04/09/2025 Cleaning Out the Sports Junk Drawer

Sox fans. Feeling a little better now? It’s a long season, in case nobody ever told you.
Has any other adult ever tried one of those Squishmallows blankets? They’re ridiculously cozy!
Val Kilmer’s death didn’t feel real. But then I saw Rear Admiral’s obit on Barstool…
Even when the racially confusing broad isn’t on the NESN broadcast O’Brien and Merloni make me feel like they’re pitching me timeshares.
What a demeaning existence. Gresh would’ve been guarding the king’s drawbridge 500 years ago, but now he’s stuck discussing Geno Auriemma’s legacy on something called “InfSportsNet” at 1am.
Rafael Devers runs like Charles Durning in When a Stranger Calls.
And now it’s Houston that can’t buy a basket in the waning moments. Congratulations Florida.
I don’t trust grunting pitchers.
Cakes are cooking for Dennis Quaid, Kirk McCaskill, Cynthia Nixon, Graeme Lloyd, Jacques Villeneuve, Gerard Way, Clare Bronfman, Keshia Knight Pulliam, Yoanna House, Milan Bartovič, Adam Loewen, Leighton Meester, Kristen Stewart, Elle Fanning, Lil Nas X, and Brooke Raboutou.
Bad news for my enemies, I woke up.
Whoever let Eduardo Perez get into broadcasting is a monster.
Isn’t Oblivio a Spider-Man villain?
Red Line Reminder: April 10-30 Service between JFK/UMass & Ashmont will operate with a shuttle train on each track. A shuttle train is one train, operating back & forth, between Ashmont & JFK/UMass on a single track. Riders on the Ashmont Branch should expect longer wait times for trains during this work. Please transfer to the Braintree platform at JFK/UMass for continued service towards Alewife.
Am I the only one who thinks Kelvin Sampson looks like OJ Simpson? Noticed the other day and can’t unsee it.
The Denver Nuggets should hire Mina Kimes. She’s so smart.
‘Fraser Minten’ was my favorite flavor of Frusen Glädjé when I was a kid.
Nice tribute to Luis Tiant above the Monster, similar to the ones for Tim Wakefield and Larry Lucchino last year. Hopefully the Sox won’t need to put one up next season.
“Hey gang of landlubbers! This week’s Phrase that Pays is, “So my ex-girlfriend has joined the Navy and wants to see me before she leaves for Bootcamp.”
He’s gonna cross the sauces so hard tonight.
Wait, so Duran tried to kill himself because a law librarian bullied him?
Unless these MIT dorks invent a torpedo arm to help the Yankees pitchers throw the ball past people, this team isn’t going anywhere.
Okay, so the Russian beat the Canadian’s counting stat NHL total. Big deal.
“Ringing in the dough”? Is that a phrase?
Jay Williams who hasn’t wrecked his bike in like 20 years using “panic and miraculous” as his “one word to describe the Houston/Duke game” is peak ESPN.
‘Back to the Future’ but it’s Marty singing Jelly Roll at the school dance, and the entire crowd beats him to death.
Bruce Pearl is a slob.
When teams give extensions, they’re not just paying the player, they’re paying the person. Kristian Campbell is not the kind of guy that’s gonna be changed by money. He wants to learn and he wants to be great. Wholesomeness level at 100 just a great dude who worked to earn this.
Congrats to Marisa Ingemi, US Basketball Writers Association 2025 Rising Star.
Do you like PEEPS? I love PEEPS
The pretty ones who have no discernible talent but also don’t want to show their cooch are in a tough spot.
Another suburban family morning
Grandmother screaming at the wall
We have to shout above the din of our Rice Krispies
We can’t hear anything at all.
Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration.
But we know all her suicides are fake.
Daddy only stares into the distance.
There’s only so much more that he can take.
Many miles away
Something crawls from the slime
At the bottom of a dark
Scottish lake.
I was asked today about my NBA comp for Cooper Flagg. I went with Scottie Pippen. I believe it’s a compliment to both, and also accurate. Obviously no comp is ever 100% on the money. But I will say, comparing Flagg to only white players seems lazy and uninformed.
Carl Yastrzemski is the bizarro Bobby Orr.
The World Egg throwing Championship will take place in June in Swaton England. Assuming the competitors can afford the eggs.
Gary Gaetti and Tim Wallach are kind of the same player, aren’t they?
This is a super old guy take, but one of the things I like best about the tournament as opposed to every NBA game is that there’s nothing being played over the PA system while the game is being played. Everything’s about the game. The constant barrage of sound stinks.
We will use the dire wolves to hunt the de-extinct wooly mammoths.
So it’s just now registering that Wally the Green Monster’s name is “Wally” because of the wall. Is this a revelation for anyone else? Clarifying that I understood the green monster part. The “Wally” for the wall part? Right over my head.
Fun fact: cookies and seafood are different.
If your favorite outfielder isn’t Wily Mo Peña, are you really a fan?
Honk if you remember Fernandomania.
A lotta kids shredded their rotator cuff because of that Canobie Lake Park radar gun.
Whose wife did Mike Malone bang?
RIP Octavio Dotel. I’m going to have to stop using the phrase, ‘as safe as a Dominican nightclub’ now.
So down to The Masters, how’s Tiger hittin’ em?
We unfroze our Yaz bread after the 2004 World Series. It smelled like cigarettes.
Best bet for the weekend: more much needed rain.

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. Aja, when all my dime dancin’ is through, I run to you.
