Category: Uncategorized

2018 Red Sox Champions: This is the pinnacle, so enjoy the view

Herald Sports Cover - April 15, 2018

Now comes the hard part. Knowing we’re going to watch Red Sox baseball for the rest of our lives and it will never be able to top that. For more than a generation, this morning was just beyond the horizon. Always out of reach. The team that won five of the first 15 World Series …

Continue reading

The importance of the pennies in a payroll

Before Game 1, random Twitter user did what random Twitter user always does: Burst the ol’ balloon. No. 1 payroll simply would not be denied in Game 1 of the World Series. It’s the stuff of legends. But don’t count No. 3 payroll out yet. — Andrew Bagnato (@andrewbagnato) October 24, 2018 It’s a valid …

Continue reading

Two-out magic only start of these never-say-die Red Sox’ story

There was already a sort of otherwordly sense around this Red Sox season before sweeping rainbows became the norm before their World Series home games. (AP)

Champions find a way. It’s a staple idea of commemorative magazines and season recap DVDs, because it’s a simple, undeniable concept. Banners are won in big moments, but size can be hard to judge in real time. Christian Vazquez pushing a two-out, two-strike single into right on Wednesday night didn’t much matter until the four …

Continue reading

Five 2015 Columns I Didn’t Hate

By my count, I wrote 50 pieces for the print Standard-Times this year. (A man’s entitled to two vacations, apparently.) You can view them all here, but here’s a quick-and-dirty list — interspersed with some GIFs, because why not — of my favorites before the calendar flips. May 11: Patriots fans, ask yourself, what would Pedro …

Continue reading

A Moving Day Malaise

Boston Herald

Interviewing for a job at the Boston Herald, for as life-changing an event as it was, doesn’t hold a particularly sizable chunk of memory bank. Deduction alone pins it to late August 2010, and I remember live-story editing tests involving UFC 118, MMA’s first big-time foray into Boston. (No. 143, live from Brazil, is a …

Continue reading

The Wonder of Bobby Valentine

Bobby Valentine in "The 1988 Presidential Race"

For the Non-Facebook Audience: Far be it for me to start a Photoshop contest, but we’ve heard so much about all the great things Bobby Valentine can do. How come no one’s bringing up the time he ran for president? Speaking of military history, what about when he helped establish the republic? This is what …

Continue reading

Sometimes, Silence Is Smart

Bobby Valentine, Mo Vaughn, Steve Phillips

While preparing my thoughts on Bobby Valentine for a column, I dug into the New York Times archives to read up on Valentine’s incendiary 2002 exit from the New York Mets — until Thursday, his last job in the major leagues. There’s far more to discuss about it than I care to get into here, …

Continue reading

On Heidi

In the pantheon of Heidi Watney photos available on the Internet, this has to be one of the worst. And yet, it is the one I think of as she departs for her native California, her inevitable and long-discussed departure somehow making the Red Sox fallout hurt all over again. Last summer, Julie won an …

Continue reading

Calling Scoreboard, In November

Back in the old days, I would often break out posts for BU hockey coverage, coming as close to writing professionally about the beloved Terriers as I really have much care to do. (I’d overcome my bias issues, but it’s much more fun not to.) I was not at Sunday’s game*, which is a tragedy. …

Continue reading

Jonathan Papelbon: In Brief

Oct. 10, 2008 - The Standard-Times

“God blessed me with my right arm. That’s all you got.” — Jonathan Papelbon, during the 2007 World Series Yeah, you could say that. A couple nights after he said that, the Red Sox won their second World Series in four years. The team had a core of guys who, thanks to their youth, were …

Continue reading