Picked-up pieces while waiting for kickoff in Pittsburgh ...
▪ In October 2016, hours before the seventh game of the World Series between the Cubs and Indians, Cleveland manager Terry Francona was forced to take questions from the media. There’s not much to say before a Game 7, so I broke the ice by asking Tito if this was a “must-win” game.
He took the bait. He laughed. Hard.
On Sunday in Pittsburgh, beleaguered Patriots coach Bill Belichick is faced with one of the more critical early-season games of his legendary career. Our estimable Chris Gasper calls it a “sneaky must-win.”
Clearly, sharks smell blood in the moat waters surrounding Fort Foxborough. Can any of us ever remember Bill taking this much heat around here? Bill must feel like he’s back in Cleveland in the days after he benched local hero Bernie Kosar.
Seriously. “In Bill We Trust” T-shirts are losing value faster than Bitcoin and Peloton stock. There’s a daily drumbeat banging on the head of the once-untouchable coach.
The game has passed Bill by . . . He’s still coaching as if Tom Brady is here to bail him out . . . He’s surrounded himself with cronies and failed head coaches . . . He’s protecting his two sons . . . He’s reciting positive stats he once mocked as loser’s laments . . . His drafts look like Chaim Bloom’s bullpen acquisitions . . . He won’t adapt and pay big money for wide receivers . . . He’s not doing enough to help Mac Jones . . . He’s stubbornly refusing to name coordinators . . . Jonathan Kraft can’t wait to fire him . . . He still thinks this is the 1995 NFL . . . He’s just sticking around to catch Shula . . . He’s still trying to establish the run . . . He’s too old . . . He misses Ernie Adams.
There have not been as many nattering nabobs of negativism around Belichick since the days after the Chiefs pantsed the Patriots, 41-14, on national television in Week 4 of the 2014 season. That’s when Trent Dilfer gleefully told America, “They’re not good anymore!”
That led to “We’re on to Cincinnati,” a seven-game winning streak, and a Pete Carroll gift in Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Ariz.
But of course, that’s when Brady was here. And those Patriots were still very good.
That was nothing like now.
Week 1 of the 2022 season was a stink bomb. The very average Patriots might be looking at 0-4 if they can’t win at Pittsburgh. Belichick is legitimately on the hot seat.
But New England is favored and the Steelers have Mitchell Trubisky at quarterback, and I keep going back to that opening drive last weekend when the Patriots moved the ball on the ground and in the air — all the way from their 25 to the Dolphins’ 22 in eight tidy plays.
In those moments before the devastating interception, I remember thinking, “They’re going to be OK. They are not great. They’re never going to have Brady again. But Bill can figure this out. They are not going to be the disaster we thought they were.”
And, yes, it feels like a Week 2 must-win game.
Time for Bill to show us he’s still got it.
▪ Quiz: Name 10 baseball Hall of Famers who were Rookie of the Year and MVP (answer below).
▪ Still can’t believe Alex Cora said, “This is a friendly reminder that we’re really good,” after the Red Sox beat the Orioles, 17-4, last weekend. Boston’s Laundry Cart Boys are about to finish last for the fifth time in 11 seasons. Let me remind you that the ever-mocked Yankees have not had a losing season since 1992.
▪ Once again we have a window into the cluelessness of Major League Baseball players. As the game slowly dies due to no balls in play and an endless parade of “grinding” plate appearances where every batter fouls off six 3-and-2 pitches and every pitcher insists on striking out the batter, it’s the players who see nothing wrong with pace of play.
When a rules committee made up of players and management personnel finally approved the pitch clock, every player on the committee voted nay.
“I don’t like it,” Trevor Story said. “Our game is special in that it doesn’t have a clock. I don’t know why everybody wants it over with so quick.” Red Sox reliever Matt Strahm voiced his disgust with the new rules, telling Rob Bradford “They’re doing a pretty good job of killing the sport.”
▪ Pliability on the curriculum. The Tampa Bay Times reports that 10 Pinellas County, Fla., schools are implementing the TB12 fitness playbook and the district plans to roll it out to every middle and high school by 2023-24. Through a partnership with the TB12 Foundation, the school system offers a semester-based middle school course and a one-credit course for high schoolers. Since nutrition is an important element of TB12, Pinellas parents must be glad that Alex Guerrero’s “concussion-preventing” NeuroSafe and “cancer-curing” Supreme Greens have been shut down by the feds.
▪ J.D. Martinez looks done. Martinez in 2022 reminds me of Jim Rice in 1988. Martinez went into this weekend hitting .272 with 11 homers and 52 RBIs in 122 games. Rice in ‘88 hit .264 with 15 homers and 72 RBIs in 135 games. J.D. is 34. Rice was 35 in ‘88. Both are righthanded DHs, once great, and became rally-killers at the end. Rice played 56 games in 1989, then retired at age 36. Hard to imagine any team signing Martinez to anything more than a one-year deal this offseason.
▪ The farce of big-time college football: Oregon has 21 players who came in through the transfer portal. Oklahoma State has a 32-year-old punter, Australian “senior” Tom Hutton. Meanwhile, Nick Saban (Alabama), Dabo Swinney (Clemson), and Kirby Smart (Georgia) are all making north of $10 million per season.
▪ Take a long look at the Ravens’ Justin Tucker when Baltimore comes to Foxborough next weekend. He’s the greatest kicker in NFL history. He made a 66-yarder last year and got to 300 field goals faster than anyone in league history. Tucker’s made 91 percent of his attempts, averaging 136 points per year over the past decade. His $24 million deal with the Ravens is a record for kickers. He replaced poor Billy Cundiff, who sent the Patriots to Super Bowl XLVI when he missed a 32-yarder at Gillette in the closing seconds of the 2011 AFC Championship game.
▪ Triston Casas does a lot of eye-rolling when he doesn’t like a call at home plate. The men in blue are your friends, young man. Then there’s Brayan Bello, who wears his emotions like no Red Sox starter since Oil Can Boyd.
▪ Kind of stings when you look at those National League home run leaders and see Schwarber, Betts, and Renfroe.
▪ Oh, and while we’re piling on, did you notice the Dodgers clinched their ninth NL West title in the last 10 years? The LA dopes who wasted all that money on Mookie Betts (clever of the Red Sox not to overpay for Betts, no?) are about to have their fifth 100-win season since 2017 and should be favorites to win the World Series. Back here in Boston, we celebrate the Sox’ “coup” of locking in 31-year-old, .219-hitting Kiké Hernández for another year at $10 million. The Red Sox love one-year contracts more than I love ice cream.
▪ My new favorite tennis player is Ajla Tomljanovic, who beat Serena Williams at the US Open while a boorish crowd of 24,000 cheered her every mistake. Tomljanovic, who was later eliminated in the Open quarterfinals, was barely acknowledged by glory-hog Serena after she beat Williams, and waited patiently for Serena’s post-defeat celebration before granting a gracious interview after many fans had left Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“I thought it was bad that Williams didn’t mention her opponent more when she spoke,” said ancient Margaret Court, still the record-holder with 24 Grand Slam victories (three of four after delivering her first child). “We were taught to honor our opponent.”
▪ Congrats to the folks in Lawrence, who this past week cut the ribbon on a new football field on top of a three-story parking garage near the Merrimack River. Dubbed Pavilion Field at Riverwalk, the gridiron/garage is attached to an 80,000-square-foot building that features stores and eateries. James Taylor’s version of Carole King’s “Up on the Roof” should play nonstop before and after every game.
▪ Former Bruins boss Harry Sinden turned 90 Wednesday. Harry was hired as head coach of the Bruins in 1966 when he was only 33.
▪ Quiz answer: Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Orlando Cepeda, Willie McCovey, Rod Carew, Johnny Bench, Andre Dawson, Cal Ripken Jr., Jeff Bagwell.
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @dan_shaughnessy.
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