while there are a lot of things I don't miss about it, Cape Cod Baseball League games are near the top of the list of what I do miss. 

Not only is it a chance to see some of the best college baseball players in the country for free, the atmosphere (for the fans, anyway, but probably not the players) is relaxing, almost like a picnic where there's baseball being played. 

All the fields are at schools or other municipal parks, and while there are bleachers, if you want to hang out by the fence, walk around, go get some food or grab some space in a lawn chair, go ahead. 

When I worked in Orleans, one of my favorite things was how on nights the Cardinals (now the Firebirds, thanks to the copyright issue that also turned my Hyannis Mets into the Harbor Hawks and the Chatham A's into the Anglers) played at home, fans came out early in the morning to put their lawn chairs, blankets and whatever else they needed to claim spots on the terrace at Eldredge Park and left them there all day. (Eldredge also hosts a summer pops concert where spectators who aren't at a table near the stage do the same thing.)

With the exception of a couple sports, Falmouth isn't as good for bring-your-own-seating, but we like the small bleachers near the third-base dugout, so we settled down to watch the game there. Fortunately, I did not meet the same fate as a couple years ago, when an ill-timed wind gust combined with walking past the Commodores' flag-bearer resulted in me wearing my ketchup-covered French fries.

Some days you play ... some days you handle the 50/50.

As for the game, Orleans jumped out to a 4-0 lead, and was cruising along up 4-1 in the bottom of the seventh when Falmouth's Sam Gillikin got hit in the arm hard enough to have to leave the game.

And thus began the saga of Boomer White.

Boomer when in to pinch-run -- and as I noted to my wife, you don't see a lot of pinch-runners named Boomer -- but given the time it took for him to get to first base after Gillikin was removed, it's almost like he wasn't expecting to play that day. Cape League rosters aren't that big; it's not like there were a ton of other options to play the outfield.

We quickly became fascinated with Boomer, and a quick search on my phone revealed that he's quite good, so good that his impending transfer from TCU to Texas A&M was kind of a big deal in college baseball circles, to the point where rival fans actually speculated about the reason.

Falmouth rallied in the bottom of the eighth, and had tied the game at four when our man Boomer strode the plate with the go-ahead run on base. It was your basic 29-hopper through a drawn-in infield, but he got a single to put Falmouth up 5-4 during what wound up being a five-run rally and a 6-4 lead.

After a top of the ninth where Boomer appeared to be tossing something in the outfield to keep himself amused (gum, maybe?) Falmouth held on to win 6-5.

Our hero ... Boomer White

One man's quest for Liverpool tickets

My wife and I are planning another trip to England for this fall, and we decided to try to get Liverpool tickets.

We made sure that we each had a membership (I had one from last year that I had to renew, but she had to get one of her own because membership only allows you to buy one ticket, although multiple people can arrange to buy them together) and found a home game that fit within our timeframe.

It wasn't one of their biggest games, which actually fit even better, because as new members with no ticket history, we weren't allowed to buy tickets for those games, anyway. Tickets for the game went on sale at 8:15 this morning (not only are games limited based on ticket-buying history, tickets only go on sale for groups of games at a time), and we were ready to go.

Hold on ... did I mention that's 8:15 a.m. England time ... as in 3:15 a.m. here on the East Coast of America?

But if it meant getting up at 3 a.m., getting up at 3 a.m. was what we were going to do, and so I was in front of the computer, ready to hit the button at the stroke of 3:15 ...

... to get put in a queue ... a queue that was going to last more than an hour.

Oh well, I was already up and didn't have anywhere to go, plus ticket availability was very good. Of course it was; it's not exactly Manchester United coming to Anfield.

So I did a little surfing on the Internet, tried to find something to watch on TV and realized that TV at 3:30 a.m. is pretty much crap. My wife abandoned the pursuit fairly early, going back upstairs into bed and telling me to let her know if anything changed.

About a half-hour or so into it, I noticed that ticket availability had been downgraded to good, but I wasn't too worried. After all, I had been queued up for a while, and there were still plenty of tickets left. With a little patience, I'd be all set to work on my rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone."

Then the good news and bad news hit at roughly the same time. The estimate of more than an hour dropped to less than 30 minutes, then less than 20. That was the good news. The bad news was that ticket availability had been reduced to very limited. Was I actually going to get up at 3 a.m., sit online for more than an hour ... and not be able to get tickets?

Yes, yes I was. With fewer than five minutes left in my wait, the ticket status changed again ... to sold out. I let the timer run out (what the hell, I had waited this long), and was sent to a page saying that all the tickets were sold out except limited and extremely limited view. which I have to imagine is the different between sitting near a pole and directly behind it. No thanks, if I want to pay through the nose to sit behind a pole, I can do that right in Boston.

I was somewhat miffed at this news, not now-I'm-going-to-become-a-Chelsea-fan miffed, but somewhat miffed.

Up at 3 a.m. to buy @LFC tickets. In queue when it opened at 3:15. Waited more than an hour. Sold out while I waited. #wasteoftime #thanks
— LastHonestSportsFan (@LastHonestSport) July 16, 2014

So now we (and by "we" I mean "my wife") have been looking at options. There's some sort of game-and-lodging package where the only disadvantage is that it would cost an arm and a leg. Apparently, unused season tickets go on sale the week before the game, and Liverpool is on the road toward the end of our vacation.

We'll see what happens.

A day with the Brockton Rox

Easy enough to see from the parking lot

"Do you know where you're going?"

That's what the parking lot attendant at Brockton High School asked as he took my $5 when I pulled in for a recent Brockton Rox game. I think he was a little taken aback when I pointed to Campanelli Stadium, which was just a couple hundred yards to the left, because he said something like "Well if it's your first time ... ."

It actually wasn't my first time. A few years ago, my wife and I went with a friend to a Rox game and parked in some tiny lot near the ballpark, so the high school parking lot was already an improvement.

This is what $5 gets you ... not too bad.

Tickets are the Rox are $5, $8 and $12, and I know the park is small enough so there aren't really any bad seats, so I decided to take my chance with a $5 ticket. I confess that I didn't expect to be right behind third base.

According to Wikipedia (grains of salt being tossed), Campanelli Stadium has a capacity of 4,750, and the box score for the Rox game against the Seacoast Mavericks listed the attendance as 1,268. It seemed like the ballpark was less than a quarter full (when the family in front of me left partway though the game, I had four rows to myself), but maybe it was. 

It's a nice little ballpark, all seats and no bleachers. On a hot day, I was hoping there were some seats under cover, but one advantage of a small crowd was that I was able to move into some seats that had been covered by shadows toward the end of the game, and I watched the last couple innings from the concourse area, which has a roof over it.

Even though it's a baseball stadium, there are plenty of nods to Brockton's most-famous sons, Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler, from the team name, the boxing mural on the wall of one of the men's rooms, to the mascot being named K-O. Beyond the right field fence was the high school football field, for the Brockton Boxers.

What do you get the mascot who has everything? Apparently, a T-shirt gun.

After having been an independent minor league team for several years, the Rox are now members of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League. By league rules, at least 13 players on each team must be from New England or be attending a New England college. 

The league tries to provide a "family friendly, affordable and fun experience for the communities that we play in, in a minor league style setting," and that was one thing I noticed at the Rox. As summer collegiate leagues go, the FCBL doesn't have nearly the history or reputation of the Cape Cod Baseball League, but as opposed to Cape Cod, where they basically just play the games, the Rox definintely provided summer-league ball with a minor-league flair.

There were minor-league stables like the dizzy bat race and having children race the mascot around the bases, but the big promotion was that it was K-O's birthday. Other local mascots came to join the party, and the celebration culminated with the mascots dancing on top of the dugout, a cake and a T-shirt gun as a present.

It was a bit of a rough day for the man behind the plate.

The Mavericks rode a five-run sixth inning to an 8-5 win, and there were a few calls -- a balk, a pitch or two that could have been called a strike, the Rox first baseman pulling his foot off the bag -- that left Rox manager Bryan Stark a little unhappy. At one point, he got into it with home plate umpire Matt Le Mear and I was convinced he would get thrown out.

But he wasn't, and when a Rox player struck out looking to end an inning, Stark began marching toward home plate, I'm assuming to give Le Mear another piece of his mind, but the umpire very subtly walked about 10 feet up the line toward first base and stood there, and Stark made the right-hand turn into the third-base dugout.

I don't know if Le Mear did that to avoid a confrontation (he also did the same thing during a mid-inning pitching change), but it was a nice piece of umpiring.

An inning or two later, Le Mear took a foul ball off his collarbone, chin or something else that wasn't covered by padding, and was clearly in pain. Who was the first person on the scene to tend to him?

Bryan Stark was. (After a few minutes, Le Mear wound up being OK, by the way.)

Not a lot of people watching, but a pretty good place to watch a game.

It's pretty silly that I've only gone to a couple games in Brockton. It's hard to beat the price, and it's only about 10 miles from where I live. I'll have to get there more often.

  

Some thoughts about what whole soccer thing

Now that the United States has been eliminated from the World Cup, we can now concentrate the soccer story that really matters ... by which of course I mean the question of What It All Means For Soccer In The United States.

To be honest, I have no idea. I don't think the ratings (including non-U.S. games) and watch parties mean soccer is finally destined to leap into a lead spot on the U.S. sports landscape -- I have, at times, noticed that soccer has been the sport of the future for 35 years -- but they have to mean something. It's just a matter of what.

If I had to guess, the audience has been part rooting for the United States, part people who are soccer fans already and part loving big events, but it's hard to believe that the World Cup hasn't resulted in any new fans at all. Maybe they'll take in an MLS game (which by the way, I never have, not in person, anyway, and I haven't watched much on TV, either) or stop on NBC Sports Network this fall if Everton is playing because they remember that's who Tim Howard plays for.

In short, this year's World Cup will probably mean another incremental increase in the sport's popularity in the United States, that soccer will be a little closer to "success" and "arriving" here, whatever either of those two terms mean.

I just wish people would realize something I've said at least a couple times on Twitter already ... that liking soccer doesn't preclude someone from liking other sports, because sometimes I wonder if people realize that. Take, let's say, a certain sports columnist in Boston whose ability to make people hate him is so sublime he should be the hero for every professional wrestling heel working today.

While I've long thought his act had elements of shtick to it (depending on the situation, he can play idiot Boston fan, guy who mocks idiot Boston fan, troll and, once in a great while, columnist who writes something that makes sense), I do sometimes feel the "I don't like soccer and you can't make me" attitude that he and people like him have is a fear that appreciating soccer means they can't like baseball or football or whatever they like.

So they trot out "there's no scoring in soccer" (not always in baseball, either, and baseball has a lot more standing around when literally nothing happens) or "you can't use your hands" (quick, other than walking, running or kicking things, are they any activities that aren't easier by virtue of using your hands) or my new favorite, "you can't tell how much time is left" (because when does a baseball game end, exactly, and not knowing when the ref will call for time can sometimes make things more dramatic, not less).

I just wonder how they would do in a place like England, where soccer is basically the only major sport there is, where being able to see most any American sport, including the precious NFL, would be a novelty.

But they're not in England; they're here, and if they don't like soccer, they're still allowed to like whatever they do like.

There are just more people all the time who think they have it wrong.

Those stupid kids ... screwing it up for their parents

A lot of what passes for "anger" among sports fans is actually passion. Sure, I get upset when the Yankees don't hit, or Syracuse chokes, or Jose Mourinho parks the bus against Liverpool or the Chargers make stupid mistakes or whatever, but it's fleeting and there's a distance to it. The anger is that I, as a spectator, did not see the ending I had hoped for.

But this Boston Globe article made me angry, not sports-fan angry, but actual, want-to-slap-these-people-upside-the-head angry.

"'I hate to hear we’re playing at Evans Field,'” said Patrick Fitzgerald, casting an accusatory glance at the Southie field’s towering lights, beloved by grade schoolers for their power to extend games after dark, dreaded by some parents for the same reason.

“'It’s good for him to be part of a team,'” Fitzgerald said, “'but he also plays hockey, and that is guaranteed one hour, which is kind of nice.'”

Yes, parents are unhappy that their children's Little League games ... take too long.

I don't have kids, but I was a kid once upon a time. And I loved Little League. I loved the games. I loved the practices. My brother's four years younger than me, so his first year in Little League was my last, and I loved his games and practices. I just loved being at the ballfield.

And unless something urgent got in the way, my parents were always at the games, just like they were always at basketball games (mostly mine, even when I wasn't going to play), soccer games (my brother's), concerts (both) and school musicals (my brother's).

They did, because they could.

"As Andover mom Tracey Spruce put it in a Facebook post: 'I love my son dearly, but I have to say that watching a second-grade Little League game may very well be the Tenth Circle of Hell.'”

"Reached by phone before a game, Spruce expanded: 'The kids are picking flowers, and it seems completely disorganized. Let’s say you have a kid who actually gets a hit, then the shortstop misses it, four kids bump into each other. Someone throws it to first base, but it’s an overthrow . . .'”

Does she realize these are little kids? Hold on, and try that again, this time in your best Lewis Black voice, "DOES SHE REALIZE THESE ARE $%@&//* LITTLE KIDS!"

"But as every parent knows, pokey behavior — on the field and off — can be hard to regulate, a reality some parents deal with by doing one, or all, of the following during games: communing with their phones, chatting with other parents (often missing their kids’ at bat), grocery shopping, running home to do laundry.

'You can get stuff done during the game,' Lauren Downey, the mother of two White Sox players, said as she watched Sunday’s game at Evans Field.

'I’ve read a couple of James Patterson books,' said Anne Spence, the mother of a player for the White Sox’ opponents, the Dunkin’ Donuts Mets."

Again, I don't have kids, so I'm sure schedules can be rough ... but from what I understand, that comes with having kids. But apparently, it's too much of a burden on these poor parents to actually watch their children play sports for more than an hour.

And it really, really made me angry to read that.

The game is the thing ... at least FIFA hopes so

If you've seen John Oliver's epic "Last Week Tonight" segment on the horribleness that is FIFA (and if you haven't, it's right there ... watch it), you know that before and after he lays out in great detail just how horrible FIFA is, he says he's incredibly excited for the World Cup.
He presents it as a conundrum ... loving an event while knowing the people in charge of it are loathsome. But it's not really that much of a conundrum, and it's not something that can be ascribed to the "religious" aspects of soccer.
After all, the most-popular sport in this country is one in which we are learning more and more that its participants are maiming themselves for our enjoyment, but woe unto anyone who tries to do anything about it, or even say it's happening.
In March and early April, millions of people may actually stop obsessing over the spectacle that is the self-maiming to watch a basketball tournament in which the "student-athletes" miss days of classes to play for the championship of an organization that believes the players can receive an education at the school they play for and absolutely nothing else, even as the billions keep rolling in.
And earlier this year, the youth of the world gathered to compete in a country run by a man who could generously be described as perhaps a bit autocratic, and not only did people complain when one of the television hosts of that event dared to bring it up (because, you know, he said something about guns once), they complained when they couldn't see those competitions as they happened.
This is sports. This is what sports does. We want our games, and absent something truly catastrophic (stadiums falling in, natural disasters, people dying), we don't want anything to intrude on them. Yes, sports provide a welcome distraction from whatever crap is going on in the world, and my good friend Cy Nical would tell you that's especially true for people who don't want to have to think about anything.
But it's not just that. Lots of people are perfectly capable of understanding the real world and its implications on sports, who know that the NFL, NCAA, Vladimir Putin's Russia and the International Olympic Committee that awarded this year's Winter Olympics to him are flawed, at best, but we still love the games.
Why?
Because they're fun!
In just this World Cup alone, there are so many questions, and it's going to be so much fun to see them be answered? Will the United States get out of group play, and if not, will Landon Donovan be able to restrain himself from shouting "I told you so!" on air?
Will Spain be able to defend its title, or will Brazil lift the trophy on home soil? Or will Lionel Messi become the hero for Argentina that he is for Barcelona and lead his country to glory? Will Luis Suarez and Cristiano Ronaldo be able to play? If so, how effective will they be? 
How will England mess it up this time, and who will be blamed when they do? Will it be Roy Hodgson? Wayne Rooney? Steven Gerrard? The guy who missed the key penalty kick in the shootout?
Those are the ones I came up with off the top of my head. I'm sure there are a lot of others people far better-versed in the World Cup could come up with.
So enjoy the games. Just don't be blind about it.

Where the Yankees got it all wrong

I see a lot of #firecashman these days on Twitter when I'm watching a Yankees game. It is frustrating these days, with the Yankees bumping along at 29-28, five games out of first place and looking like the very symbol of mediocrity or worse, with a run differential of minus-26.

Yes, Derek Jeter's swan song could be a pretty miserable year, so wanting to get rid of general manager Brian Cashman is an unsurprising way to lash out. After all, he did such horrible things in the offseason like disrespecting Robinson Cano by only offering seven years and $175 million.

If that was Cashman's only terrible move, it would be one thing ... but no, he had to make it worse by signing Jacoby Ellsbury (.298/.355/.426, nine home runs, 53 RBI, 52 steals) and Carlos Beltran (.296/.339/.491, 24 home runs, 84 RBI) to replace Vernon Wells (.233/.282/.349, 11 homers, 50 RBI), Ichiro (although he's still around as a part-time player -- .262/.297/.342, seven homers, 35 RBI) and Curtis Granderson (.229/.317/.407, seven homers, 15 RBI in 61 games. In 56 games with the Mets this year, his numbers are .212/.323/.354 with six homers and 27 RBI).

So Cashman clearly screwed up the outfield by getting two good players to replace three not-so-good ones. Then he had to turn around and sign Brian McCann (.256/.336/.461, 20 homers, 57 RBI) to catch instead of, among others, Chris Stewart (.211/.293/.272, four homers, 25 RBI). Yes, yes, I know they should have never let Russell Martin (.226/.327/.377, 15 homers, 55 RBI with Pittsburgh) go, since he was obviously Thurman Munson reincarnated.

And he had the nerve to think that a healthier Derek Jeter, even approaching 40, would be better than ... who played shortstop for the Yankees last year when Jeter was out? Who didn't? I personally enjoy all the love for Brendan Ryan, who's a wonderful fielder but for his career would be a good-hitting National League pitcher (.238/.299/.320).

Remember the Lyle Overbay Experience ... the .242/.295/393 with 14 home runs and 59 RBI? For a guy signed off the street in spring training, he actually didn't do too badly, but Cashman had the nerve to let him go in favor of a theoretically healthy Mark Teixeira.

(By the way, I got all my numbers from here if you want to look yourself.)

I know I'm no general manager, but by the looks of it, on paper the Yankees improved in left field (since Ellsbury allowed Brett Gardner to move to left), right field, first base, catcher, shortstop and designated hitter (either Alfonso Soriano or Soriano and Ichiro in a platoon instead of the fossilized remains of Travis Hafner or whatever other player was getting a partial day off).

Second base was a loss, a big loss, and I don't know how to judge third base.

But Cashman needs to be fired because:

• Ellsbury, McCann and Beltran haven't been that good, and Beltran has gotten hurt.
• Teixeira and Jeter clearly aren't all the way back, and Teixeira has been hurt.
• Soriano has been Soriano, which means he may hit a bunch of home runs any day now, but there will be multiple games in a row where it's a triumph for him to make contact.
• And oh by the way, C.C. Sabathia's transition to an old pitcher is now complete.

But they're cheap! Kendrys Morales! Make trades!

Yes, a $203 million payroll is practically Houston Astros-like. Clearly, they should have used more money on another first baseman/DH who's so good that he's still unemployed today (although, to be fair, the draft pick attached has a lot to do with that). And they can trade for more stars with their ... virtually non-existent farm system.

I can't stress the last point enough, and if you want to rip Cashman and the Yankees' front office for this, go ahead; I'll be right there with you. What player in the Yankees minor-league system is ready to be an everyday, contributing player in the major leagues right now? In 2015? In 2016? Whenever Gary Sanchez finally arrives? (I swear, for a catcher who's only 21, it seems like I've been hearing about Sanchez for about 10 years.)

Or would you rather trade Dellin Betances, who actually is homegrown (Congratulations Yankees, you got one!) and has been a revelation out of the bullpen?

Let me put it to you this way. It looks like the Red Sox have lost all faith in Will Middlebrooks, and he's likely to go down in history as the guy who got his girlfriend canned from her TV job. He's 25 years old, and if for some reason he wound up in New York (slim and no chance), he'd be the best young player in their organization right now.

So aside from presiding over a terrible farm system, Cashman's biggest mistake is that the players he signed, who were good players just last year, haven't worked out.

By all means, fire him for that.

Luis Suarez ... love him or hate him

"Imagine the tabloid fodder of Lindsay Lohan's life with Jennifer Lawrence's acting chops."

-- Wright Thompson, "Portrait of a serial winner"

Wright Thompson's wonderful piece for ESPN about Luis Suarez, from which the line above was taken, is actually one of three excellent sports stories I read today, the others being Alyson Footer's about the integration of Houston and the role the Astrodome played in it and Will Leitch's on ESPN's soccer coverage, which in its explanation of how both ESPN and NBC Sports Network cover soccer presents a guide that all sports television executives should heed.

I don't think I can both quickly and properly sum up Thompson's Suarez story, particularly without spoilers, so I'll suffice by saying that he builds around the search for details on an incident that may or may not have happened in Suarez's youth into an attempt to explain what makes him who he is, good and bad.

Seriously, read it, along with Footer and Leitch. You can thank me later.

But even before I read the piece, I've been thinking about how Suarez, as few others I can think of in sports, with the possible exceptions of Ray Lewis or Michael Vick, embodies the guiding principle of this blog ... that we are all hypocrites, that we are willing to forgive (or at least understand) people we like while condemning in those we don't. It applies in life as well as sports.

If the worst thing you could say about Luis Suarez was that he's a serial diver (another trait he shares with Lawrence ... falling down in public), that would be one thing. It's unsporting as hell, and I think it has given him a reputation as The Striker Who Cried Wolf, but diving isn't exactly committing assault on the pitch.

Except Suarez has done that ... twice. And not fists-or-feet-flying assault, but biting. Along with spitting, is there any nastier thing you can do.

And oh yeah ... he was also suspended for racially abusing Patrice Evra. I'm actually surprised that in the Suarez ledger, the biting, and not this, seems to be the first thing people think of.

I don't know if it's because the soccer world still doesn't get the problem of racism (this is only a clip, but I would recommend the "Real Sports" story about it on HBO if you can catch a replay), the argument in some quarters that "negrito" is not actually a racial slur in South America, because talking too much about it would also force an uncomfortable discussion of how the John Terry-Anton Ferdinand situation was handled or something else, but that's how it seems.

Yet much in the same way Ravens fans cheered for Lewis, Eagles fans cheered for Vick (and Jets fans may now) and Chelsea fans cheer for Terry, Liverpool fans (including myself) cheer for Suarez, even if we know in our heart of hearts that maybe we shouldn't.

Why?

Do you really have to ask?

Today's dumbest story in sports: all-England edition

So it turns out Liverpool won the Premier League after all ... provided you only count goals scored by English players.

Yes, the New York Times brings us some research showing that game-by-game, if you only counted the goals by English players, Liverpool would have cruised to the title by nine points over Southampton and 16 over Manchester United. I actually would have guessed at the result before reading, as Steven Gerrard, Daniel Sturridge, Glen Johnson, Raheem Sterling and Jordan Henderson give Liverpool a strong English contingent.

As for Manchester City, the actual champions, they would have been relegated with a record of one win against eight losses and 29 draws.

The whole exercise is pretty silly. For starters, it only accounts for goals scored, not goals stopped. As leaky as Liverpool's defense was, it would have been even worse without Simon Mignolet (a Belgian) in goal and central defenders Kolo Toure (Ivory Coast), Daniel Agger (Denmark), Mamadou Sakho (France) and Martin Skrtel (Slovakia), although I'm not sure how Skrtel's four own-goals would count on the ledger.

But more importantly, and seriously, it's just pointless. It would be like someone saying baseball is America's National Pastime so let's see who won the World Series by counting statistics garnered by Americans (although that would mean no David Ortiz or Koji Uehara, so maybe that's not such a bad idea).

The timing of posting the standings if only English goals count is fortuitous, though, in that it's not only the day after the Premier League season ends, but also the day the English World Cup roster was announced. From what I understand, the lack of English players in the Premier League and its international impact is a source of much hand-wringing, with various attempts to figure out how to make things better.

However, as The Secret Footballer pointed out, the Premier League is a business, and a highly successful one, based on getting the best players from around the world.

"That flagship policy (reaching the semifinals of Euro 2020 and winning the 2022 World Cup) is undermined by a multibillion-pound elephant at the other end of the table. It’s called the Premier League and it doesn’t care if England never win the World Cup again."

So there's no need to fantasize about what the standings would look like in a Premier League of only English players; it's not going to happen.

Plus, it's not like England's international record isn't all that stellar when most of the players in its top league were English. There's a reason why 1966 is a magical year there.

Liverpool, the sweet and the bitter

So bloody close, but yet so bloody far

If you just told a Liverpool fan these facts back in August:

• that the team would go from seventh in the Premier League to second, get back into the Champions League and take the title race down to the final day,
• that they would score more than 100 goals and play in an entertaining, crowd-pleasing manner,
• that Luis Suarez would go from being suspended and wanting out to leading the league in goals, teaming with Daniel Sturridge (once again, and I cannot say it enough, thank you Chelsea) to form the often-unstoppable SAS, signing a new contract and being named PFA Player of the Year,
• that they would not only sweep Manchester United, but that United would have such a terrible season that David Moyes would surpass Roy Hodgson at Liverpool in the pantheon of managerial hires that seemed to make sense at the time but turned out so, so wrong,
• that Brendan Rodgers, unlike Hodgson, would prove to be a brilliant hire who can't sign that new contract soon enough, 
• that Steven Gerrard would find a new home as a holding midfielder and in so doing revitalize his career,
• that Jordan Henderson would actually turn into a good player,
• that Raheem Sterling would start living up to his immense potential
• and that they would lay waste to Arsenal in a display that makes me want to have "How many do you want? HOW MANY DO YOU WANT?" as the ringtone on my phone ...

... he or she would be pretty pleased with how the campaign would go, right? I mean, sure, it would have been disappointing to not win it, but that's still a wonderful season.
However ... what that Liverpool fan wouldn't have known then, but would know now, is how close they were to taking the title. It actually would have been fairly preposterous had they pulled it off, as they would have had to improve upon their 2014 record of 15 wins, three draws and one loss either by eliminating the loss, making the loss a tie and winning one of the ties or winning two of the ties ... basically anything adding up to three or more points.
Yet it looked like they were going to do it. After all, following the 1-1 draw against West Bromwich Albion Feb. 2, Liverpool won 11 in a row through April 27. There was open talk about Liverpool winning the trophy, and The Guardian even ran a story profiling the 20 players that brought them to the cusp of the title.
Then Chelsea's Jose Mourinho parked the bus, Gerrard fell down, Demba Ba remembered for one of the few times this year that his job is to put balls in the back of the net ... and Liverpool effectively kissed the title goodbye. Losing a three-goal lead to Crystal Palace didn't help, either, but the Chelsea loss was the opening Manchester City needed, and they weren't going to lose again.
So the season, brilliant as it was, ends in the disappointment of knowing that a trophy was there for the taking but not taken. Sure, it's easy to say that Liverpool will be back, that the current players will improve, young players who weren't ready to crack the roster this year will earn places and that the team will make additional astute signings, particularly to address the lack of depth and leaky defense.
And maybe they will be, but nothing's guaranteed. This year, the possibility of a Liverpool title was getting a "Yeah, but," as in "Yeah, they might win the title, but their players are in better shape because they're not playing in Europe." Next year, Liverpool will be in the Champions League, which is obviously great, but it does tax the roster.
You also have to assume that Manchester City will continue to spend whatever it takes to win and that Chelsea will try to find strikers who can actually score goals. Everton showed signs of being really good this year. Maybe Tottenham Hotspur will finally figure it out. 
Arsenal actually topped the table for a long stretch before falling off, and Manchester United seemingly has too much talent to stay down long if they get the right manager (something I frequently remind my mate Gardner of when he's feeling too down about life). 
In other words, just because Liverpool had a great year this year, nothing is guaranteed for next year. It could be the last step toward a title, or as close as the club gets for a long time.
And the worst part is, there are no shortcuts. There is actually no one who will be able to say in August with any more certainty than a prediction that Liverpool hoists the trophy a year from now. It's a journey that kicks off in a few months and won't end for another year.
Let the next journey begin. 

A walk through the Garden

And there it is ... right down the street from my hotel.

I'm not a big "bucket list" type of guy. Sure, there are things I'd like to do, but I don't look at doing them as another item checked off.

But of the few things I'd like to do but haven't yet, going to an event at Madison Square Garden is near the top of that list. Not only is it in New York City with that famed, distinct architecture sitting right atop Penn Station, it has an aura that I struggled to define as I was thinking about it. 

What I came up with is that no matter the event -- Knicks, Rangers, the real Big East men's basketball tournament, concerts, wrestling (even the way wrestlers would walk to the ring looked different, entering from the side and with a shorter walk, seemingly into a mass of humanity) -- the Garden seems to fit the event, like there was never a more natural place for it. Nothing ever seems out of place.

As he so often does, Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant got it just right before the Rangers and Flyers played in the seventh game of their playoff series Wednesday night.

Wow. Place looks different from the last time I was here for Michigan State-UConn.#game7 pic.twitter.com/7ZzEfZVSMD
— Jeff Jacobs (@jacobscourant) April 30, 2014

I had actually momentarily forgotten that this year's East Regional was at MSG, and not just because the NCAA, in its finite wisdom, continues to insist on generic floors. For on Wednesday, the Garden was a hockey arena hosting a massive game that had the whole city buzzing.

Mrs. Last Honest and I spent a few days in New York this week, staying at the New Yorker hotel right down the street from the arena. While we didn't go to the Rangers-Flyers game (we were supposed to see the Yankees and Mariners that night, a game washed away by the all-day and all-night rain, and I wasn't up to spending the hundreds of dollars it would have taken to go to the hockey game), we did take a tour the previous day.

Wow ... just wow.

The tour wasn't perfect. I understand the guide (who was actually delightful, plus she was working off a format, anyway) was trying to inform us about the renovations at MSG, but I really don't care about tile patterns or the high-class offerings in the food court. Also, if there is going to be a stop for people to have their photos taken with hockey sticks or basketballs, it should be before or after the tour and not in the middle, and people shouldn't have to get their picture taken if they don't want to.

All these did was take time away from what people wanted ... which was to be in the arena.

It's always exciting to walk into a stadium or an arena, but there are some that are more meaningful than others. As I was sitting there, listening to our guide talk about how the rink is put together and the changeover from hockey to basketball, there was only one thing I could think of.

I'm in Madison Square Garden. I'm in Madison. Square. Garden.

Now I just have to get to a game there someday.

The dumbest stories in sports (Part 2)

The NFL schedule for next season was released tonight, and apparently that is cause for much rejoicing.

The NFL Schedule will be released tonight. Block off your Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays accordingly.
— ESPN (@espn) April 23, 2014

So that got Mrs. Last Honest and I to thinking ... what sporting events would happen between tonight (April 23) and the first game of the NFL season Sept. 4? Here's what we came up with:

• The remainder of the NBA and NHL playoffs.
• More than four months of the Major League Baseball season, including the All-Star Game.
• The College World Series.
• The Little League World Series.
• The Baseball Hall of Fame induction.
• The NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL drafts.
• The World Cup.
• The end of this Premier League season ... and the start of the next one.
• The French Open, Wimbledon and most of the U.S. Open.
• The British Open, the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship.
• The Indianapolis 500, Coca-Cola 600 and Grand Prix of Monaco ... all on the same day.
• The WNBA regular season. 
• The Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont.
• The opening of the Canadian Football League season (by the way, they announced their schedule in February).
• The Tour de France.
• The Floyd Mayweather-Marcos Maidana fight.

But by all means, let's obsess over the NFL schedule.

The dumbest stories in sports (Part 1)

Let me make this one really simple:

1. Jacoby Ellsbury was an important player for the Boston Red Sox.

2. Jacoby Ellsbury left the Boston Red Sox to join the New York Yankees, and took more money to do so.

3. Red Sox fans booed Jacoby Ellsbury last night when he came back to Boston for the first time.

This was always going to happen, and will happen every time Ellsbury goes back to Boston the rest of his career. (Here's to hoping Red Sox fans consult their dictionaries before it happens again.) There was no point speculating whether it was going to happen. There was no point commenting on it when it did happen.

There was actually no point in criticizing Red Sox fans who did it. I don't agree with it, and won't be booing Robinson Cano when I see the Yankees play the Mariners at Yankee Stadium next week, but all the criticism in the world won't change it.

And there will be no point in commenting on it when it happens in the future.

UConn's basketball art

When Mrs. Last Honest and I first started dating in September 2000, she explained to me how Connecticut women's basketball worked ... namely that there would be a few other top teams that could give them a game, but they would blow the rest of them out.

And she was right. Following the UConn women -- and thanks to the Internet, we've been able to see their games that aren't televised nationally either on Connecticut Public Television, SNY or ESPN's streaming service -- has meant seeing a lot of games where the competitive portion lasts for five minutes if the opposition was lucky. (This year, I discovered that sometimes the most-entertaining part of the game is watching John Altavilla of the Hartford Courant on Twitter as he watches the game.)

But it has also meant seeing last night.

The competition in women's basketball isn't particularly deep. The Connecticut men winning the national championship as a seventh seed (and beating eighth-seeded Kentucky to do it) was implausible; the thought of a women's seven seed doing it is, at this time, unthinkable.

This, however, was Notre Dame -- the second-ranked team in the country, also undefeated, also crushing everything in its path and with a recent history of beating the Huskies to boot. So it wasn't a shock that even without Natalie Achonwa, the Irish whittled UConn's early big early lead to as low as five and ultimately seven by the end of the first half.

And then UConn came out in the second half and absolutely boat-raced Notre Dame. What shaped up as a possible classic instead became a coronation.

Yet whether it's against Notre Dame or the dregs of their schedule, when the UConn women are right, as they so frequently are, what they're doing is less basketball and more artistry, their competition less the players in the other uniforms and more the possibilities of what can be done on a basketball court ...as long as your definition of good basketball doesn't require male physical size, strength and athleticism.

Sometimes, this actually gets them in what passes for trouble. They can do so many things, it's almost like they sometimes feel a need to show them all, and the gears grind for a while. Last night, however, was no such problem. They threw the ball inside early and often, mostly to Stefanie Dolson and Breanna Stewart, because the Irish had nothing for them, and wouldn't have had enough even if Achonwa was playing.

When it works ... oh, when it works. The players have changed from Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi from when I started watching to Dolson, Stewart and the rest of this year's Huskies, but the way they pass, shoot, defend, run the floor and see ... see what's going on and make a play accordingly ... can be a joy to behold.

That's why I wish the people who say, "Who cares? They're just women" would stop caring that, yes, women are smaller, slower and less athletic than men (which is simple biology, that's all, not a sign of male superiority in all things) and actually watch the UConn women play.

Because they might just see a masterpiece.

Baseball means spring ... except in the Northeast

When the phone rang, I knew it was my brother, and I knew why he was calling.

It was the morning of May 18, 2002, and my brother was going to rendezvous with me, my then-fiancee (now my wife) and her parents outside Albany, NY, for a trip to Yankee Stadium for that afternoon's game between the Yankees and Twins.

The weather, however, was nasty, and my brother was calling to ask if we were still planning to go. When I told him we were, he replied, "You do know it's snowing here, right?"

While we were just getting rain, my brother, who lived at a higher elevation about 40 minutes away, was indeed getting snow. I reassured him, however, that not only were we going, but that the rain was projected to stop by about 10:30, plenty of time before the game was supposed to start.

I'm not sure how much he believed me, but he came down to meet us, and the five of us piled into the car and headed to New York.

* * * * *

The arrival of baseball season, starting with images of spring training from Florida and Arizona, means spring is on the way.

It just seems like the Northeast is the last place it arrives.

Seeing snow on the ground this morning at my home outside Boston, since it's both March 31 and the more-or-less opening day of the baseball season (minus the Australia games, last night's ESPN opener and the teams who don't start until tomorrow), put me in a mood. I may have referred to where I live as a "frozen hellhole" at one point.

One of the guys who works for me may have been a little surprised, since he knows I grew up in upstate New York. The conversation brought back memories of my high school baseball days, when sometimes we practiced in weather so cold that I couldn't make my hands work well enough to zip up my pants afterward, so I wore my practice gear home.

The game schedule was more or less a wish list, since a lot of them were going to be called off, and getting anything done required a lot of practice indoors. My high school coach had all sorts of creative ideas for things we could do in the gym, complete with several soft baseballs he had acquired for that purpose.

One of those drills was going to be him pitching from one corner of the gym to a batter positioned near the batting net alongside the divider that split the gym in two, where the softball team was probably trying to get some work in of their own. Imagining balls flying around the gym and scattering other players doing their drills, I wasn't quite sure how it would work, but I never got a chance to find out.

You see, I was going to be the first batter in the drill, but while the coach was warming up, one of my return throws slipped out of my batting glove and short-hopped him in the last place any man wants to be short-hopped.

End of drill.

* * * * *

It was cold, but fortunately for us, dry.

When my boy Poopsie turned 30 a few years ago, we celebrated his birthday at Fenway Park. The game the between the Red Sox and Rays the night before had been suspended, and the weather the next night wasn't much better. The good news was that one of Poopsie's friends had connections that let us get tickets right behind home plate, under cover.

So while it was a chilly night, we were at least dry to see the end of the game from the night before, plus the regularly scheduled game. I tried to be clever by wearing my Durham Bulls hat, but since one of the guys in our group used to live in Durham, he realized what I was going for, since the Bulls are Tampa Bay's top farm team.

Since the MBTA only just started realizing people stay out late on the weekends, those of us who took the train had to leave early, but between the two games, we got to see about nine innings of baseball.

However, I'm hoping that the next time Poopsie and I hit a game, it'll be in Philadelphia, where he lives now, and that it won't be freezing.

* * * * *

The weather forecasts I had seen were correct, and the rain pretty much stopped at about 10:30, as we were approaching New York. 

We got there early, so we found a bar near the stadium where we could get lunch and watch Jason Giambi's walk-off grand slam from the night before. We all knew what was coming. We all cheered, anyway.

It didn't rain anymore, but it was cold ... as in wear-your-winter-jacket cold. The cold would have been bad enough, but the wind was also blowing hard from left field to right ... and we were in the right field box seats.

Did I mention that this wasn't March 18, not April 18 ... but May 18?

At least the Yankees won, but ever since then, I've been loathe to go to any games at Yankee Stadium early in the season. If I'm going to freeze my tail off at a ballgame, I can do it a lot closer to home.