Bill Koch's New England Patriots fan blog

I have to admit that somewhere in the back of my mind I'm rooting for Greg Norman to be in contention on Sunday at The Open Championship. The question I find myself asking, however, is why I want Norman to still be near the top of the leader board.
Do I want to see Norman, at age 53, teach the youngsters a thing or two about winning a major by sneaking in with a hobbled Tiger Woods watching from his Florida estate? Or am I secretly hoping to watch a car accident on Sunday, another Norman meltdown on the grand stage that's so grotesque you can't look away? Something tells me it's a little bit of both.
Norman sitting at even par through two rounds, the only player in the field not over par as of this writing, is a phenomenal story. The fact that he's been playing Senior Tour events for the last three years and hasn't contended in a major since 1999 is only part of it. Norman has diverted his attention away from golf in recent times, focusing on his vast business empire (worth an estimated $500 million) and enduring a bitter divorce battle with his ex-wife, Laura. Seems like his new marriage to Chris Evert (yes, that Chris Evert, the former tennis champion) has reinvigorated The Shark, as shown by his solid play through two very difficult weather days at Royal Birkdale. Norman fired a pair of 70s in 30-mph winds and rain that came down sideways, pelting the players and making the 50-degree temperatures seem much colder.

Continue reading "Can Shark survive rough Open conditions?"

I just couldn’t pass up the chance to chronicle the final game that will matter in Yankee Stadium’s history. New York’s starting rotation is so poor that there’s no way they can make a deep run in the postseason this year, leaving the All-Star game as the last highlight (I hope).
Anyway, fresh off my trip to upstate New York (and several brain cells lighter), let’s get back into the blogosphere.
Pregame – This is all going to be lumped together, mostly because I can’t stand pregame pomp and circumstance. Just a few notes:
-- Alex Rodriguez needs to get a clutch hit in a big game before he can wear those white cleats and be taken seriously. Only the game’s great players can wear those and not look like pretentious assholes

Continue reading "All-Star mayhem in The Bronx"

You ready for more heartache, Cubs fans?
You've already had close to 100 years of pain and suffering to go through, so the rest of this year shouldn't be anything different. Have fun when your shiny new acquisition, Rich Harden, inevitably ends up on the disabled list and the prospects that you traded away rush into the big league with the Oakland Athletics.
Think this can't happen? The people of Chicago know better, even if they don't want to believe it right now because their beloved Cubbies are in first place in the National League Central. Having been a Red Sox fan my whole life, I remember what it used to feel like when Boston was close to doing something good. We were always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to go completely, tragically and impossibly wrong.

Continue reading "Cubs roll snake eyes with Harden deal"

You want the Major League All-Star game to count, Bud Selig?
You really want the players to take this glorified exhibition seriously? You want to add real stakes to the outcome, like home field advantage in the World Series to the winning league?
Please end the joke that is fan voting. Please get rid of the stupid idea that every team must be represented. Because those ideas are old, and they're tired, and they're offensive to every baseball fan who actually pays attention to the game. Just because Pink Hat Nation can stuff the ballot box and force seven Boston Red Sox into the game doesn't mean that they belong there.
And this is where I get conflicted, because I love the Red Sox and have followed them my whole life. But my favorite team has been hijacked by a bunch of bandwagon fans in recent years who put on their rose-colored glasses and respond to every email sent out by redsox.com to push Jason Varitek, Kevin Youkilis or Dustin Pedroia into the starting nine at Yankee Stadium.

Continue reading "Clueless fans ruin All-Star game again"

There's a long way to go until October, but the Tampa Bay Rays clearly think they're ready to play with the big boys in the American League East right now.
Tampa's sweep of the defending world champion Boston Red Sox this week was no fluke, a combination of decent starting pitching (by James Shields on Monday), clutch hitting (by seemingly the entire lineup) and solid work from the bullpen (by Grant Balfour, Dan Wheeler and J.P. Howell). The Rays now stand atop the division, comfortably in front of the Red Sox and the New York Yankees, and are showing no signs of fear heading into the season's second half. The questions now are obvious ones -- can Tampa sustain this throughout the rest of the season? Are the Red Sox and Yankees finished?
Let's go one at a time, starting with Boston. The Red Sox bullpen was terrible in this series. Manny Delcarmen and Craig Hansen were the chief goats, reverting to the form that earned them banishment to the minors last season. Their offense, still without David Ortiz, wasn't as bad as it could have been -- Boston did score enough runs in each of the last two games to win. Dustin Pedroia is on fire, J.D. Drew is coming off his best month as a professional in June and Kevin Youkilis is hitting the ball well. The Red Sox starting pitching was okay, with a strong outing by Tim Wakefield and a decent one by Daisuke Matsuzaka. Josh Beckett didn't pitch in the series, and he would have been a good bet to salvage the third game given his record in must-win outings.

Continue reading "Rays rip Red Sox apart"

Does assaulting a club employee fall under the umbrella of Manny Being Manny?
The newest addition to the bizarre chapter of Boston Red Sox history known as The Manny Ramirez Era was a disgraceful one, worse than any of his previous transgressions during his eight years with the club. Ramirez turned nasty during a clubhouse scuffle on Saturday, shoving Red Sox traveling secretary Jack McCormick to the ground in an argument over Manny's ticket request.
Ramirez wanted 16 tickets to Saturday's game in Houston, an unusually large number considering that Boston was on the road and the game was sold out. Pink Hat Nation isn't shy about going on the road to follow the Red Sox, making them one of baseball's top drawing cards home or away, and they gobbled up all the extra seats that Astros' fans usually leave empty at Minute Maid Park. McCormick, a longtime Red Sox employee, informed Ramirez that he might have some trouble rounding up that many seats, angering Ramirez to the point where he screamed 'Just do your job!' at McCormick and shoved him to the ground.

Continue reading "Ramirez stages his own Boston Massacre"

Nothing like watching the NBA Draft when the Boston Celtics are picking last. It's hard to believe that the league is welcoming new players when the glow of Banner 17 has barely worn off around New England. It feels like the victory parade was yesterday, the smell of Paul Pierce's cigar sweetly wafting into the air coming down Boylston Street.
The fact that Boston selected J.R. Giddens, the troubled swingman from New Mexico, is hardly enough to disturb any Celtics' fans this morning. So what if he left Kansas under murky circumstances? And that stabbing in 2005? Nobody cares. Pierce got stabbed once too.
Anyway, on to the rest of the league.

--Can Derrick Rose outrun his past in Chicago? Rose went No. 1 overall to the Bulls, returning to his birthplace and providing Chicago with an instant upgrade at point guard. Rose has good size (a shade over 6-2), is cobra-quick and will allow the Bulls to trade Kurt Hinrich for a front-court banger (like what they used to have with Tyson Chandler before they made a foolish trade to free up space for the decaying Ben Wallace).

Continue reading "Some thoughts after the NBA Draft"

Let the Curt Schilling Hall of Fame debate begin.
That's what we do when players like Schilling look like they've hit the end of the road, and his chances of rebounding from the right shoulder surgery that he will undergo on Monday are very slim at best. Schilling is a 42-year-old man with 20 years in the big leagues staring back at him when he peeks in the rearview mirror, a million miles on his arm in terms of baseball travel. Coming back at his age might be a bridge too far even for someone with Schilling's single-minded focus and stubbornness.
And so we talk about what might be in Schilling's future -- specifically, whether or not a place in Cooperstown awaits him sometime soon. The different criteria that Hall of Fame voters use makes Schilling's case an interesting one. Are statistics alone enough to keep him out? Does he pass the smell test, the one that screams out "Hall of Famer" at the very mention of his name? Will his sometimes prickly relationship with some of the voters (I'm looking right at you Shank Shaughnessy) hurt him, or will he earn points from some for his candor?

Continue reading "Schilling worthy of Hall call"

I can't quite focus on any one thing today -- way too much happened last night for me to keep track of one thought for more than a few graphs. Celebrating the Boston Celtics' 17th championship by attending the Rolling Rally yesterday got the day off to a great start, and last night's benefit for an old friend capped off the day in style. It was a night of wine, women and song...not necessarily in that order.
Anyway, on to the matters at hand...

--Paul Pierce
Seeing Pierce on that lead Duckboat yesterday, The Finals MVP trophy in his hand, a cigar in his mouth, made the early alarm clock and drive north to Boston well worth it. Pierce looked like a man who had just shed every inner demon he ever had, free of the burden that he felt during his first nine years with the Celtics as the team's only superstar to have never won a title.

Continue reading "Friday thoughts come into focus"

I didn't realize how special this Boston Celtics' championship would be until I talked to my brother, Tom, on the phone Tuesday night.
We had just finished playing in our baseball game and were on our way out to grab a drink and watch the fourth quarter when my cell phone started buzzing on my dashboard. Tom and I both knew that Boston was cruising to victory in the second half, up by more than 20 points at halftime, thanks to a teammate's constant phone updates in the dugout. Still, we both wanted to watch the end of the game. And then a thought hit me square in the face -- Tom's only 24 years old. He was about to see something that he doesn't remember seeing in his lifetime, and he wanted to make sure that I was on the way to the bar to meet him.
I grew up on the Celtics in the 1980s, watching Boston win titles in 1981, 1984 and 1986. I was only 2 when the Celtics closed out the Houston Rockets in '81, not old enough to remember anything, but I know for a fact that I was planted in front of a television when Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parrish and the rest of The Big Three's supporting cast won their next two championships. I remember the Memorial Day Massacre in '84, McHale's clothesline on Kurt Rambis and Boston's comeback in the series. I remember Boston's dominance of Houston in '86, the year that the Celtics went 40-1 in the Boston Garden during the regular season and assembled what could have been the greatest team in league history. Boston played in The Finals five times before I turned 8. It was something that everyone took for granted then, times that never seemed like they were going to end as long as Bird was healthy.

Continue reading "Banner 17 helps Celtics turn back the clock"