Sucker punch Scotty

I know hockey’s a rough game, at times pushing up against brutality. Still, Carolina Hurricanes' Scott Walker’s cheap shot on the Bruins’ Aaron Ward was totally punk ass (that's punk as in being a "bitch," not in a SoCal, Black Flag sort of way).

Apparently, the NHL doesn’t deem Ward’s fractured orbital bone and loss to the team anything serious, as it rescinded an automatic suspension and fined Walker a mere $2,500. This means that the innocent team, the Bruins, will be without a key player, going into their do-or-die game six against Carolina, which will have Walker’s services.

[Scott Walker demonstrating his sucker punch acumen (Stuart Cahill photo)]

Boston is none too happy, as indicated by coach Claude Julien’s statement in which he said that Walker “sucker-punched” Ward.

Julien went on to say, "I don't care what people say about, 'Ward should've protected himself.' He had no intention of getting involved," he added. "We asked our guys to stay composed and not fall into that trap, and he just did that. A guy with Walker's experience should know better than to sucker-punch a guy."

The Bruins issued a statement Monday responding to the lack of suspension for Walker.

"We respectfully disagree with the NHL's ruling to rescind the automatic suspension to Scott Walker, but we will abide by the league's ruling," the team said.

‘Canes' president, Jim Rutherford, on the other hand, thought Walker’s “skate” on this was warranted.

"We are satisfied with the league's ruling," said Hurricanes president Jim Rutherford. "After our team received several punches throughout the series leading up to game five, it was a matter of time before one was going to be thrown back."

I realize that Rutherford, a former goalie, may not have all his senses, after seeing too much rubber during his playing days, but what f*cking series has he been watching. Having a player cheap shot an opponent, who was unprepared for it, resulting in a broken orbital is not justified.

Apparently he thinks his team shouldn’t be hit by the Bruins, who in my opinion, have played way too soft.

Let’s see if Walker’s cowardly act lights a fire under Boston’s ass and they come out and hit every red and white Hurricane jersey that they see on the ice.

Jason Bay looking better all the time

Manny Ramirez, the 2nd highest paid player in major league baseball, has been suspended for 50 games, beginning today, for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. This is being reported by the LA Times, and has been confirmed by other media outlets.

Ramirez is expected to attribute the test results to medication received from a doctor for a personal medical issue, according to a source familiar with matter but not authorized to speak publicly.

This is a major blow to the Dodgers, who sport baseball's best record at 21-8. Ramirez was a major reason, batting .348 (which leads the team), and providing a major presence in the middle of the LA lineup. His absence will leave what the Times called a "gaping hole" in their batting order.

Ramirez, who had worn out his welcome in Boston last season, only to land on the west coast, and apparently in a place that agreed with "Manny being Manny." In fact, it was hard last week in my travels around greater-LA to not spot a billboard, or Dodgers' ad on a bus that didn't sport Manny's familiar visage. I was even thinking about blogging about the genius of the club's marketing department in making Manny the face of the club's promotional campaign. Then this hit.

With Jason Bay's strong start, and this revelation, Red Sox Nation has to be heaving a collective sigh of relief, even those who criticized the Red Sox for unloading Manny.

And before anyone gets too smug, realize that this latest development is less about Manny, and more about the rampant abuse of steroids at the professional level, which MLB still hasn't come to terms with. There are players in the Sox locker room that are just as "dirty" as Manny, they just haven't been caught.

Joba Chamberlain is a punk

I hate the Yankees. As a longtime Red Sox fan (that means I followed the team long before they won in 2004, bandwagon riders), my dislike of all things Yankees goes back to the Craig Nettles, Billy Martin, Sparky Lyle, and yes, the late Thurman Munson era (Google "Munson Fisk brawl").

During the top of the 5th inning, starting pitcher, Joba Chamberlain, the Yankees' young pitching star, hit Jason Bay in the middle of the back (between the fours), an obvious intentional act. Bay had touched up Chamberlain for a 3-run homer in the first.

Bay was an unlikely object of Chamberlain's ire. From what I see game in and game out, he just goes out and plays the game, old school. He hustles, keeps his mouth shut, and when he uncannily turns around 96 mile per hour fastballs, he doesn't stand at home plate and admire them, he sprints around the bases. He certainly didn't do anything to warrant getting hit, unless the prima donna Chamberlain, doesn't realize that the ball he left out over the plate to Bay is the kind of pitch that major league hitters regularly deposit beyond outfield walls.

Dennis Eckersly, filling in for the ailing Jerry Remy, took issue with Chamberlain's act. I love the Eck, and he didn't mince any words about Chamberlain and what he thought about what he did. Eck was a hard-nosed competitor. He also played when there was still a code of how you handled yourself between the lines. Chamberlain is like so many younger players--no understanding of what's right and proper, at least what warrants a "message" pitch, which his plunking of Bay obviously was. I'm just not sure what the message was, other than, "I'm Joba Chamberlain and you can't take my fastball out of the yard."

I don't know if Red Sox starter Josh Beckett will retaliate tonight. Mark my words, however, from the looks on the faces of Red Sox players, in the dugout, as the camera panned the bench, you know that this isn't the end of this issue.

After hitting Bay, and receiving a visit at the mound from Yankee pitching coach, Dave Eiland, Chamberlain struck out Mike Lowell on five pitches, whereby he pumped his fist like it was the 9th inning of game seven of the ALCS, and yelled towards the Sox bench. There will definitely be more to this story.

In an unrelated item, apparently Chamberlain's Mom is a tweaker.

Post-jet lag musings

I'm back home after an incredible nine day vacation/visit to Los Angeles. I flew west on the 22nd to for some needed R & R, to visit my son (who I hadn't seen since August), and also, to take in the LA Times Festival of Books last weekend, at UCLA.

There were so many positives to my trip. How can you quantify spending time with someone that you love and haven't seen forever? Plus, Los Angeles is an amazing city. The sprawling nature of the place, the diversity (more Koreans live in Los Angeles than any other place in the world, other than Korea, with 100,000 Koreans making LA their home), the myriad of choices in what to do each day, plus watching the Celtics at Sonny McLean's Irish Pub, a favorite sports bar with other expat New Englanders, made this a vacation to savor, and remember.

The diversity factor was something I was especially attuned to. Given that Los Angeles is really a group of ethnic communities, within a larger metropolitan framework, you literally could experience much of the world, and never have to drive more than 30 minutes in any direction.

On Wednesday, I had lunch with an old Portland Pigeon buddy, who is now attending graduate school at USC's Anneberg School of Communications. We met at Chung Kiwa, on Olympic Boulevard, in Koreatown, for Korean barbecue. Here's a link with a photo from the web.

This veritable smorgasboard of tastes and smells takes place at your table, with a server firing up a gas flame in the middle of your table, and cooking your meat in front of you. That, and about 20 seperate banchan, or side dishes, like kimchi, pajori (green onion salad), and some type of pickled zucchini that my friend and I required seconds on. Truly amazing!

One great thing about the past nine days is how I took in information, and how little affect the swine flu paranoia affected me. I learned from one of my Media Matters emails that the right-wing used this to jack up the fear, and of course, a hater like Michael Savage used it to assail Mexicans, given that he's in California, and hates every other non-white ethnic group.

Since my son and his girlfriend don't have a television, I didn't watch any television news whatsoever. I listened to the NPR affiliate on occasion, usually after I dropped my son off at work (I drove him to work each morning, in Beverly Hills, which was an experience in and of itself). I'd allow myself to get a brief sampling of the news, and then it was back to KXLU (the Loyola Marymount college station), or KJazz 88.1, originating out of Cal State/Long Beach. These two became my musical cornerstones of my visit and time in my Toyota Prius rental car. I also enjoyed the amount of Latino music available at a quick tweak of the dial.

[What would LA be without its freeways?]

With so much music now streaming online, and corporate control of radio ruining what small vestige of originality remained on the FM dial, it's easy to forget the thrill of driving into a major radio market like Boston, Chicago, or elsewhere, 10-15 years ago, opened up possibilities of music not available in out of the way outposts like Maine, at the time. That and even the wealth of college rock that has changed given the interweb's influence on radio and music programming.

The morning and late afternoon shows on KXLU were amazing. One afternoon, Ikey Owens, from LA mainstays, The Mars Volta (and side project, Free Moral Agents), was in the studio, choosing music, talking about Los Angeles' music scene, the band, and winning a Grammy, and shitting on some of the celebs at the awards show (which Mars left after receiving their award).

KJazz provided accompaniment from jazz giants like John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, and others, as I made my way across the vast web of boulevards, and freeways that make up travel in greater-LA.

The city of Los Angeles has nearly 4 million inhabitants, but Los Angeles County, of which Los Angeles resdides as part of, consists of slightly more than 10 million people in a region of 4,700 square miles. Maine, my home state, has slightly more than a million people in an area eight times the size of LA County.

I loved the diversity and experiencing a sampling of world cultures during my brief stay. Unlike some that tend to demonize those coming to the U.S. for a better life, I see the benefits of the blending of cultures that places like Los Angeles represents.

On Wednesday, I spent my afternoon at Griffith Park and visited the park's Observatory. What an amazing place, made possible for Angelenos and visitors, because of the vision of one man, Griffith J. Griffith. Just like Maine's own Percival P. Baxter, who bequethed land and set up a permanent wilderness oasis in the Pine Tree State, Griffith has done the same thing, providing a place to escape the craziness that can become urban living. If I lived in LA, Griffith Park would a be one of my refuges, when I needed to disconnect from the negatives of urbanity.

[The Griffith Park Observatory]

You can read more about my trip over at Write in Maine, including my visit to the Festival of Books.

West coast baseball

One could assume that California is all about celebrity restaurants, surgically-enhanced beauties, and luxury automobiles. At least that's been primarily the California that I've seen each morning, as I've traveled from Brentwood to Beverly Hills, ferrying my son to work, in my rental car. Saturday, at UCLA, in Westwood, the beautiful people were no longer in the forefront of the crowd at the LA Times Festival of Books. On Sunday, all it took was a 50 minute drive to Anaheim to dispel any myth that California is only about the rich and the famous, trim bodies, and manufactured beauty.

If you follow baseball with any seriousness, you've no doubt heard the stories about laid back Dodgers' fans, arriving late for games, and leaving in the 7th inning, to beat the LA traffic, even if the ball game is a barn-burner.

Given that I'm in California, and since my son and I share so many great memories connected to baseball, since the Angels were playing at home, and the 12:35 pm start fit our schedule for the day, we decided to drive out to Anaheim, and see the Halos play Seattle, at the Big A.

Our early morning drive to Orange County was mostly open freeway, and the drive from Brentwood was no problem whatsoever.

Driving in on Gene Autry Way made me consider that the long-suffering cowboy never got to reap the rewards for bringing the Angels to Anaheim in 1966. (he purchased the club in 1960, and they played in Los Angeles, as the Los Angeles Angels, the name for which Autry had to pay Walter O'Malley, of the Dodgers, $300,000 for the rights to use)

Autry's long tenure as owner was one characterized by mediocrity and stunning disappointment. Towards the end of his reign as owner, the Angels' front office often unloaded young and talented players for overpriced veterans in an attempt to finally win one for the aging “cowboy.” He would never got to see his dream of a World Series Championship.

[Fans lined up outside Angels Stadium, or whatever it's now called, waiting for the gates to open]

It's hard to appreciate so many of the newer ball parks, when your first experiences with major league baseball in person are colored by Fenway Park, as a youngster, and later, having the privilege of being in the Chicago area and going to see the Cubs play at Wrigley.

Granted, I also made many a trip to Montreal to see the Expos play at one of the ugliest stadiums ever foisted on baseball, the Stade Olympic, or for you Anglos, Olympic Stadium. The "Big A," the name I choose to use, as the ball park has never been able to settle on one moniker for the site, much like the club that plays there. Are they the Los Angeles Angels, or the California Angels. No, they are the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. It's hard for a New Englander like me, to find a local equivalent of that convoluted naming of the club. Maybe the Providence Red Sox, of Boston, if the club was moved out of Boston.

Mark and I arrived early enough to catch BP, or so we thought. Unfortunately, it was some kind of promotion day, where all the Little Leaguers from the region (some 8,000 of them), were lined up by team near the right field corner, and paraded around the outskirts of the field, exiting in the lef field corner. For 90 minutes, that's all you saw, with the announcer making the same announcement for the groups not to "stop on the field for photos," so that the game might begin on time.

With no BP, or infield practice, all we had to do was tool around the stadium. Since I'm not a fan of stuffing my face at ball games (a nod to a hot dog, and a bag of peanuts is as far as I'll go), and I refuse to drink watered-down, overpriced beer when I go to a game, there really wasn't much to do. We snapped some perfunctory photos to capture our visit, but mostly, we sat in the center field stands to soak up the sun. Our $28 game tickets were along the right field line, under the roof, which deprived us of that opportunity later (although I still ended up with a sunburn).

Angels fans are idiots. Apparently, no one sits in the right seat. Once the national anthem was played, we made our way to our assigned seats, only to find someone was sitting in them. We plunked down on the other end of our aisle, hoping we wouldn't have to move. Actually, my goal was to move closer to the field, since there are no ushers stationed to prevent the proverbial musical chairs that California baseball, at least Angels baseball is all about.

Not only are these very normal, overweight, and certainly not surgically-enhanced fans incapable of reading their ticket stubs to make sure they put their fat asses in the right seats, my assumption that my own oversized ass was safe where it was by the start of the 3rd inning was a fallacy. You see, Angels fans aren't there to watch baseball, apparently. No, they are there to eat, buy souvenirs, and boo their own players (like starting first basemen, Robb Quinlan ). Of course, just as I had settled in to the game, along came the rightful owners of our seats, so we had to shuffle around to the other side, and bounce people out of our purchased seats. Meanwhile, this was going on all around us.

The game was a yawner, to boot. Since I could care less that about either team--I hate the Angels, and it's hard for me, as a Sox fan, to muster any passion for the visiting Seattle Mariners, the only hope I had was that former Angel, Jarrod Washburn, a former D3 player from Wisconsin , might represent for Wisconsin like his fellow cheesehead, Jordan Zimmermann), who won his 2nd big league start and now owns half of his team's victories in the early going.

No luck there, as the Angels jumped out early and Jared Weaver was making Swiss cheese of the makeshift Seattle lineup, which featured 41-year-old Ken Griffey as its cleanup hitter, someone obviously on the backside of an illustrious career.

Thoroughly bored by the sixth, we made our way up to the right field, rooftop patio to get a view, and take in the atmosphere. Talk about morons. No one had a clue up here that a game was going on. Here was a group of people, at least the men (if you could label them that), who were obviously graduates from special ed programs in school (if they graduated). And the dumpy looking women, trying to appear something they weren't, with their oversized sunglasses, and bling, hung on every slurred syllable of their inane banter.

Boston fans, for all their imperfections, know baseball. They can be stupid, and moronic, like any sports fan, but they also issue forth some witty and sometimes piss your pants funny lines, especially when drunk. This wasn't happening at the Big A, as witty repartee was nowhere to be found in Anaheim.

So like Dodger fan, in Los Angeles, we were tooling out of the parking lot, and headed for the traffic of LA, by the bottom of the 7th.

[Pregame picture taking; notice the Sox hap perched on my head. I was East Coast representing my team, in hostile territory.]