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| DEAN'S LIST |
There's No Such Thing as a Red Sock Fan
04-21-2004 |
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| The singular "Red Sock": misfit of Boston sports vocabulary. |
Some of you who root for New York’s AL franchise refer to yourselves as “Yankees fans,” while your singularist counterparts prefer the term “Yankee fan.” Either name is perfectly acceptable. At the other end of the competitive spectrum, informed Boston enthusiasts inevitably call themselves “Red Sox fans,” knowing full-well that there no such thing as a “Red Sock” - never mind a “Red Sock fan" - in Major League Baseball. Is the singular of lox (as in salmon) a lock? Absolutely not. Just as socks come in pairs, or sets of two, the Boston Red Sox come in rosters of 25. Any way you look at it, singularity has no place in the naming of an individual Boston Red Sox…
Speaking of Red Sox semantics, you may or may not know that the spelling of “Nomar” is not a mistake but an intentional misnomer – his name is his father’s name (Ramon) spelled backwards. But if the circumstances were reversed, wouldn’t the name “Ramon” be an intentional “mis-nomar”?
And the Boston banter does not end there. It appears that Gumby’s arm has not turned to rubber, as evidenced by his strong performance in last night’s victory over Roy Halladay and Toronto Blue Jays. In fanning six and surrendering only one earned run in seven innings, Pedro upped his 2004 record to 2-1 and gave Red Sox Nation one less thing to complain about - that is, at least for the time being…
As for Halladay’s Blue Jays, their redesigned “outfits” almost identically resemble those worn the by the perennial AL East basement-dwellers of Tampa Bay. Bottom line, maybe it was the bargain-basement prices that the cash-strapped Jays found appealing about the raiment of the Rays. While the Yanks and Sox play competitive baseball this summer, it seems that the Jays and Rays, struck by a bizarre strain of spring fever, are content to play competitive dress-up in the coming months…
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| The Toronto Blue Rays? |
Congrats to Dontrelle Willis for maintaining perfection thus far in 2004 by notching his third win without a loss and keeping his ERA at 0.00 in last night’s victory over division rival Philadelphia. But on a tragic note, Willis’ 0-3 performance at the plate dropped his season average to a paultry .667 (6-9)…
Great pick-up by the Sixers in Jim O’Brien, who more than proved his coaching mettle when he helped the Celtics overachieve all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals just two seasons ago. O’Brien’s well-documented ability to competently oversee the Antoine Walker project (see this week’s poll) proved that he can not only manage but also maximize the infinite talent of AI. The good news for O’Brien is that unlike Antoine, Allen is not an insecure jerk but an individualistic free spirit, not to mention a former NBA MVP…
The name of the game is Botany: Herb Brooks…Derek Plante…Lee Flowers…Tree Rollins…Bud Black…Devin Bush…Ryan Leaf…Deion Branch…Charles Oakley…Joe Thornton…Randy Moss…Alge Crumpler…Warren Sapp…Forest Blue…Pete Rose…and Tiger Woods...
There’s a fair amount of irony in place-kicker Martin’s spelling of Gramatica. That was a musing, and I'm Dean Christopher... |
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