Calling out the Wiz

First off, if you ask me who my favorite basketball team is I would say the Boston Celtics. Thus making them my team. They are also other people's team as well but my team.


Now to my real problem with you. For you to say that we would have been fine with Tony Allen instead of James Posey is ludurcious. Are you out of your mind? That is one of the stupidest comments I have ever heard of in my life. Who is the better shooter? Posey. The better defender? Posey. More versatile? Posey. More clutch? Posey. Don't get me wrong, I like Tony Allen. He is a good defender who can slash to the hole. But the Celtics have Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett to go the hole and draw fouls. What the Celtics needed this season was someone who could stretch the floor and knock down shots. Posey helped fill that hole. Posey's real value was in his leadership and experience. Posey had those pre game hugs where the starters said that he had a different thing to say every time. Posey is an ultimate glue guy. Keeps everyone together. Now I'm not saying he is the true team leader, KG and Pierce are, but he was certainly a key.

Posey is also a experienced winner. Before Sam Cassell arrived for the last 2 months, Posey was the only guy with a championship. He had what the Big Three was striving for. Its no accident that this guy has been a big contributor on 2 championship teams. In that Heat/Mavs finals, he was the guy that had to guard Dirk and did a great job. In The Comeback Game in this past finals, he had 18 and buried 2 huge threes in the 4th including one to cut the Laker lead to 2 after being down five. Plus he is so versatile where he can guard a 2, a 3, and some 4s. And when the Celtics went small he was drawing power forwards away from the hoop to open up lanes for Rondo, Pierce and KG. The guy is probably one of the more coveted free agents this year because he is a winner and has a ton of intangibles you need on a championship club.

The Celtics needed this guy if they were to win this year. He helped share his experience to the Big Three. Even they will tell you that. Even Danny Anige will tell you that. In fact Anige said he provided a type of craziness that was good for the team. Jeff Van Gundy was drooling about the guy during the finals saying that he would to coach a James Posey. For this year it was important to have him because he is clutch and had a ring. Next year I would love to have him back but at the right price. Now that the Big Three and the rest of the team has championship experience they know what their in for. But if he doesn't come back, his presence will be missed come playoff time. Believe that.

And in my eyes Wizard, you my boy but you lost a lot of credibility in my book.

Sports and Tampa.

What do you mean "your" celtics? The Celtics belong to everybody sir. I'm going to call you out on some lies to being this blog. At no point can anyone love alien face Sam Cassell. At no point is stealing the ball from Sebastian Telfair impressive. And how many games has scallups won this year? Tell me how he helped, other than the game were he carried pierce off to the locker room. Next, I feel you are over-hyping James Posey. He contributed, but I feel we could have won the championship without him. Tony Allen would have seen more playing time if their was no Posey and he showed he is still not scared to go to the hoop. Then you rip my boy Karson Kressley. Who are you to rip this huge Redsox fan? Would you have smelled Doug Mirabelli's Jockstrap? Plus his sexual orientation is unknown, so who knows what he would do at the playboy mansion. You were wrong about Schilling. I believe he is a hall of famer despite his wins in the low 200's, and his personality. That spineless fish of a human shouldn't talk publicly unless it's about baseball. And their is still zero proof he had a bloody sock nation. ketchup inside a sock looks alot like blood. Keep thinking Jason Varitek will come around, and keep thinking Kevin Cash is a solid backup. Varitek certaintly calls a great game, but he has done nothing for this bullpen. And Kevin Cash couldn't hit a beachball. Lugo is awful, and despite everything he has done offensivly, you still managed to miss his league leading, sixteen errors. The sox have manny being manny and manny being Carl Everett. This man is a disgrace to baseball, the the way the redsox are handling it is awful. Attacking players and elderly employees, along with not performing on the field? Theo and Francona are showing no class as they continue to let these actions go unpunished. Maybe a strong moral stance would have got them at least one win in Tampa. Finally, out of all the things you have said B Shea, your comments about the Tampa Bay fans is the most off. The fans remind me of college fans, or even better, little league world series fans. The reason they make noise and go crazy all games is because half of Tropicana field is sox fans. They want to be heard and the best way to hear them is to win. They beat the Redsox up and down all series.

Tampa Bay fans have just swept the Boston Redsox for the second time this season. The first time Boston has been swept twice in one season by one team since 2001. The question lies, is this team for real? Last year Balitmore took a AL East lead into July only to finish 4th in the division. A few years back the Washington Nationals took a league leading record into July, only to fizzle out and finish last in a good NL East. Who's to say Tampa Bay isn't going to be like the previous surprises? A team so good at home (33-13) and 500 on the road (19-19), despite averaging 19,000 fans per game. A pay roll of 44 Million, in a division with Boston and New York who pay over 140. What makes this team click? My bold prediction as of July 4th, is that Tampa Bay will make the playoffs, as a wild card team. Starting pitching is what will carry them. Baltimore and Washington lacked pitching on their runs. This team can flat out pitch. Their bullpen has questions but should remain stable as long as steroid ghost troy percival remains healthy. Rookie of the year, Evan Longoria has came up to the MLB alot quicker than anyone had thought and has performed well. The offense is shaky but you can't count out a young fired up team. When your number five pitcher Andy Sonnanstine has nine wins, your doing something right. Finally, when you get to play the Yankees, Blue Jays, and Orioles for the majority of your remaining games, your going to be sitting pretty... I am currently on the Rays Bandwagon and will continue to be. Go Rays

Stung by the Rays

Ya boy went down to St. Pete earlier this week with my dad to catch the first 2 games of the Rays/Red Sox series. I walked away from the first 2 games with 4 impressions.

1) The Rays are good. I mean really good. They are going to be in this race until the final day. People expect them to go on some long losing streak soon but I see differently. I saw Shields and Garza shut down the Sox and I have never seen any 2 pitchers do that in the Theo/Tito Era. With Shields, Garza, and Kazmir the Rays have 3 good pitchers that wont allow this team to go on a losing streak. Their bullpen is much improved with Dan Wheeler and Troy Percival at the back end. It'll be interesting to see how they handle the loss of Percival but with guys like Grant Balfour coming out of the pen throwing 99. Also, they come up with the hits when they need it. BJ Upton set the tone with a lead off home run on Monday. Evan Longoria came up with a huge hit on Tuesday as well as flash the leather and kill a Sox rally.

2) Rays fans are AWFUL. I cant emphasize this enough. They don't know how or when to cheer. On Tuesday, two loser in Johnny Gomes shirts were jumping up and down and giving each other high fives on the first out of the game! If you just walked in you would have thought they won the World Series. They bang their cowbells every chance they get. They explode if the Rays get a bloop hit in the 4th inning with 2 outs. On Monday, they were counting outs in the 7th. I know its their first real team in Tampa but still, they have seen Sox fans cheer for 10 years down there. You would think they learned something.

3) Something is wrong with Manny. Manny was 0-11 in this series. He was late on every fastball. He was going after every first pitch and he popped up on the first base foul line at least 5 times when I was down there. Manny has struggled recently and something has to be wrong. Either he misses Papi or his altercation with the traveling secretary is weighing on him. I don't know whats wrong but we need Manny to get hot again.

4) We miss Papi. With JD Drew playing out of his mind it hid the loss of Papi but now its starting to show its ugly head. In this series we have struggled to score runs. On Tuesday with 2 on, JD struck out looking on three pitches. In that situation, you know that David Ortiz is going to come through. As hot as JD Drew as been if you ask any pitcher they would still rather face Drew than David Ortiz.