FILE PHOTO
The Lynn Parks and Rec basketball league’s championships are coming up Friday, with each team packed with plenty of talent.
By STEVE KRAUSE
Idle chatter while waiting to see if the Red Sox can find a relief pitcher who can get people out.
If you’re looking for some good basketball game in Lynn this summer, time’s running out.
The Parks and Recreation league is holding its playoffs this week, with Friday’s finals at Marian Gardens.
There, East will meet West in three divisions: elementary, middle school and high school.
If you’re a fan, this is a good time not only to see some current stars on the high school scene, but some up-and-coming players coming out of the lower levels.
This Friday’s finals are a just a prelude. Next weekend, also at Marian Gardens, is the Shoe City Classic that Simmie Anderson runs every summer. The dates are Aug. 5-7, and it’s almost a guarantee that you’ll see something that will leave you awestruck.
This is schoolyard basketball at its best. I say this because unlike high school, where most coaches preach defense, this is pure offense in action. Not that defense is a bad thing, but sometimes, you just want to see some Los Angeles Lakers-style showtime.
If you go to Marian Gardens Friday and next weekend, you’ll see it.
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Congratulations to the Lynn Babe Ruth 15s for making it to the World Series. The fact that it’s only the fourth time since I’ve been following this (and this dates back to 1979) that a Lynn youth baseball or softball team has made it this far bears out what a remarkable accomplishment this is.
To underscore how difficult it is to get all the way through your regional tournament and move onto the World Series, let’s look at the 1992 15-year-old team that made it to Bennington, Vt., but ended up losing to a Western Mass. team that went onto be national runner-up.
That team had some heavyweights on it, including Jeff Waldron, Cory Spencer and Joe Barteaux. Waldron’s father, Gerry, was the manager and Doug Anderson and Joe Crowley Sr. were coaches.
Waldron and Spencer were later drafted by Major League teams, and Waldron almost singlehandedly turned the Classical baseball program from something that was virtually moribund to one of the consistently best around. He is currently an assistant coach.
And yet … they lost.
It just goes to show you that it isn’t just a matter of skill. There’s a generous amount of good fortune that goes with this. And this year’s Lynn team certainly had its share of that.
But in the end, this is a talented group of kids who deserved what they have earned.
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This “fire John Farrell” nonsense has to cease and desist. The word going into the season was the Farrell and the Red Sox had to get off to a good start for him to keep his job.
Well, they did. Since the end of April they have been tearing the cover off the ball on almost a nightly basis. Their pitching is awful, and the guy they counted on as being the ace and stopper, David Price, hasn’t been. Farrell is relying on knuckleballer Steven Wright and Rick Porcello, who has never, in his life, been the ace of anyone’s staff.
Meanwhile, Clay Buchholz is useless, and the rest of his pitchers, starters and relievers, go through long stretches where they couldn’t get you and me out.
Yet with all of this, Farrell has the Sox in the thick of the pennant race. He made tough decisions on both Pablo Sandoval and Rusney Castillo — both of which took some guts, and both of which have, for the most part, worked out.
Just what has the man done wrong?
Dare I say it? Boston fans have become hopelessly and obnoxiously spoiled rotten. And if I wasn’t from here, and didn’t have such a large part of my life invested in rooting for local teams, I’d probably hate Boston fans too.
When did we all get so darned entitled, anyway?
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We’ll end up going way far afield here and talk about the New York Yankees, who just traded away 100 MPH-closer Aroldis Chapman to the Chicago Cubs for four of the Cubbies’ best prospects.
Chapman is up for free agency next season, and there’s a good chance the Yankees will welcome him back to the Bronx with a much fatter paycheck.
So think about this, all you Red Sox fans who are so cocky because the Yankees seem to be going nowhere. Next year, they might be able work their prospects into the mix (one of them, Gleyber Torres, is supposed to be among the most prized of all the up-and-coming shortstops), and have one of the game’s top closers back on their side.
Damn Yankees! Always one step ahead of everyone else.