1. Wednesday, April 9, 2008
After so many years, cheers
Sun, The (Lowell, MA) ­ ​Author: The Lowell Sun
By David Pevear
dpevear@lowellsun
BOSTON ­­ The man who once symbolized Boston baseball
heartbreak emerged into the bright sunshine yesterday and
walked slowly toward the Fenway Park pitcher's mound.
So many thoughts raced through Bill Buckner's mind.
Ours, too.
Might emotions within this persecuted baseball soul boil
over? Might he who has endured cruelty hear hypocrisy in
the cheers that warmly embraced him?
Might he flip the Opening Day crowd the Byung­Hyun Kim
salute?
Buckner had thought long and hard about accepting the Red
Sox's invitation to make that long walk. The crowd cheered
wildly as he walked in from left field.
Buckner wiped tears from his eyes.
"I really had to forgive ... not the fans of Boston, per se. I
would have to say in my heart I had to forgive the media,"
Buckner said later. "You know, for what they put me and my
family through."

2. With two World Series titles already in the bank this glorious
century, the Red Sox organization is healing psychic scars of
the past century. The man through whose legs Mookie
Wilson's slow roller once rolled threw a perfect ceremonial
strike yesterday.
"Probably about as emotional as it can get," said Buckner. "I
wish I didn't have to walk all the way from left field. Too many
things (to think about). Just good thoughts. Which is a nice
thing."
The rings were handed out to another World Series
champion in Boston.
The Red Sox then went out and whipped the Detroit Tigers
5­0. The cursed past has become the buried past. Buckner
threw out the first pitch. Kevin Youkilis fought back tears and
sought out Buckner to shake his hand. Youkilis then went out
and played his major­league­record 197th consecutive
errorless game at first base.
"To be honest with you, I've never almost been in tears for
somebody on a baseball field," said Youkilis. "I think that was
just the most unbelievable thing. It shows how great a man
Bill Buckner is. There are not too many people who can do
what he did today ­­ face thousands of people that booed him
... did horrific things toward him."
Terry Francona's boys have buried the slow roller in Shea
Stadium 22 years ago. The 58­year­old Buckner is now seen
clearly as the borderline Hall of Famer he was, a .289 lifetime
hitter who won the 1980 National League batting champ as a
Cub.

3. During two full seasons and parts of three others with the
Red Sox, Buckner gave their fans all his aching legs could
give them
How unfair is it to judge such a career on one 10th­inning
error in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, a series the Red
Sox went on to lose to the New York Mets in seven games?
"Is it all right to disrupt people's lives over a baseball game,
or ruin people's lives?" Buckner added. "Not that it did mine.
I'm pretty tough mentally. But the hardest part was my family,
my kids, and I'm still dealing with it. I have a son (Bobby)
playing college ball (at the University of Texas). I have a
daughter who played softball. And there were times they had
to deal with it. I didn't think that was fair. That made me a
little bitter. But I'm over that."
Buckner asked his daughter Christen, who sat among the
media as a television reporter for a station in Boise, Idaho,
"Are you over that?"
"She's one of you guys now, believe it or not," said Buckner.
"So I guess I've accepted you guys back in the family."
Buckner's wife Jody sat off to the side, less forgiveness
showing on her face.
Boston sports gods Bill Russell and Bobby Orr were on the
field when lefty Buckner threw his ceremonial strike, part of a
wide­ranging celebration of Boston's sport champions past
and Papi. Billy Bucks helping to celebrate a Red Sox World
Series championship upstaged even Orr and Russell.

4. The crowd's reaction to Buckner and his reaction to the
crowd was "one of the most special things I've ever seen,"
said Francona.
Buckner's former teammate, Dwight Evans, caught the
ceremonial first pitch. He sat beside Buckner as his old friend
faced the media.
"Nobody played harder than Bill," said Evans. "Nobody
prepared themselves as well as Bill Buckner did. And nobody
wanted to win as much as Bill Buckner did."
Buckner recalled also being warmly greeted by fans when he
returned to the Red Sox in 1990, four seasons after Game 6.
He had been released by Boston during the 1987 season. He
re­signed with Boston in 1990 and here played the final 22
games of a 22­year career.
A family commitment had kept Buckner from attending a 20th
reunion here in 2006.
A month and a half ago, Dick Bresciani, the Red Sox's vice
president/publications and archives, extended to Buckner an
invitation to throw out the ceremonial first pitch yesterday.
"I didn't think I was going to do it," said Buckner. "I told Dick
I'd think about it. I made up my mind that I wasn't going to
come. Then I prayed about it a little bit. Here I am. Glad I
came."

5. Friday, August 24, 2007
These guys won't give you the shirt off their backs
Sun, The (Lowell, MA) ­
Author: David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
I am here today to talk to you about a serious maturation
disorder that robs millions of adults ­­ usually male ­­ of their
dignity, their self­esteem and their children's respect.
I am talking of course about adults who wear other adults'
names (and numbers) on their backs, usually the names (and
numbers) of much younger adults who hit or throw hard.
Their concession­stand diets stretch the fabric between the
letters spelling "BRUSCHI" or "SCHILLING" until it screams.
Having "YOUKILIS" or "ORTIZ" or "BRADY" or "HARRISON"
stitched on their official MLB or NFL­licensed jersey backs,
they feel empowered to call the home team "We."
"We got to get us another relief pitcher," they will say. "This
Gagne is killing us."
"We need Harrison to be fully healthy again," they will say. "If
he is, nobody will want to mess with us."
What these we­the­sitters­and­watchers do not realize is that
the players whose very names they wear on their backs do
not count them among the "we." (No disrespect intended.)
Players often equate success on the field with circling their
wagons around "the 53 guys in this locker room" or "the 25
guys in this clubhouse."
Everyone else ­­ fans, media, owners ­­ falls under the
category of "distractions and potential water­bottle throwers."

6.
No champagne­soaked player after winning a Super Bowl or
World Series has ever said, "The only people who believed
we could do this are our never­say­die fans out there wearing
our names and numbers on their backs."
No, they say, "The only people who believed we could do this
are the 53 guys in this locker room."
"We love our fans," said Patriots strong safety Rodney
Harrison, who, trust me, is highly respectful of fans and
media and worth rooting for. "But we don't care (what their
expectations for us are). It doesn't matter about the public. It
just matters about the 53 guys in this locker room, and the
coaches, and trying to get better every day.
"We know you guys (in the media) will turn on us and stab us
in the back (laughing). No disrespect. You guys are doing
your job, and we understand that."
After what age does wearing another person's name on their
back rob a person of their dignity and self­esteem?
16? 17? 18?
Certainly it is healthy and normal for anyone younger to
partake in innocent hero worship, though as Sonny
LoSpecchio pointed out to 9­year­old Calogero "C" Anello in
"A Bronx Tale": "If your dad needs money, go ask Mickey
Mantle. See what happens. Mickey Mantle don't care about
you. Why care about him?"
One colleague of mine suggested that jerseys with players'
names on them do not need to be put away until college

7. graduation, since college is an expensive postponement of
adulthood.
Recognizing that adults wearing other adults' names on their
backs is a disease like the degenerate gambling it often
accompanies, I am more open­minded. My rule is that any
player whose name is stitched on the back of your jersey
must be older than you are.
Dead guys are permissible.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
SI got the wrong team
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​DAVID PEVEAR, Sun Staff
Sports Illustrated was at least in the right neighborhood when
it named the World Series champion Red Sox as its "2004
Sportsmen of the Year." The magazine missed by only 30
miles.
Bill Belichick or the entire team that Belichick, Scott Pioli and
Bob Kraft have forged down the road from Fenway in
Foxboro would have been more fitting choices.
This is not meant to denigrate the Red Sox or their historic
October. (OK, maybe it is.) But our precious local football
team, winner of two of the last three Super Bowls and 25 of
its last 26 games, is again being greatly under­appreciated.
The Red Sox join the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" U.S. Olympic
men's hockey team and the 1999 U.S. women's soccer team
as the only teams honored en masse by SI. Meanwhile the
team usually held up the highest as embodying the true
essence of teamwork plows on through rain and mud without

8. its two starting cornerbacks, making a wonderful mockery of
NFL parity.
There is nothing idiotic about the Patriots. Belichick has
become this generation's Vince Lombardi, a cliche'­laden
football coach whose simple lessons transcend football. In all
walks of American life, the gospel of Bill is being applied.
Red Sox GM Theo Epstein, a smart cookie himself,
acknowledged being influenced by the Patriots as he
assembled his World Series champion. This included his
pulling the trigger on the Nomar Garciaparra trade. No one
sourpuss is ever bigger than the team. From the moment
three seasons ago that the Patriots broke from 35 years of
Super Bowl pre­game tradition by spurning individual
introductions to run out all­as­one into the Louisiana
Superdome, the old­fashioned American virtue of selfless
teamwork was hip again.
Too much of the Red Sox's curse­busting revolves around a
less endearing Americanism: Money talks. In their historic
comeback against the Yankees in the ALCS, the Red Sox
showed the heart of Patriots. They went on to earn the
distinction of having the highest payroll of any World Series
champion in history.
The NFL as currently constituted is the closest thing to a
level playing field that civilization has yet known. Operating
brilliantly in this level environment the Patriots may come the
closest to an ideal team that the sports world has seen.
Since every NFL team is sufficiently bloated with TV money,
money has little to do with the Patriots' dominance.
Everybody has money. The Patriots have become a budding
dynasty through coaching genius and hard work. They win
with other team's rejects yanked off the practice squad. They
win with wide receiver Troy Brown playing cornerback. They

9. win with linebacker Don Davis playing safety. They win with
painful injuries that they never talk about.
There are no bloody­sock melodramas in Foxboro. Tom
Brady has been listed as "probable" with a sore shoulder for
going on two years now. But the ball still gets to where it is
supposed to get on time.
Their uniqueness, professionalism and extraordinary
consistency is sadly starting to be taken for granted. The
Patriots deserve to be cherished. Their only sin apparently is
not having gone 86 years between championships.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Like most boxing flicks, 'The Fighter' should pack a punch at box office
and in Lowell
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
Will it nail time­tested boxing­movie themes on the noggin,
gaining traction within a genre crowded with classics?
Filming is set to begin July 6 on The Fighter, a biopic starring
Mark Wahlberg as Micky Ward, the former rock­jawed junior
welterweight champion from the Highlands of Lowell. There
is that puncher's chance this could be the next Raging Bull,
Rocky, Requiem for a Heavyweight or Body and Soul.
Because unless a Roman numeral gets attached to the title,
it is hard to make a bad boxing movie. The sport lends itself
to brutal brilliance. The sweet science even permeates
several film classics that are not boxing movies, like From
Here to Eternity and On the Waterfront.

10. "I coulda been a contender," Marlon Brando as
ex­prizefighter Terry Malloy tells brother Charley, played by
Rod Steiger, in On The Waterfront. "... Instead of a bum,
which is what I am."
For Wahlberg's character to speak that much, though, will
require much fictionalized dialogue, jokes renowned boxing
historian Bert Randolph Sugar, the man of the ever­present
fedora and cigar.
"Micky is one of the quietest, shyest, sweetest people I've
met," says Sugar. "Marcel Marceau might say more.
(Wahlberg) is going to have to speak more than Micky does,
because silent movies went out about 1927."
Ward made his noise in the ring. On his list of all­time
Greatest Boxing Trilogies, Sugar in 2007 ranked the
Ward­Arturo Gatti sustained violence ninth. Sugar will share
a podium with Ward this weekend during festivities
surrounding induction ceremonies at the International Boxing
Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y.
"Nobody can play Micky. Micky is Micky," Sugar says of the
challenge facing Wahlberg to accurately portray Ward in the
ring. "Nobody can play these people (in the ring). As good an
actor as Paul Newman was, he wasn't Rocky Graziano
(whom Newman played in 1956's Somebody Up There Likes
Me). Graziano had a face that was the city of New York. Paul
Newman was one handsome dude."
Stepping into a boxing ring takes guts. So does Wahlberg
stepping into the ring with Brando, Newman, Robert DeNiro,
Anthony Quinn, Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Kirk
Douglas and Daniel Day­Lewis, acting heavyweights who
have memorably portrayed fighters.

11. Even Humphrey Bogart's final on­screen appearance was in
a boxing movie. In 1956's The Harder They Fall, Bogart
played a sportswriter tangled up in boxing's seamier side,
which, for Hollywood's purposes, is often boxing's best side.
Maria Matz, coordinator of UMass Lowell's film­studies
program, says boxing being a "one man versus the world
kind of sport" consistently translates into compelling story
lines with classic heroes and anti­heroes. Her favorite boxing
movie is the first Rocky movie.
"The idea of self­sacrifice is obvious in these movies," says
Matz. "The passion, exhaustion, deceptions, joys, pains, wins
and even deaths of boxers (appeal to moviegoers)."
Standing in a ring "basically naked ... except for something
that maybe says Everlast" bares boxer's souls to their
audiences, says Sugar, as they engage in a business that
inevitably attracts characters difficult to dream up.
Sugar says there are more good boxing movies than there
are movies about all other sports combined.
"It's easy," he says. "There are only two people in the ring.
Their canvas is the canvas of the photographer. They can be
made into vessels of hope, banality, anything. The sport is
easy to understand ­­ hit and don't be hit. No signals called at
the line of scrimmage."
Most actors work and study hard to accurately portray
boxers, says Sugar, noting DeNiro's immersion into his
Oscar­winning role as former middleweight champ Jake
LaMotta in 1980's Raging Bull. Wahlberg, who grew up in
Dorchester, has trained ferociously to do Ward justice on
film.

12.
Errol Flynn as former heavyweight champ Jim Corbett in
1942's Gentleman Jim is the actor who most accurately
portrayed his subject in the ring, says Sugar.
"(Flynn) was an ex­boxer," he says, "and from what I've seen
of Corbett's fight films, Flynn emulated him exactly."
So what is Sugar's favorite boxing movie?
Body and Soul, he answers.
In that 1947 movie, John Garfield earned an Oscar
nomination for his role as a money­hungry fighter whose
rapid rise attracts the shady characters inevitable in most
great boxing movies.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Indy 500: What is the fear factor?
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
Canadian Alex Tagliani is the polesitter for the
100th­Anniversary Indianapolis 500 on Sunday. Average
qualifying speed: 227.472 mph.
Fifty­two years ago the Indy polesitter was Johnny Thomson,
"The Flying Scot" from Rogers Street in Lowell. Average
qualifying speed: 145.908 mph
Really fast is a lot faster than it was 52 years ago. Within this
roaring realm of death­defying aerodynamics, really fast is
also now considered a lot safer.

13.
Fourteen drivers have been killed in the Indianapolis 500
itself, the most recent in 1973 when Swede Savage
succumbed to complications 33 days after a fiery crash.
Twenty­four other drivers have been killed in practice or
qualifying since 1911, most recently polesitter Scott Brayton
during a practice run in 1996. Safety technology can never
outrace the perils of ultra­competitive creatures strapped into
650­horsepower, 1,500­pound open­wheel vehicles, and
dying to be first.
I'm not a big auto­racing fan. And I can barely change a tire.
But as a kid I religiously watched ABC's tape­delayed
coverage of the Indy 500. The Indy 500 was a Memorial Day
habit before we dumbed down into NASCAR Nation.
Even on tape­delayed TV, the Indy 500's danger was
palpable ­­ my yearly thrill fix before resuming studies of
baseball box scores.
Last week car owner Roger Penske and his Indy 500 drivers,
three­time champ Helio Castroneves, Will Power and Ryan
Briscoe, were guests on the Charlie Rose Show. They
explained the preciseness required to drive 225
miles­per­hour in cars hypersensitive to their touch for three
hours. "Just a gust of wind at that speed..." said Power,
leaving the rest to the awful imagination.
Rose finally asked what all of us who drive 65 (or
thereabouts) wonder: "Fear? Is there any fear?"
"We definitely have respect for the dangers involved,"
answered Briscoe. "But it sort of drives you to be so focused
on not making mistakes. There's no doubt that racing around

14. Indy doing 225­230 miles­per­hour with concrete walls, it's
dangerous ... If we're perfect out there, then danger shouldn't
be a problem."
In other words, if these guys miss the cutoff man, they might
die.
My fascination with the 500 was renewed several years ago
while writing a story about Thomson's induction into the
National Sprint Car Hall of Fame. Thomson raced at Indy
from 1953 to 1960, finishing in the top­five three times. His
best finish was third in 1959, the year he won the pole in a
car painted pink.
But two weeks before that 1959 Indy 500, Jerry Unser Jr.
was killed in a fiery crash during practice. That prompted the
sport's governing body to mandate drivers wear
flame­retardant suits. Another driver, rookie Bob Cortner,
was also killed in practice that year. Tony Bettenhausen Sr.
survived his car flipping before the 1959 time trials. Two
years later, though, he was killed in a crash during practice.
The winner of the 1959 race, Rodger Ward, four years earlier
was part of the four­car accident at the Brickyard that killed
Bill Vukovich.
The Indianapolis 500's official website recently conducted a
poll to choose the "The Greatest 33" drivers in the history of
the event. Thomson failed to make the final cut. Still, his
candidate page includes audio of track historian Donald
Davidson saying, "Johnny Thomson is remembered as being
one the nicest people who ever ran at the Speedway .. very
shy, a redhead, blushed very easily, very quiet, but boy,
stood on the gas."

15. Unfortunately, when I did my story about Thomson, I could
not ask him what Rose asked Penske's drivers last week:
"Fear? Is there any fear?"
Thomson had long since been killed racing. On Sept. 24,
1960, at age 38, he died from injuries sustained in a
sprint­car crash on a dirt oval at the Allentown (Pa.) Fair. His
left leg was nearly severed.
Five years earlier, Thomson had suffered five broken ribs, a
broken shoulder and jammed vertebra in an accident on a
track in Langhorne, Pa.
Fear?
I don't think so.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Patriots weren't so smart with Hernandez
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
Watching TV footage of Aaron Hernandez, handcuffed and
disheveled and being taken by police from his North
Attleboro home Wednesday morning, "The Patriot Way"
again rang hollow in this troubled football fan's head.
Always smarter than everyone else. Those are Bill Belichick's
Patriots.
But not smarter in this case. Sadly not.

16. More than six hours after his arrest, Hernandez appeared in
Attleboro District Court to be charged with first­degree
murder. The 23­year­old from Bristol, Conn., is being held
without bail, charged in the execution­style killing of Odin
Lloyd, 27, of Dorchester, a semi­pro football player who was
dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancee. Lloyd's body was
found June 17 in an industrial park a mile from Hernandez's
home.
Certainly the Patriots could never have imagined Hernandez
would someday be accused of such a hideous crime. But a
lot of other teams presumed dumber than Belichick's outfit
worried that drafting the supremely talented Hernandez in
2010 might result in a bad ending of some sort.
Belichick apparently bought whatever reassurances his
coaching pal Urban Meyer provided about Hernandez's
character, enabling the Patriots to steal the University of
Florida star in the fourth round. Belichick calls these "value
picks." All other NFL teams were mocked for lacking
Belichick's ingenuity to take a gamble on a versatile weapon
who had won the John Mackey Award as the best tight end in
college football.
(The Mackey Award's vetting also took a hit on Wednesday,
since the award is supposedly presented to the collegiate
tight end who exemplifies the "play, sportsmanship,
academics and community values" of the great John
Mackey.)
What could all those other NFL teams possibly have been
thinking?
Well, probably that while football was important to Hernandez
­­ as Belichick likes to say in describing the ultimate
character criteria ­­ other questionable activities were just as
important to Hernandez, making the elusive tight end too

17. great a risk. Those other teams perhaps wondered whether
Meyer's word beyond X's and O's lacked validity. Because
while the Gators racked up two national titles during Meyer's
six years in Gainesville (he is now coaching at Ohio State),
they had roughly 30 arrests. The Orlando Sentinel reported
last week that Hernandez was arrested at Florida in 2007
while still a juvenile following an altercation at a campus
hangout, and also was later questioned by police about a
shooting. Guns and Hernandez seemed frequently in close
proximity.
Within days of the Patriots stealing Hernandez in that 2010
draft, the Boston Globe reported the tight end had failed
multiple drug tests for marijuana while at Florida. Hernandez
countered that, hey, it was only one drug test he failed.
But USA­Today reported last week that worries about
Hernandez's character and associates prompted at least one
NFL team to remove him from their draft board. ESPN's Chris
Mortensen reported other teams did so as well, including
teams that previously had taken chances on so­called risky
players.
But not the Patriots. They were too smart. They kept
Hernandez on their board.
Not long after Hernandez was arrested Wednesday morning,
the Patriots released the 2011 Pro Bowler. This perhaps
exhibited a smidgen of Patriot Way principle, since the timing
reportedly could make it more difficult for the team to recoup
the $9.79 million Hernandez has already collected on a
five­year, $40 million contract extension signed last August,
and causes salary­cap miseries. But really, what choice did
the Patriots have? It made no sense keeping on the roster a
player who probably had no chance of playing this season,
not to mention it would have been unconscionable to keep an
accused murderer on the payroll hoping he might beat the
rap.

18.
Of course, bonus money and salary­cap ramifications and
wondering who is left for Tom Brady to throw the ball to come
September pale in significance to Lloyd's awful fate and his
family's grief and heartache.
And whether Hernandez was drafted by the Patriots, some
other team or no team at all, he still probably would have
wound up in a courtroom somewhere facing murder and gun
charges. He is what he is.
When last August the Patriots showed faith in Hernandez by
signing him to that five­year contract extension, which
included a $12.5 million signing bonus, he cut a $50,000
check for the charitable foundation named in honor of Myra
Kraft, the late wife of Patriots owner Bob Kraft. Hernandez
that day spoke emotionally of Bob Kraft and the Patriots
changing his life and of his commitment "to play my heart out
for them, make the right decisions, and live life as a Patriot."
Hernandez now faces the possibility of living his life behind
bars. A Patriot despised. A Patriot who lost his way.
February 10, 2014
Professionally speaking, he likes hockey as it is now
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­ Monday
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
Believing in another U.S. hockey miracle became a moot
belief once NHL players began skating in the Winter
Olympics in 1998.

19. Should the U.S. team win gold in Sochi, it would be a minor
upset (Russia, Canada and Sweden appear the favorites),
but certainly no impossible dream come true. We have
Patrick Kane for crying out loud.
But back in the day of us still sending fuzzy­cheeked
collegians to hack down the Iron Curtain, I got a chuckle
when subsequent U.S. men's hockey teams were expected
to skate up to ridiculous expectations following the 1980
miracle in Lake Placid.
The very definition of "miracle" suggests a highly irregular
occurrence requiring divine intervention.
Home­ice advantage helps, too.
Had, say, the 1984 or 1988 U.S. hockey team also won the
gold, 1980 would have no longer seemed a "Miracle on Ice."
It would in retrospect have seemed the mighty Soviet hockey
machine simply succumbed to a common hockey
predicament ­­ running into a hot goalie (Jim Craig).
If you judge the two teams on future NHL performance, the
1984 U.S. team with Chris Chelios, Pat LaFontaine, Ed
Olczyk and Al Iafrate had more raw talent that the 1980
miracle workers. But the coaching dropped off significantly
from Herb Brooks in 1980 to Lou Vairo in 1984. Add in the
burden of expectations and unlikelihood of another miracle
happening so soon, and that 1984 team went 1­2­2 and
finished seventh.
It definitely was not their moment.

20. The U.S. in fact did not medal again in hockey until
unleashing its NHL players and winning silver to Canada's
gold in 2002 and 2010. The 2010 gold­medal game in
Vancouver, won by Canada on Sidney Crosby's OT goal,
was about as good as hockey gets. Frankly, I like Olympic
hockey the way it now is ­­ no miracles, just sustained
jaw­dropping skill.
But there is escalating talk that these Olympics could be the
last with NHL players for a while. Certainly NHL teams'
concerns are understandable. They have millions invested in
players risking injuries amid two weeks of patriotic furor. The
NHL goes dark for 16 days while 150 of its best players skate
off to thrill the world. Who knows how much will be left in
these players' tanks when they return for the NHL stretch run
and Stanley Cup playoffs?
But given that the NHL ranks a rather distant fourth among
the four major North American professional team sports
(despite providing more passionate nightly entertainment
than the NBA), you would think the NHL still eager to win
over new fans watching the best hockey tournament there is.
There are a few promotional obstacles. Because Sochi is
nine hours ahead of us, hockey games will not be seen live in
prime time. The 2018 Winter Olympics are in South Korea.
Again not the kind of prime time bang the NHL got when the
games were in Salt Lake City in 2002 and Vancouver in
2010.
There is also the specter of false advertising. Because
anyone introduced to NHL players through the Winter
Olympics will likely suffer a severe letdown while watching
their first Sabres­Panthers regular­season game.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Every four years, it's a reminder

21. Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
The exact juxtaposition, I do not quite recall.
But the contrasting athleticism on display was hilarious.
On Sunday I clicked back and forth from the U.S. vs.
Portugal World Cup soccer match to the final innings of the
Red Sox vs. A's game. At one point I clicked from watching
athletes in Navy SEAL­like physical condition sprinting and
sprawling during an all­out nationalistic test of stamina and
will played out in a stadium deep in a tropical rainforest ... to
David Ortiz's belly bobbing as Big Papi did his wounded­dog
jog after swatting a 10th­inning home run during one of those
minor exertions required of him every 40 minutes or so, when
Ortiz wanders from the dugout, bat in hand.
Ted Williams once said that hitting a baseball is the most
difficult feat in sports. It is damn hard, as the 2014 Red Sox
have quite clearly demonstrated. But harder than hitting an
on­the­mark bicycle kick while approaching total exhaustion?
And so, as happens every four years, I am reminded of why
soccer has had such a hard time seizing a major hold of this
country. It just looks too hard; too much work needed to
score, too cardiovascular for a country that prefers a national
pastime that moves to the beat of a McDonald's drive­thru.
I do not mean to pick on Ortiz and his lovable girth. This is
not a column about tirelessly whining over official scorers'
decisions. The fact is most of the over­bulked athletes in
North America's four major professional team sports,
conditioned for sudden bursts in an endless stream of
timeouts, would have difficulty maintaining a World Cup pace
for any more than 10 minutes. The over/under on NFL
linemen tumbling into a gasping heap and screaming to be

22. hooked up to the nearest medical machinery would be 15
seconds.
With all due respect to the NFL Combine, soccer players at
the World Cup­level are the best athletes in the world. This
belief is based on simple sheer numbers. More kids in more
countries dream of growing up to play for Real Madrid or
Manchester United or Bayern Munich than dream of winning
an Olympic biathlon or being a situational pass­rusher in the
NFL or being a DH for the Red Sox.
In fact, roughly six billion of the people on the planet don't
know who Ortiz is. The most world­renowned player on John
Henry's payroll isn't Ortiz, it is for the time being serial­biter
Luis Suarez.
Soccer's talent pool is immense; by far the largest of any
sport. And the more athletes you have to draw from, the
better athletes you get. And this pool is not limited by
socio­economic, climatic or physical­stature boundaries.
The front of The New York Times sports page this past
Sunday featured a photo of impoverished indigenous
villagers in the Amazon basin, with no access to electricity,
watching Brazil play Mexico on a television powered by a gas
generator.
The Economist recently wrote about former rebels in the
jungles of Myanmar having no recent access to television.
But in their pickup games they remembered how to mimic
Cristiano Ronaldo standing over a free kick.
Among our four major professional team sports, only
basketball is a world game. While growing worldwide, hoops
is still nowhere near as expansive as soccer. Baseball and
hockey are international, too, but their geographic scopes are

23. limited. Neither sport really flies in the Congo. As a test of
physical endurance, only multi­overtime Stanley Cup hockey
among our core sports comes close to a Group of Death
match.
Should the United States, through some improbable course
of events, actually win this World Cup, it would make the
Miracle on Ice seem a mere pebble in the Sahara. It would
be America's biggest sports story ever.
My guess is Germany spanks us Thursday, sending our
Group of Death fate to a process every red­blooded
American NFL fan knows well: the headache­inducing playoff
tiebreaker.