Monday's Notes

Run Prevention:
It was the convenient excuse for Theo and the Sox front office after they repeatedly failed to put a power bat in the middle of their lineup for this season (Bay, Holliday...Teixeira), and now they're contradicting it...ok, they have the whole year, but still. It's obvious that Dice-K is night and day when it comes to V-tek or V-mart behind the plate. When it's Tek, he's lights out. If it's Mart, he would have trouble retiring one of the midgets from "Little People, Big World." So, the obvious solution is to go by the "run prevention" scheme and just match him up with Varitek for each start, right? Wrong! Tito and the Sox don't want to "give-in to Dice K's demands" and won't let him run the clubhouse. So, let me get this straight, you want to employ run prevention, and yet you're good with Dice K giving up 11 runs per 9 innings with Martinez behind the plate? Oh, wait, I get it. Martinez must be putting up Triple-Crown type numbers...eh, not so much. If you're going to blow smoke up Sox fan's asses with your lame strategy, then don't contradict it so blatantly!

Rondo, KG, and the Celts:
Again, I didn't watch the Celtics game 3 action, but I saw the important highlights. That Rondo play was just pure hustle. One of the things I've mentioned as a reason for disliking the NBA is the lack of pure hustle and the excess of "beauty pageant" antics. Rondo diving past Jason Williams, grabbing the ball, hopping up and sinking the floater shows that maybe the Celtics aren't a part of the pageant. Then KG summed things up perfectly when asked about recent Boston-sports history. Asked if the Bruins meltdown would have any effect on their outlook on the rest of the series, KG simply said "the Celtics aren't the Bruins, and the Bruins aren't the Celtics." Yup, Rajon showed us and you told us. The Bruins never had that type of desperation this year, and they don't have the vocal leader like the Celts have in KG. Hopefully, for the fans-sake, the Celtics keep that desperation and are able to lift the city back up, because the Bruins, Sox, and Pats have each failed in the last few years.

Lima Time:
I can't say I'm surprised at all about the way Jose Lima kicked-off. Watching that guy pitch back in the day, you just knew he was gonna have a heart attack at some point. The guy is grabbing a lot of headlines for being such a mediocre-to-crappy pitcher (over 5 ERA for his career), but I guess you are owed your fair share when you dance on the mound and speak in tongues when you get a guy to ground out.

Hawks are back:
They are back in the Cup Finals for the first time since being swept by Super Mario and the Penguins in '92. Keep in mind they also haven't won the thing since '61, 49 years, and hold the longest championship drought in the sport. They're deservedly back in the Finals, though, after dismantling the one-seeded Sharks in four games. Jonathan Toews, Dustin Byfuglien, and Antti Niemi all pitched in with huge series' and will look to deliver Lord Stanley to the Windy City in a few weeks.