Football Off To A Shaky Start Here

Football is off to a shaky start here in the Ocean State. Rhode Island’s favorite pro team was humiliated in its season opener last week, its flagship state university is 0-2, and its top business school lost by eight touchdowns last Saturday. The good news is that the Ocean State’s Ivy League entry at long last kicks off its season on Saturday, and its Division III team is undefeated. Let’s proceed in reverse order. Salve Regina University, the consistent winner from Newport, is 2-0 after victories over Worcester State Montclair State of New Jersey. The Seahawks won each game by a touchdown. They will play at Dean on Saturday. Brown launches its 140 th season Saturday afternoon at Brown Stadium against Bryant. The pre-game story line is Bryant’s rookie head coach, James Perry, matching wits against his college coach, Phil Estes. Perry was Brown’s record-smashing quarterback in the late 1990s and as a senior led Brown to the 1999 Ivy League championship in Estes’s second year as a head

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Red Sox, PawSox And Patriots

As summer fades to fall, the Red Sox – Boston and Pawtucket – and the Patriots dominate the sports news. Here is my take on three hot topics. RED SOX: SNAP OUT OF IT! The Red Sox could have all but clinched the A.L. East title with a decent weekend in New York, but no, they seem determined to do it the hard way, if they do it at all. They lost three of four in the Bronx and returned home with a shaky 3½-game lead over the Yankees. Then, on Monday night, they took a 10-4 beating from Toronto. LAST PLACE Toronto, for Pete’s sake! Now the lead is 2½ games, thanks to that loss and New York’s victory at Baltimore. What in the name of Big Papi is going on up there in Boston? Rick Porcello, a 24-game winner and Cy Young recipient in 2016, pitched his way closer to a 20-loss season Monday night when he threw three home run balls to the Jays, raising his total to 35 for the season. He is 9-16. Chris Sale, a lock for the American League Cy Young Award at the All-Star break, has been horrible in

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What Outsiders Don't Understand About Patriots Fans

The NFL is designed to be the parity league. Dynasties aren’t supposed to happen. The Patriots have shattered that image. The Brady-Belichick era has produced five super bowl titles, the most improbable on Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons. The Pats have become the team America loves to hate. They are reviled as cheaters by opposing fans, as if Deflategate was actually a crime. The new liberal trope is to hate Bill and Tom because they y play golf with Trump. Many fans just don’t like New Englanders, our passion for our teams and the magical run of success our professional teams have had for more than a decade. Here’s what Football fanatics who wince at the scenes of duck boats winding through the streets of Boston don’t get: It wasn’t always this way. The Patriots were long the orphans of Boston sports, piling losing season upon losing season. For years they didn’t even have a stadium to call their own – they played games at Fenway Park and the college ballparks at Boston College and

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Patriots Super Bowl Victory Is The Greatest Ever

Never in six decades of playing, watching and writing about sports have I seen anything like the dramatic comeback the New England Patriots mounted in Super Bowl LI Sunday night. N-E-V-E-R. Not when John Havlicek stole the ball to beat the 76ers in the 1965 NBA Eastern Conference Final. Not when the Impossible Dream Red Sox won the 1967 American League pennant on the last day of the season. Not when Carlton Fisk won Game 6 of the 1975 World Series with his 12 th inning home run. Not when Mike Eruzione scored for a 4-3 lead and Jim Craig saved every Soviet shot in the last 10 minutes of the Miracle on Ice at Lake Placid in 1980. Not when Adam Vinatieri kicked the field goal that gave the Patriots their first Super Bowl victory in 2002. Not when David Ortiz led the Red Sox out of their 0-3 abyss against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. Each of those stands on a pedestal in my pantheon of memorable sports moments, but what the Patriots did Sunday night outshines them all. To come back from a

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Brady Will Cap An Impressive Run By Aging Champions

Tom Brady’s start at quarterback for the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI Sunday night will bookend an unforgettable week for aging champions. Brady is 39 and playing in his seventh Super Bowl, but he has looked like a quarterback 10 years younger. After serving a four-game suspension at the start of the season for his alleged role in Deflategate, he led the Patriots to an 11-1 record in the 12 games he started in the regular season, threw 28 touchdown passes with only two interceptions, and finished as the second-most productive quarterback in the NFL after Atlanta’s Matt Ryan, his opponent tonight. He averaged 296.2 passing yards per game, the fifth best of his 17-year career. His two interceptions were the fewest of his career and his 112.2 quarterback rating second best. Last month, during his regular appearance on a Boston radio talk show, Brady said that playing until he is 45 is a “great goal.” If he stays healthy and maintains his desire to endure the necessary off-season

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