Fenway 100th

When the Red Sox begin their weekend series against the Yankees on Friday night, the team will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park.  The long time home of the Red Sox has become a monument to baseball history and one of the league's most beloved ball parks.  It's rich history fills each game with a nostalgic sense for long time fans, while landmarks from the Green Monster in left to the Pesky Pole in right field make Fenway one of the league's most unique parks. 

For many Sox fans, there's no better event than a summer afternoon at Fenway.  While it may be the smallest ball park in the league, each game is packed to capacity inside it's cozy confines.  Combine a limited seating capacity with a rabid fan base and it's no wonder the Sox have the longest active sell out streak in the majors.  Can't get tickets to the game?  The atmosphere all around the park is electric on game day.  Bouncing around between the endless string of bars along Landsdown Street (hello, Cask N Flagon!) can be an equally enjoyable way of catching a game.  Either way, count me in for catching the Green Line on the T down to the Fenway area a few times every summer.

The current ownership group deserves a lot of credit for the improvements they've made around the ball park, including adding seats in the concourse area and on top of the Green Monster (easily the most unique view of a game that any park in the league has to offer).  While it may not have the shine of some of the new state of the art ball parks, it's not nearly the dump that the Luke Scott's of the world would have you believe.

Celtics rising

It wasn't long ago that this Celtics team was left for dead.  When the team limped to a 16-17 record in the first half of this shortened season, things were looking pretty dim for any reasonable hope of this core pulling together one last title run together.  They looked too old, too tired, too injured and with a roster too thin to compete with the top teams in the Eastern Conference.  Rumors flew as the trade deadline approached that the team was considering breaking up its core by trading away their fading veterans.  With no hope of making a deep playoff run, it seemed the best course of action may be to blow it up and start the inevitable rebuilding process early.

What a difference a few weeks makes.  GM Danny Ainge resisted the urge to shake things up and ended up keeping the team intact as the trade deadline passed.  Since then, the team has been making him look like a genius for believing in them.

In the second half of the season, the Celtics have turned things around.  Thus far they've gone 17-7, including wins in 8 of their past 10 games, to rise to the top of the Atlantic Division.  All this in spite of the fact that their schedule over this stretch has been murderous, with the majority of those games coming on the road against above .500 teams.  Only 10 of their last 23 games have been played in the friendly confines of the TD Garden, while 16 of those 23 games have been against teams in the playoff hunt.

During this run they have proven themselves capable of hanging with the best teams in the league.  They've beaten Miami twice in the past couple of weeks, including a blowout win in Boston, in addition to last nights win in Miami, where the Heat have been nearly invulnerable all season (league's best home record).  They fell a missed buzzer beater jump shot short of knocking off the Spurs (the league's hottest team right now) last week and played the Bulls tough in a close outcome in Chicago the next night.  Granted Derrick Rose missed that game with injury, but he's missed about a third of their season already and that hasn't prevented the Bulls from remaining at the top of the Eastern Conference.  They are still a formidable foe without their star point guard, which gives credit to the notion
I suggested last year that Rose should not have been the MVP given that he was not the primary reason why they were winning.  In the second half of the season the Celtics have matched up against some of the best in the league and either came away with a victory, or at the very least, proved capable of putting up a good fight against any of them.

WrestleMania XXVIII Rewind

It's the biggest night in the world of sports entertainment - it's WrestleMania XXVIII!  The PPV event is the WWE's premiere annual event and a show no pro wrestling fan can miss.  Ok, I know this is a sports blog, and pro wrestling isn't really a "sport."  I don't follow wrestling as much as I used to, but I couldn't resist checking it out this year, especially with the headline event featuring a match up of generational icons between John Cena and The Rock.

The PPV and pizza have been ordered, the lap top is warmed up and the show is ready to begin, so I'm ready to note the play by play of the night.

• The show kicks off in The Rock's hometown of Miami with former ring announcer Lillian Garcia signing America the Beautiful.  The event is held under the open roof of Sun Life Stadium, so with the 7:00 PM start time, the sun is still out.  Maybe that's why they have a tent covering the ring?  Seems like that might obstruct the view of some of the balcony rows, but I suppose you have to protect the performers from getting a sun burn.
• This is why I stopped watching Smackdown.  Even WWE doesn't respect it as much as the superior Raw show.  The Smackdown title match for the World Heavyweight title opens the show as the first match of the night.  Daniel Bryan defends his title against Sheamus.  Ok, not exactly mainstream names, so I guess I can see why its not close to the top of the card.
• To make it even worse, the match ended in... 18 seconds.  Seriously??  Bryan gave his girlfriend a good luck kiss at ringside, then turned around and got kicked in the face by Sheamus.  Three seconds later, Smackdown has a new champion.  
• You have to wonder about the story behind this.  I assume that either Bryan suffered a last minute injury that kept him from being able to compete or he's about to be suspended (or fired?).  Either way, they had to find a way to strip him of the title without needing him to actually do anything in the match, ending it as quickly as possible.  Otherwise, Bryan comes out of this looking awful and can't be considered as a serious contender again anytime soon.

MLB Preview

The 2012 MLB season kicked off this week with the Mariners and A's splitting a pair of games in Japan.  With the rest of the league set to launch their seasons next week, it's time to make our predictions for this upcoming season.

The off-season treated us to plenty of headlines, including big stars like Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder finding new homes, managerial changes for several high profile teams and the Dodgers finding a group of competent new owners.  Perhaps the biggest impact news of the off-season is the change to add an additional Wild Card to each league.  The two Wild Cards will face off in a one game playoff for the right to play the league's top team in the divisional round, which places much greater emphasis on winning the division instead of settling for a Wild Card.

With those changes in mind, here are my predictions for how this season will unfold.

AL East: Tampa Bay Rays

The division will once again be a three team dog fight, but the Rays have the best pitching and defense in the division, which will carry them through.  Their offense isn't as strong as their competition, but they can expect a healthier and more productive season from Evan Longoria.  If rising star Desmond Jennings can make another jump, they should be able to provide enough with their bats to pile up wins behind their deep rotation, which includes aces David Price and James Shields, reigning Rookie of the Year Jeremy Hellickson, and future stud Matt Moore.

NFL off-season update

March madness doesn't have to apply only to a college basketball tournament.  This month has shown that the NFL off-season can be just as wild, as we've been flooded with news from around the league.  It's a welcome change from this time last year, when the only news we heard about was tiresome updates about the lockout.

There's a lot to talk about and too many stories to devote a full article to all of them.  So instead, I'm compiling a list of the major events of the past few weeks with my reaction to each of them.  The off-season is far from over, with more news sure to come, but with enough stories to make our heads spin happening just in the past couple of weeks, now seems like a good time to review what's been going on.

• Colts cut Peyton Manning.  It seemed inevitable that the Colts would be forced to part with their long time franchise cornerstone after a lost season resulted in being rewarded the top pick in this year's draft.  Andrew Luck is the likely selection and he has the talent to contribute right away.  Manning would have been owed a large bonus had he stayed on the roster any longer and it made little since to pay big money to two QBs, no matter how much the rookie may have been able to learn from the future Hall of Famer.  Last season showed us the Colts have a lot of holes on their roster.  It's time to rebuild and move forward.

• Manning signs with the Denver Broncos.  After being courted by a handful of teams, Manning surprised them all by choosing one of the dark horse candidates.  John Elway leading the recruitment pitch likely played a big part in the decision, as Manning was certainly enticed by joining a team run by a Hall of Fame QB that happened to win a couple of Super Bowls late in his career.  Manning hopes to follow that same path, so what better person to guide him than Elway?
• As excited as the city of Denver must be to have signed one of the all time greats to be their new QB, the 5 year, $96 million deal is not without risks.  Manning missed all of the 2011 season while recovering from multiple neck surgeries.  It wasn't long ago that there was doubt that Manning would ever play again.  Even now, that doubt hasn't been completely erased, while one big hit could be career threatening.  The Broncos are going all in to win with Manning in the next few years.  If he recovers and gets back to being anywhere near as effective as he was pre-injury then it may pay off, but if his neck saps him of his abilities and renders him a shadow of his former self, or if he gets injured again, this could all blow up in their face.  Especially when you consider what they sacrificed to bring in Manning.  Which leads us to...