Boston Magazine did a poll about what Boston men and women are looking for in a mate. Or at least someone they’d like to know for a few hours.
Harvard tops the list of sizzling alma maters for men (19%) and women (12%), followed by BU (8%/10%). But about half of you say it doesn’t matter where a potential S.O. went to college as long as they graduated.
On the other hand, if you’re a man with a cat…fuhgeddaboutit.
Well, first of all, they finally won a damn game. Nice work, Phil Hughes! (I am rooting for Hughes—after massive hype, then disappointment, it finally looks like he might be back on track. That would be awesome.)
Plus, the Bostons were obliterated by Cleveland, 9-8—a crushing defeat. So that’s good then.
Also: The Yankees are cutting ticket prices. Those $2600 seats? Now a mere $1250. Bargain!
“You have ‘sting’ right there in your name.”
Since the relevance of the humanities is often discussed on this blog, I was intrigued to read this Times Q-and-A with Delta CEO Richard Anderson. [Emphasis added]
Q. What are you listening for as somebody describes their family, where they’re from, etc.?
A. You’re looking for a really strong set of values. You’re looking for a really good work ethic. Really good communication skills. More and more, the ability to speak well and write is important. You know, writing is not something that is taught as strongly as it should be in the educational curriculum. So you’re looking for communication skills.
Q. And is there any change in the kind of qualities you’re looking for compared with 5, 10 years ago?
A. I think this communication point is getting more and more important. People really have to be able to handle the written and spoken word. And when I say written word, I don’t mean PowerPoints. I don’t think PowerPoints help people think as clearly as they should because you don’t have to put a complete thought in place. You can just put a phrase with a bullet in front of it. And it doesn’t have a subject, a verb and an object, so you aren’t expressing complete thoughts.
Good for Mr. Anderson. I wonder if this is a message that high school and college students are hearing as they make academic choices they hope will prepare them for a future job….
Read this and you’ll see why I continue to harp on David Ortiz’s possible steroid use. If you listen to Red Sox fans, they’re apparently the only team in all of baseball without a single player who took steroids.
It’s the sanctimony that gets me….
Because if the new Yankee Stadium is the “House that ‘roids Built,” then wouldn’t 2004 be the championship that ‘roids produced?
Argh…that is one of the worst things in the world, seeing your team get not just swept, but humiliated, by the Sox (and that steal of home, while a very pretty play, was humiliating). Boston looked like a superior team over the weekend, and they are certainly rolling right now. The Yankees, meanwhile, have some big problems.
Boston’s great strength, it seems to me, is its depth. And its youth. (Okay, two things.) Pedroia and Ellsbury are going to be driving the Yankees nuts forever. And that Theo Epstein really does have a gift for finding diamonds in the rough.
Does the team have weaknesses? Well, Ortiz and Varitek are old. (Ortiz isn’t that old, but, well, we all know what’s going on there.)
Otherwise….
The Yankees have more weaknesses, and one of them is a notable lack of pop in their lineup. Every time you turned around last night, it seemed that Nick Swisher or Melky Cabrera or Brett Gardner or that poor, pressed-into-service third baseman were coming to the plate. Not exactly daunting. A-Rod better hurry back, because the Yankees are really missing him. Plus, Mark Texeira has started the season slowly and looks a little lost at the plate. (He’ll come around.)
And the Yankees are older—far too old. Damon, Matsui, Posada, Jeter, Pettitte—all are within hollering distance of retirement, and none of them (maybe Jeter) particularly make opponents nervous any more.
In short, the Yankee lineup doesn’t make pitchers work as hard as does the Sox’, and you could see that over the weekend, as the Yankee pitchers just wore down.
That Yankee pitching staff, by the way, hasn’t nearly pitched up to potential, and you have to wonder if Chien Ming-Wang ever will again.
Of course, it’s early. Texeira will hit, A-Rod will return, Cano could have a great season, Melky Cabrera might finally fulfill his potential (I doubt it, but we’ll see), and the Yankees could look much better than they did this weekend.
But if I were a Sox fan, I’d be feeling pretty confident right now.
As I am not, they can still bite me.
Central Park, Sunday, via iPhone
Media Matters compiles the worst media moments of Obama’s first 100 days.
That Lawrence Kudlow is really a terrible person.
Granted, that is an immature thought. But late last night a Red Sox fan e-mailed me for the sheer purpose of gloating after the Red Sox’s dramatic, come-from-behind victory against the Yanks at Fenway Park last night. And that, of course—or some equivalent—is what I felt like saying.
But I held my tongue. We Yankee fans would never be so ungracious.
That said, it was a terrific game, and congrats to the Sox and all that for coming back against Mariano Rivera (who did serve up a pretty fat pitch that wound up in the left-center seats).
But…I’m not sure how much comfort Sox fans can take from the game. Their team has been playing incredibly well, winning seven straight. The Yanks have been kind of…eh. Mediocre. Definitely not playing up to potential. Last night, they went 0-for-219 with men in scoring position, Joba Chamberlain wasn’t pitching particularly well, their closer uncharacteristically blew a save, their best hitter is absent, they were playing in Fenway, and it still took a near-miracle for the Red Sox to win.
(Some pretty nifty defense by Dustin Pedroia and Jason Varitek, too. But what a wimp J.D. Drew is—he totally chickened out on Derek Jeter’s fly ball near the wall in right. No reason he shouldn’t have caught that ball.)
I was watching David Ortiz carefully, and one thing I noticed is how his body has changed in the time since MLB started instituting meaningful drug testing. Before that, he’d about doubled in size from his scrawny early days. Now, he’s still big, but he doesn’t look bulky anymore, just fat. And slow. Ortiz has a distinct potbelly that I don’t recall him having before—he used to have sort of a barrel chest—and that sense of barely-contained power that he used to have, it just isn’t there any more. Hmmm. Wonder why?
Still and all, it was an amazing game and it hardly felt like April baseball. These two are going to go at it 17 more times in the regular season. What a pleasure this rivalry is.
Harvard’s Elizabeth Warren gets a nice write-up in The Big Money.com.
*Whoops, that was Mary Warren.