Congratulations Chicago!

Right now I would like to thank the Chicago Blackhawks for doing something the Devils, Habs, and most painfully, the Bruins could not do: close out and finish off the Philadelphia Flyers. Philadelphia's elimination is long overdue, as the Bruins should have swept them but lost in seven games. They got lucky, the Bruins got hurt, the Bruins forgot how to play, and the rest is history. Without David Krejci, Boston's offense was seriously compromised in that series. The Flyers looked good against Montreal as well, but the Habs were another team that got farther than anyone anticipated. It is also good for Chicago. As a Boston fan, it is easy to sympathize with Chicago fans. They get overshadowed by New York (so does Philly but they are more obnoxious than Boston or Chicago) and they go long periods of time without winning (this is their first Stanley Cup in 49 years, They have not won a Super Bowl in 24 years and they are still waiting on the Cubs) but they keep on cheering. As the Bruins are going on 38 years without a title, it is refreshing to see a team other than Detroit, Pittsburgh, or Montreal win one. For the rest of us, we wait for the draft (Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin will be coming to Boston), hope the Celtics can even things up with LA, hope the Red Sox can catch up to New York and Tampa, and start counting down the days until football starts. With hockey and basketball winding up and my summer job at Wah-Tut-Ca Scout Reservation starting soon, this will probably be my last sports related post for quite some time.

Forrest Gump 2

The world has changed a lot since 1986. That was the year that the novel Forrest Gump was published. The story, made more famous by the 1994 film of the same name, which retells American history in the 20th century through the eyes of the title character who lived through it all. For years, I thought it would be good, even though I do not usually like sequels, to bring back Tom Hanks for a follow up of what has happened to Forrest since the first movie ended, and now could be a good time to do it.

Forrest was there for all the big events since the 50s. He inspired Elvis' dance moves as a kid, he met the president, he served in Vietnam, he met the president again, he went to China for a ping-pong tournament, he met the president again, he exposed the Watergate scandal to the hotel staff, he was there for it all. From civil rights, to AIDS, Forrest Gump was a part of every significant event in those years, coincidentally. With a coincidental life like that, I can't help but wonder if that fate continues with the other historical events that happened since.

Lieutenant Dan was smart to invest in "some fruit company" as Apple continued to innovate in the 21st century. With the release of iPods and, more recently iPads, they will not have to worry about money for a long time. This is good for them because Bubba-Gump Shrimp Company is not doing so hot. Their business took a hit with hurricane Katrina, and is virtually wiped out by the gulf coast oil spill.

There are many other important events that his life will be intertwined with since then as well. Did he do something to expose Bill Clinton's affair? Did he expose O.J. Simpson? Did he have a chance encounter with a young Barack Obama that influenced the future president's life? Where was he when Kurt Cobain died? Did he cast a hanging-chad ballot in Florida in 2000? Where was he on the morning of September 11, 2001? Did he go back to China to play ping-pong in the Bejing Olympics? Where was he when America elected its first black president? Did he ever meet the King of Pop?

As history keeps going on, there will always be ups and downs, but the first Forrest Gump movie provided a good retrospective to help us remember both the good and the bad. I am not a fan of sequels or making more movies with familiar characters to milk as much money out of a franchise as possible, but I would like to see America's leading man come back as the man who lived through more of America than he can fathom, once again, but this time look back on things that I happened in my life time and that I remember. Momma always said life is like a box of chocolates, and this past couple decades have provided more than anyone could possibly know they would get.

Does Pollution Make Pitchers Better? Should Umpires "Cut the Cap?"

Thus far, the 2010 Major League Baseball season has been dominated by pitchers. Going into the season, many experts (or at least people on ESPN.com) believed that pitching lacked the star power it used to have even a few years ago. They said that with the recent retirements of Tom Glavine, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Curt Schilling, Mike Mussina, Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez, there were no starting pitchers left that were guaranteed to one day have a plaque in Cooperstown. They did say that there were promising players to fill that void, but the lack of veteran stars would be felt this season. Veteran pitchers like C.C. Sabathia, Josh Beckett, Mark Buerhle, Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee were on the right track, but needed to sustain their level of play for a few more years before being considered Hall of Fame caliber hurlers. There were pitchers who were once considered stars who have not lived up to their billing in recent years like Barry Zito, Brandon Webb, Jake Peavy, and Dontrelle Willis, and it would be interesting to see if they return to All-Star form this season. There is also a new guard of rising young stars in Tim Lincecum, Felix Hernandez, Zach Greinke and Jon Lester, but they still had years to go. Then everything changed with the start of the 2010 season...

On April 17, Ubaldo Jimenez of the Colorado Rockies pitched a no-hitter against the Atlanta Braves. It was the first no-hitter in Rockies franchise history.

On May 9, Dallas Braden of the Oakland Athletics pitched a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays. It was the 19th perfect game in Major League history and the 2nd by an A's pitcher (Catfish Hunter in 1968 was the first).

On May 29, Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies pitched a perfect game against the Florida Marlins. It was the 20th perfect game in Major League history and the 2nd by a Phillies pitcher (Jim Bunning in 1964 was the first). 20 days between perfect games is also a Major League record.

In addition, there were quite a few almost no-hitters. C.C. Sabathia of the New York Yankees came close to no-hitting the Tampa Bay Rays. Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Boston Red Sox went 8 innings before allowing a hit against the Philadelphia Phillies. This spring has been a busy one for pitchers trying to get into the history books.

This increased number of dominant pitching performances has led me to speculate whether there is a correlation between that and something else unusual that is happening this spring. The gulf coast oil spill that was caused by BP seems to have an eerie connection with these fantastic baseball feats. I am torn, personally. I think that a perfect game is the coolest thing that ever happens in baseball, but on the other hand, I am also a really big fan of the environment and I get irate when stupid things happen to help destroy it. If they are somehow connected by forces beyond my control, I do not know how long I can take it.

It is also worth mentioning that 1989, the year in which the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred (which is now only the second biggest oil spill in U.S. history), was also a year of outlying incidents in the world of baseball. That was the year that Pete Rose was banned for life by MLB. A week after banning baseball's all time leader in hits, A. Bartlett Giamatti, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, died unexpectedly of a heart attack. In October of 1989, Game 3 of the World Series between the Oakland A's and the San Fransisco Giants had to be postponed due to a massive earthquake in northern California where both teams play. The turns of events that occur in Major League Baseball during a devastating oil spill are profound to say the least.

Earlier tonight, Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers had a chance at history and baseball immortality. Galarraga, who had recently been called up from the minor leagues after a disappointing spring training, retired the first 26 Cleveland Indians that came to the plate. An out away from an unprecedented fourth perfect game in a calendar year (Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox also had one last July), third in a month, and second in five days, he forced a ground ball to the first base side. Tigers first basemen Miguel Cabrera cleanly fielded it and Galarraga smartly covered first like the pitcher is supposed to do. Cabrera's toss was caught by Galarraga and he was about to celebrate when umpire Jim Joyce called the runner safe. Just like that, the perfect game and the no-hitter were spoiled, and the Detroit home crowd went silent. Tigers manager Jim Leyland went out to argue, but that never get's anybody anywhere in this sport. Joyce admitted after the game that upon watching the replay, he got the call wrong. Is this just a ploy by baseball to cut down on the flow of perfection that is running rampant in ballparks across the country? Is this their version of "cutting the cap"? All it takes is one bad call to make a game imperfect. Is baseball trying to protect the sanctity of the perfect game by botching calls so they can't happen as much? Major League pitchers should rise up and demand to be perfect after such oppression. Send a message to Bud Selig and all the other baseball bureaucrats that their Dr. Seuss (or BP) inspired idiotic cover up methods will not stop the oil from flowing. This could have been a career defining moment for a young pitcher who has struggled in the past, but instead it will forever be tarnished like the seabirds in the Gulf of Mexico who are drowning in the corporate sludge that fuels the capitalist desire to sell more and waste more with no regard for the finer things in life. For shrimp fishermen in Louisiana, their lives will never be the same because of the oil spill, and for Armando Galarraga, pitching will never be the same since he flirted with perfection and got rejected in the worst way.

Oh, Ironic World

The world we live in is full of irony. I am not the first to point this fact out, and I certainly will not be the last. Every aspect of life has its ironic qualities, but this time of year--the end of the school year, the end of basketball and hockey season, yet still half a year away from changing the calendars--is a good time to talk about it. The events in the news and everyday life seem to have an especially ironic flavor about them in the summer as things come to an end, but nobody ever made this time the new year.

It was ironic last summer when the Minnesota Timberwolves fired longtime head coach and executive Kevin McHale and replaced him with Kurt Rambis. One of the most famous plays of the 1984 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers was in Game 4 when Rambis had a fast break and was poised for a layup when McHale clotheslines him and knocks him to the ground. This play, which in the modern NBA would likely have earned McHale a flagrant foul and a possible ejection from the game, sent a message to the Lakers that Boston was not a team that would play passive defense or go down without a fight. The Celtics went on to win that game to tie the series and eventually win in seven games. The two continued to play key roles in the Celitcs-Lakers rivalry in recent years. Before taking the head coaching job in Minnesota, Rambis served as an assistant coach for the Lakers. Although McHale did not have a position in the Celtics organization after his retirement, Kevin McHale was the general manager who agreed to trade Kevin Garnett to his old team and Garnett was a huge part of the 2008 championship team and the current playoff run the Celtics have made in 2010. Many Celtics fans believe that McHale deserved another championship ring just for that transaction.

The irony and the storylines in the Celtics-Lakers rivalry run a lot deeper than McHale and Rambis. There were the personal rivalries like Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. There are people who have been on both sides of the rivalry like Bill Sharman and Don Nelson. Both current head coaches, Phil Jackson of Los Angeles and Doc Rivers of Boston, played for the Celtics division rival New York Knicks in their younger years. Paul Pierce, the Celtics captain, grew up a die hard Lakers fan, hating the Celtics, in Inglewood, California. Pierce's nickname, "The Truth", was actually coined by former Laker Shaquielle O'Neill back when the Celtics were a below-average team, but Pierce was an up-and-coming young star in the NBA. The two teams combined own more than half of all the NBA championships ever and their commitment to success consistency is unparalleled by any rivalry in any sport. Though Celtics fans do not like hearing that they are in any way similar to those yellow and purple wearing fans in sunny California, the teams themselves were built in similar ways. In the 50s and 60s, they each had strong cores with the Celtics built around Russell, John Havlicek, and Tommy Heinsohn, and the Lakers built around Chamberlain, Jerry West, and Elgin Baylor. In the 80s, the Lakers were built around Magic Johnson while the Celtics were built around Larry Bird. In this decade, both teams rebuilt themselves around a big trade with a team in the opposite conference that was run by one of their alumni. I have already talked about the Garnett trade with Kevin McHale, but the Lakers also rebuilt by trading Shaq to the Miami heat (whose team president is former Lakers coach Pat Riley) to get Lamar Odom and other players who were used to trade for Pau Gasol. The similarities are uncanny sometimes.

This week, the Celtics will play the Lakers in the NBA Finals for the 12th time. Boston has won 9 times of the previous 11, but as always, this series will be an interesting one. I was going to talk about more than just basketball in this post, but I guess I got sidetracked. I am not ignoring the Bruins epic collapse or the BP oil spill, it's just that I have trouble focusing on too many things at once. I am still at my house for another week before the camp season starts, so I might talk more about those things.