What a difference a year makes.

How incredible has the career of Jon Lester been already? Timeline Time!!!

~ June 10, 2006, Jon Lester makes his Major League debut against Texas

Lester goes 7-2 in his debut season before a fender bender on Storrow Drive in Boston reveals a pain in his back, then becomes diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. His career was put into jeopardy.

~ July 23, 2007, Lester battles back from non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma to start against the Cleveland Indians, in Cleveland. He went 6 innings, gave up 2 earned, walked 3 and struck out 6 earning the victory in front of his parents who made the trip from Washington state to be there for the night.

This game was such an event that I had to record it, it was that kind of game. Nobody could see the next 10 months happening for Jon Lester.

~2007 Regular season:

Jon Lester 4-0 4.57 ERA, 1.46 WHIP

Heading into the post-season Lester was left out of the rotation in favor for Tim Wakefield in the ALCS against Cleveland. He made two appearances out of the bullpen one dreadful in game two, one spectacular in game 4 in Cleveland, going three innings giving up nothing, while striking out 4.

~2007 World Series

Jon Lester 1-0 0.00 ERA 5.2 innings, 3 hits, 0 runs, 3 walks, 3 SO. Game 4 winner, World Series clinching victory.

Barely more than 3 months since he made his first outing of the season, he won the clinching game of the World Series for the Boston Red Sox. He not only won the game, but looked outstanding doing it, looking stronger than he had all season and throwing a devastating cut fastball that had me giddy.

~ May 19, 2008

Jon Lester W (3-2) 9.0, 0 hits, 0 runs, 2 walks, 9 SO No-Hitter

In one of "Those" games, Lester throws the 18th No-Hitter in Red Sox history and the first by a left hander since Mel Parnell in 1956. His stuff got better as the game went on, in my constant obsession with the gun, his radar readings were 95mph in the 9th inning. This is something that I haven't seen since he first came up in 2006, when he was around 93-94 range. Last night he was more consistently around 94-95 and even hit 96mph in the 8th inning. He has put together a nice streak of games leading into this game, getting two wins in his last 4 starts, but in both no decisions the game was blown in the 9th and 8th innings respectively. Going forward in this season is looks as if Lester is where he thought he was going to be two years ago before he was diagnosed, and now he is throwing smoke and consistently getting hitters out. What a career it has been already for Lester, beat cancer, won the World Series clincher and has thrown a no-hitter.

By the way, he's 24 years old and has only been in the Major Leagues for parts of 3 seasons.

The future is very bright for Jon Lester and his career is already a part of Red Sox lore.

Sterling Pingree

I've been called out!!!

On this very site, I feel that I have been called out by my compatriot on this website, Mr. Jackson, about whether or not I will continue to contribute to this website. It was the way he said that he was going to continue the site and contribute the best he could, (it really sounded as if he was running for political office instead of alerting our readers that the site will continue past the end of our final semester). The better way of saying what has happened to the site is this, we've trimmed the fat. We realized that after the semester that if this site (it's a site, not a fan of the word blog) that we didn't need 5 contributors when Jackson and I were clearly the best (and not necessarily in that order).
In short, I will be contributing to the site. Comically, in depth, I mean come on it's Baseball season. This is my time right now. I mean who else noticed tonight that David Aardsma was flirting with throwing 100mph against the Brewers? (Tangent starts.......NOW).

Jackson is at Fenway for this entire weekend series with the Brewers, which to me is a nice little series historically. It marks the first time the Brewers have played at Fenway Park since they left the American League, but also look at it from a purist's perspective. Today's game started at 4pm, that is a great time to watch a ball game, (I feel between 4 and 5 is the best time to do anything, especially play golf), so you have a good match up on the field with two teams with extremely passionate fan bases, which can never be overlooked. My roommate this year asked me to find him a good game to take his dad to for his first game since he was a cub scout. I knew he wanted it sometime in May, the second I saw this game, I told him that was the game to go to. It was from the first pitch (thrown out by former WWE Champion John Cena) to the final out (caught by Alex Cora in short left center).

The question that I would like to ask Jackson is what was up with the Fenway Park radar gun? As much as I wanted to watch this afternoon's game, I had to settle for watching only the nightcap of the double header because of a previous engagement (graduation BBQ's are a great thing). From watching the second game though, the radar gun was going crazy once Tim Wakefield left the game in the 6th inning. Aardsma came into the game and was throwing 96. Which is about the high end of what he throws for with his fastball. His next fastball was 97, followed by 97 again and then he hit 98mph. At this point my Dad and I are looking at the gun readings after every pitch to see how high he was going to do. Finally he got a foul tip that clocked at 99mph! Seriously, how do you come up with a guy who has been discarded by 3 teams who throws 99mph for nothing and has had no major shoulder or elbow surgeries? This doesn't just happen, which might lead me to believe that the gun readings were a farce. What followed is what further confused me.
The next pitcher into the game for Boston was Craig Hansen. I've been an admirer of Hansen's since Boston took him at the end of the first round in 2005 out of St. John's. He has always had smoke, legitimately getting it up there at 98-99 mph even with his struggles in the major's his gas has never wavered. So at this point, I've got to think that Aardsma was actually throwing 98-99 on the NESN gun. So far this is the only game of the series that I have seen and it's the only NESN game, I'm very much looking forward to watching tomorrow's game to see what Josh Beckett is reading, because he might be throwing 104mph.
To further gum up the works is that Mike Timlin's 1-2-3 9th inning, the radar gun had him reading at 94mph. If this is true, it might be the best thing to happen to the Red Sox since Jonathan Papelbon. If you will remember it was 2005 when Mike Timlin made 81 appearances, the most of his career. He was 39 when he did that and since then his fast ball has been hovering more around 91-92mph. It was in that 2005 season where he had the 81 appearances and only registered a 2.24 ERA, that he has had a fastball that clocked in the 94-95 range.

I was called out a few posts ago by Aaron Jackson, now here I am calling him out to know where the radar gun readings were at the ballpark. Three different TV stations are covering the three different games. I would be charting this kind of thing, but that's just me.

Sterling Pingree

Lowered Expectations

Mike Dantoni has recently been linked to the New York Knicks as their newest coach. Most analysts and columnists are ripping into him, saying he is "all about the money" and that the Knick's job is the worst job of his possible options. I'm here to tell you that the analysts are wrong...heres why.

First off, coaches are constantly hired and fired, so Dantoni taking the best offer is absolutely what is best for him and his family. You never know if you will get another chance to bank on your talents, so he should take the best offer he can and run with it. The critics of the move are hypocrites, because I guarantee that if they were in the same situation they would also take the money. Very few people would throw away the chance to better their situation financially just because it isn't the ideal situation for a work environment.

Secondly, the New York Knicks position is the best of the available positions Dantoni has. The reason I say this is two fold. One, there are no expectations on him to start. No one expects the team to succeed right away, so if he misses the playoffs again he won't be fired immediately, but if he does make the playoffs with that team next year he will get praise for doing so. And it's not like the talent isn't there, he just needs to make the pieces work. Also, staying with the Suns clearly was not working, and the Bulls job is not an ideal one for anyone. Sure, they came off a disappointing year this year, but expectations are still high for the team based off past seasons. If they don't contend in the East right away with Dantoni he will immediately be on the hot seat.

Third, the Knicks are starting to turn the corner. The Isiah Thomas regime is over and Donnie Walsh has started the rebuilding process, and he is a veteran GM who will do it the right way. Also, New York is still considered one of the teams the greats go to, so when they free up money for free agents they will be able to compete for just about any player. Maybe that means getting Lebron, maybe not, but either way they still have the prestige factor on their side. Nevermind the fact that the current roster, as constructed, will be a playoff team next year should Dantoni officially take the position. And please, write that down, because I will not be wrong on this. The team is built for him to run it.

~Aaron Jackson

White Hat Sports

As we mentioned in the first post, this blog started as a class assignment. The semester is now closing out, and most of us will be going on to either our next school year or the "real world". However, I plan on keeping the blog running. It may not be updated as much as other blogs, as I am working as a full time reporter now (you can watch my work on ABC-7 out of Bangor and Bangor's Fox affiliate), but I will strive to continue to provide quality material to the 5 people actually reading this blog. As far as I know, I will be the only one running it, although Sterling has expressed some interest in sticking with it. What I need from anyone that regularly reads this is ideas. The name of the blog is pretty obscure, and I've considered changing it, but don't really have any ideas as to what to change it to. I'm thinking something more interesting would be helpful in getting more people to view the site. Any other ideas would be great as well, just leave them in the comments. I really want to promote this and get more people reading it, so any suggestions you have for improvements to the blog are very helpful. I've noticed that we don't have many people commenting on most of the posts, and really would like to change that. There is no point in writing something if noone is reading it and having a reaction to it. On a personal note, it will also help me become a better writer.

Thanks for your time, and keep reading
~Aaron Jackson

Resting Easy

It seems like every year the San Antonio Spurs have a decent regular season and then "turn it on" come playoff time. I'm here to tell you that's not the case. The Spurs don't just glide through the regular season and then play ridiculously harder when the playoffs start. At least, no more than any other team would. Obviously, people play harder come playoff time than they would in game 13 of an 82 game season. But that isn't why the Spurs have so much playoff success. There is another reason altogether, one that is so obvious I am amazed no "experts" have looked into it. Here it is...

The San Antonio Spurs are one of the older teams in the league, both in actual age and in style of play. They also rely on two players in Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker who's style of play involves them throwing their bodies around, leading to smaller injuries that can be annoying over the course of an 82 game season. All this leads to one thing. The NBA playoffs take an extremely long time, and that is because there is always a break in between games. During the regular season the Spurs may be forced to play 5+ games in a row, and that is when the small injuries and overall age show up. Give these guys a couple days off between each and every game and they are able to play at their highest level night in and night out.

It's really a simple idea. Anyone that has played some level of basketball in their lives knows that there are small injuries and aches all the time. If you are forced to play multiple days in a row those injuries don't have time to rest, and it affects the way you play. If it's a shoulder injury your shot is off, if it's a sore ankle your lateral movement is off, if it's a knee everything is off. These small aches and pains aren't overly serious though, and given a day to heal, especially with all the modern technology NBA trainers have, these small injuries can go away pretty quickly. That is the real reason the Spurs have playoff success, not the "turning it on" factor.

By the way, don't say no one predicted the Hawks couldn't win in the playoffs...just look right here and you'll see I did exactly that. For what it's worth, I've been on the Hornets bandwagon all year as well, as you probably know by reading one of my many posts on them. I'm sticking with them all the way, and picked them to win it all in the end. Probably in the minority here, but I'll be looking pretty smart when I'm right.

~Aaron Jackson