The 15

Winnable games this week lost by the P’s, B’s, and C’s. Less than ideal.

I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile.

Keep your head down for 25 years and you too can receive a too-late promotion in a dying industry.

Welcome to New England, two-time MLS Cup winning coach Caleb Porter.

There hasn’t been a good new Christmas song since 1992.

Looking for a last-minute Christmas gift? Consider a pound or two of Callahan Coffee: it’s dark and delicious and as a bonus a portion of each purchase is donated to keep a needy Russian conscript fighting in Ukraine for another six days!

Maybe name your burner something other than Andrew.

Cakes are cooking for Peter Criss, Dick Wolf, Uri Geller, Alan Parsons, Cecil Cooper, Anita Ward, Joyce Hyser, Nate Newton, Aubrey Huff, Jonah Hill, Lucy Pinder, Jojo Levesque, and Kylian Mbappé.

“Damontae Kazee” sounds like something a vaudevillian magician would shout before he made his lovely assistant disappear.

This Iceland volcano shit is insane, kid. It’s gon’ be ugly when Ma Nature has that big-ass, lava-spewing, Earth-shaking ultimate orgasm. Just another reason to #BuyPhysicalMedia.

I never realized how many loser fans Ted Johnson has.

Not saying there is a prejudice against Japanese pitchers, but the Sox got Koji Uehara cheap in 2013 because people said he couldn’t close games and couldn’t pitch on consecutive days. He closed, pitched on consecutive days and had a 1.09 ERA, 10-1 strikeout/walk ratio.

Call me Jayson Tatum: I love hitting 3s.

Hey gang of nonprime numbers, this week’s Phrase that Pays is, “Hug your penguins a little tightah.”

Everybody has a price. Cerrone Battle’s is just really low.

One could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the way out again.

I could never say “Courvoisier, please” to a bartender.

Can you have offered Yoshinobu Yamamoto $300 million and then not have offered him $300 million?

Green Line D Branch Reminder: Shuttle Buses replace service between Riverside and Kenmore due to track work. Regular service will resume on December 21.

UConn Men’s BB holding steady at #5 in the AP Poll.

The modern-day equivalent of “don’t trust anyone over 40” is “everyone under 40 is mentally irregular”.

I’m not hearing Boston sports talk being done differently. At all.

It’s okay to not be okay, J.C. Jackson.

I hear Cashman is working on a trade for Connor Wong next. Then will try to package Wong, Downs, and Alex Verdugo to LA for Mookie Betts. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Hardy goes from being the third guy on the midday to being the solo host next time Toucher has a relapse of (cough) “throat issues”.

SMARTEN UP

‘Electeds of Color’ sounds like a kick ass band name.

You can ring my bell, you can ring my bell
Ding, dong, ding, ah-ah, ring it
You can ring my bell, anytime, anywhere
Ring it, ring it, ring it, ring it, oww
You can ring my bell, you can ring my bell
Ding, dong, ding, ah-ah, ring it
You can ring my bell, anytime, anywhere
Ring it, ring it.

It is required of every man, that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. 

Joansies’ ratings are so low they’re all RT’ing and favoriting ballwasher posts.

Society has progressed past the need for Zack Snyder movies and/or multiple bad cuts of said movies.

So you are telling me ‘Hardy’ and ‘Sarge’ are different people? If you say so.

Honk if you remember the Sears Wish Book. And honk twice if you remember Old Fezziwig.

If the local media could kindly stop trying to press a gold watch into Belichick’s palm and push him out onto a waiting ice floe that would be great.

Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!

Looking for a last-minute Christmas gift for that hockey fan in your life? Try Tough Guys by Dale Arnold (Triumph). He profiles a long list of NHL’s enforcers, who talk about their peculiar roles. Among his subjects: Chris Nilan, Jay Miller, Terry O’Reilly and P.J. Stock. It’s a revealing read into an increasingly rare subculture and comes recommended.

So apparently the frails don’t like being called broads. Who knew?

MLS dropping out of the US Open Cup tells you everything about that league. The only real and historical piece of US Soccer and they ask out.

Referring to drug and alcohol abuse as “self-medicating” is like referring to candy bars as “Nutrional supplements.”

A: Dart Adams’ nephew is 6’6″.

Lauko didn’t waste much time getting into it again, did he?

This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree; but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. 

It’s amazing. My buddy’s son’s team lost a heartbreaker to their rival last night in almost the exact same fashion as the Celtics did v. Golden State. Lead throughout. Lead slips. Offense at the end dries up. Back breaking 3 by outstanding shooter to tie. Wheels come off in OT. Lordy.

If you don’t find National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation funny I don’t know what to tell you.

Ron Hobson Media Good Guy Award SZN.

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. 

Best bet for the weekend: traffic by the shopping centers.

Material from interviews, wire services, Twitter, Meta, other writers, league and team sources, Bill James, and the members of #the15 were used in this column. And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!