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BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG
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Your humble correspondent will be on vacation for the next 10 days, but methinks I will return from that long-deserved respite to a much different New England sports landscape. How so? Hockey: It seems that every single Bruins game lately ends in a tie or an overtime loss. Talk about kissing your sister; Boston’s recent play has been like playing spin the bottle with your sibling and her cute friends, but with every spin ending up directed at your sis’s hangdog mug. Hey, it’s not so hot for me either, smiley! In November the B’s tied twice and lost three more in the extra frame (in addition to five other games that were decided by a goal), and this month the team is even more fit to be tied, having gotten knotted up three straight times prior to Thursday night’s 6-5 loss against the Capitals. On the bright side, the Bruins have collected at least a point in 23 games of the 29 they’ve played heading into the weekend, and are 8-3-2-3 on the road; on the down side, they have yet to win a game in overtime, and indeed are 0-7-4 in games needing an extra five minutes to be settled. While I’m away, the Bruins — with an overall record of 12-5-7-4, good for second place in the Northeast Division standings — will play four games: at Ottawa (trouble), at Montreal (probably another cravat), then home against red-hot Calgary and luke-warm Carolina. Who knows how those games will go, but the Bruins had better get going fast, or they’re going to be an afterthought in this town while the Patriots barrel toward a Super Bowl showdown with the Eagles and the Red Sox continue to make off-the-field noise. The danger of irrelevancy also hangs over their FleetCenter brethren, who sometimes do a pretty decent job of playing the game of.... Basketball: Antoine Walker gone. Good thing? Bad thing? The answer to that question in relation to the Celtics’ fortunes thus far this season won’t be determined during my upcoming absence, but one thing can be ascertained: If Raef Lafrentz, who was the key player acquired by the C’s in the blockbuster deal with the Mavericks, continues to have knee problems or is shelved for a significant time, then the Celtics will have gotten the raw end of the deal, whether or not Jiri Welsch continues to blossom at the guard position. Walker’s numbers this year compared to last season are as follows: FG pct., 44 vs. 39; three-point FG pct., 28 vs. 32; rebounds, 10 per game vs. 7; turnovers, 3.33 per game versus 2.67; points, 17.3 vs. 20.1. The Celtics as presently constituted have had an annoying tendency — similar to their Causeway Street subletters, the Bruins — of blowing leads late. No game was more indicative of that breakdown than last week’s debacle against the Suns, a team that had played the night before and was playing so badly that their head coach was fired a couple of days ago. On this December 5th night, however, Phoenix overcame a 29-point third-quarter deficit en route to a stunning 110-106 road victory over the Green, the Celts’ fourth-straight loss. Even worse, the next day the team was stuck on an airport runway for seven hours trying to get out of town for a road date in Denver, and then had to face back-to-back contests against the surprising Nuggets and Jazz. That scenario spelled certain doom, did it not? Not unless you spell "doom" WW, because that’s what the C’s came away with in their back-to-back Rocky Mountain venture; they then surprisingly took home another impressive decision on Wednesday against the SuperSonics. So who are these guys anyway? The guys that can blow 25-point leads to lousy teams at home, or can establish 25-point leads — and apparently hold ’em — on the road? Stay tuned. While I’m gone, the Celtics play five of their next six at home, with fans expecting victories over the Raptors and Cavaliers but not so sure about their team’s chances on the parquet against the T-Wolves, Mavs (Walker’s drama-soaked return), Jazz, and 76ers. Following the Christmas holiday, Boston goes on a four-game road trip to Atlanta, Phoenix, the Lakers, and Golden State, and none of those victories is guaranteed, that’s for sure. Whether folks will still be even watching this Jekyll-and-Hyde new-look squad by that time will depend considerably on the doings of the region’s two remaining marquee teams. Baseball: Don’t know how much news I’ll be able to connect with up in the White Mountains of New Hamster, but big things are expected to happen during the next week or so on Yawkey Way. A team that already had gotten within an inning-plus of the World Series has already transformed itself in significant ways, and is expected to continue to re-invent itself during the course of the upcoming winter meetings and beyond. The Red Sox have already bid adieu to their fifth starter (John Burkett), their starting second baseman (Todd Walker), and a bunch of other minor contributors to the 2003 season (Brandon Lyon, Casey Fossum, Todd Jones, Jeff Suppan). They now appear poised to say buh-bye to their enigmatic left fielder (Manny Ramirez) and iconic shortstop (Nomar Garciaparra) in return for perhaps the game’s top player (Alex Rodriguez) and whomever would come to the Sox in trade for Nomah. One would think that this Red Sox team would not need to be tinkered with too much during the off-season. You would have thought wrong, at least in the minds of Theo, Larry, John, et al. The addition of Curt Schilling to the rotation was momentous, and the hiring of a new manager will also put a new face on the team. The possibility of losing Ramirez is not necessarily crucial to Red Sox Nation, especially since it will result in the addition of the 2003 MVP and the subtraction of one of the most mystifying personalities in team history — Manny’s batting prowess notwithstanding. Garciaparra’s situation is a little more complicated; he has been revered in this town despite his penchant for eschewing the media and his reluctance to put out an affable face and personality to the fans who idolized him. Fans know he always played hard; that has never been in dispute. His stature has been reduced in recent days, though, with the revelation that he and his agent, Arn Tellem, turned down a four-year, $60 million contract-extension offer in March. Instead of taking that reasonable amount of cash and ensuring his long-term residency in Boston, the pair rejected the offer and instead asked for near-Jeter money — up around $17 mil a year. That kind of attitude smacks of greed, especially since Nomar is already coming off a seven-year, $44-million contract he signed after his rookie season while his future credentials were very much in doubt. Once the market righted itself somewhat during this past season and the Sox brass made another long-term offer — this time reportedly at $48 million for four seasons — Garciaparra again turned it down, and seemed content with the idea of playing out the 2004 season and heading to free agency. That’s why his pleas that the A-Rod discussions took him by a surprise and were a "slap in the face" are a bit of a stretch, since he has rarely publicly pined for a long-term commitment from the Sox. Instead, fans hear rumors about his distaste for the media and don’t often see him out in the community (other than fundraisers for his Nomar 5 Foundation), thereby getting the sense that he’s unhappy here. That may not be fair, but Boston fans don’t like their icons to be sourpusses, and prefer the at least somewhat personable and approachable; Nomar, for whatever reason, has always sheltered himself and been reluctant to open up to the fans who adore him. And he’s a master of issuing post-game clichés and monotonous interviews despite his reportedly intellectual personality. Is he happy here? How do we know? Well, he did call in to a local sports-talk radio show last week to express his displeasure and alleged love for the baseball community, but sadly that sort of honest revelation has been rare during his seven-year tenure here, and since baseball is a business, and Nomar has given Sox management no hometown discount nor any reasonable financial opportunity to re-sign him, he has made himself expendable. We’ll all miss him if he goes, but balking at $60 million over four years lets fans know all they need to know about his desire to retire as a Red Sox. And A-Rod looms, and he’s a player too good for the franchise to pass up. When I get back from up north, it’s very likely that the heart and soul of past Red Sox teams may be a former Soxer, but the team he leaves behind will almost certainly be an odds-on favorite to end the upcoming season with a curse-breaking triumph. Football: When you next hear from me, the AFC Eastern Division champion Patriots could very well be on an 11-game win streak with just fading Buffalo in their sights to clinch the NFL’s top record. Most people around here who have watched the Pats know that something’s gotta give sometime soon, that’s why it’s unlikely that this team will run the table and finish the season 14-2. A loss to the Jaguars is unlikely but wouldn’t be unexpected; a defeat to the Jets in the Meadowlands in front of a national-TV audience next Saturday night could definitely happen. Still, the revenge factor in that final regular-season contest against the Bills will be swirling like the snowflakes at Gillette last Sunday afternoon, so as Meat Loaf once sang, "Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad," and that’s most likely how New England will finish the season, taking its 13-3 record and most likely the top seed in the conference into the playoffs, with only two frigid home games to win to advance to its second title game in three seasons. Could happen. After all, this ain’t the Red Sox. Talk to you in 10. Sporting Eye will return on Monday, December 22 at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com
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