Marathon is the word of the day, sports fans, and not because 30,000 runners will start the 126th Boston Marathon in Hopkinton on Monday determined to finish on Boylston Street in the Back Bay 26.2 miles later.
No, we have multiple marathons underway already. Major League Baseball’s 162-game season is a marathon. The NBA and NHL seasons are marathons. The NFL has become an ultramarathon, a 12-month adventure with a 17-game schedule, post-season, combine, pro days, draft visits, optional workouts, mini-camps, and training camp.
Patience is a virtue when it comes to marathoning, yet we show so little. Take the Red Sox. They opened the season in New York and lost two of three to the Yankees. Batters left too many runners on base, but critics were quick to question pitching. Please, everybody, relax! It was the first series of a long season. They won two of three in Detroit and are 3-3 going into their home opener against the Twins on Friday.
Take a deep breath! It’s a marathon. Remember the January mess we called the Celtics? Look at them now. The No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. Remember the Patriots last season? After a slow start they won seven in a row, and a lot of folks had them going to the Super Bowl. Ha! They lost in the first round of the playoffs.
Remember, we’re watching marathons. Be patient and enjoy the journey
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This note is for septuagenarian baseball fans. Let’s dust off a bit of Red Sox trivia. On April 14, 1967, Billy Rohr, a skinny left hander from San Diego, made his major-league debut against the Yankees in New York. He took a no-hitter into the ninth inning. A rookie had never thrown a no-hitter in his first big-league start.
The 14,375 spectators in Yankee Stadium rose and cheered as Rohr went to the mound. Carl Yastrzemski prolonged the drama with a leaping over-the-shoulder catch of Tom Tresh’s drive to left leading off the bottom of the ninth. “A tremendous catch!” Red Sox announcer Ken Coleman screamed. Rohr retired the next batter, Joe Pepitone, on a fly ball to Tony Conigliaro in right for the second out and then faced Elston Howard. The veteran catcher worked the count to 3 and 2 and dumped the payoff pitch into right for a single. The crowd booed. Rohr got Charley Smith on a fly to right for the final out and left the mound with a 1-hitter and a 3-0 victory. His catcher was Russ Gibson from Fall River, a 10-year minor leaguer also making his major-league debut, at 28.
The losing pitcher was another lefty, future Hall of Famer Whitey Ford. The time of game was 2 hours and 11 minutes.
Rohr beat the Yankees again the following week and never won another game in a Boston uniform. The Red Sox sold him to Cleveland at the end of the season, and by the middle of the 1968 season his major-league career was over, his lifetime record 3-3. Rohr pitched in the minors for four years and then returned to California and went to law school. His specialty was medical malpractice. He is 76 now.
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Tuesday this week was one of those glorious spring days in southern New England. Brilliant blue sky, sunny, temperature flirting with 60. A great day for college baseball. How great? Brown went to Kingston and battered the University of Rhode Island, 23-5. DH Reece Rappoli had five hits and outfielder Chris Lang five RBI. Bryant hammered Holy Cross, 15-5. Rhode Island College trounced UMass Dartmouth, 17-5. The Anchormen had 18 hits.
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Analytics are taking the fun, the mystique, the spontaneity, not to mention starting pitching, out of baseball. Latest example: Dodgers lefty Clayton Kershaw was pitching a perfect game through seven innings at Minnesota Wednesday, but manager Dave Roberts held him back for the bottom of the eighth. Kershaw had thrown 80 pitches, 33 for strikes, and had struck out 13 Twins, but pitch count rules these days, especially early in the season and after the abbreviated spring training.
Kershaw, winner of three Cy Young Awards and an eight-time All-Star, took the high road and, as reported in The Athletic, said it was the right decision and “it was time.”
Thank God Red Sox manager Dick Williams was not counting pitches when Billy Rohr threw his unforgettable one-hitter 55 years ago.
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Does anybody remember the complete game? You know, starting pitcher goes nine? The Red Sox did not have one pitcher who threw a complete game in 2021. Not one!
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If sign-stealing is such a threat to baseball, why did only 14 batters hit .300 or better in 2021? And the highest average was just .328?
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The America East Conference is right for Bryant basketball. But the Big South for football? I don’t know about that one. Who knows? Bulldog fans might get excited by a visit from North Carolina A&T or Gardner-Webb.
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Pickleball, the fastest growing sport in U.S., is taking over tennis courts. On the Bristol Town Common dozens of men and women play on weekend mornings and sometimes even on weekday mornings. According to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, 4.8 million people played pickle ball in 2021, a two-year growth rate of 39.2 percent. In 2020 there were 17.8 million tennis players, according to Tennis Industry Association, and 24.8 million golfers, according to the National Golf Foundation.
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Bowling was my family’s game recently when I took three of my four grandchildren to Dudek Lanes in Warren. How the game has changed since I was a kid and paid 25 cents a string at the Lawrence (Mass.) Recreation Center, where they had duckpins on one floor and candlepins on another. Duckpins rule at Dudek. They have pop-up bumpers to keep the ball out of the gutter, everything is automatic, and scores are displayed on an overhead video scoresheet. No more hand scoring. The grandkids loved it. Hudson had two strikes, Wetherly two spares, Sienna a spare. Paul may get his chance this week. When we handed over our shoe rentals, I remarked that bowling is a lot like golf. Ball goes left, ball goes right, but ball never rolls down the middle when you need it. Counterman Chris Resendes laughed. “Yeah,” he said, “but you don’t lose your ball.” True enough!
