Theo Epstein’s track record of avoiding arbitration with players grew by one today as Javier Lopez agreed to terms with the Boston Red Sox. The deal is for 1-year $840,000.

Lopez made $402,500 last season with the Red Sox. He appeared in 61 games and that was second on the team to Hideki Okajima, who made 66 appearances out of the bullpen.

According to Rob Bradford of the Boston Herald, Kyle Snyder gave the Red Sox his number for arbitration, $1.025 million. Snyder made $535,000 last season, so he is looking to double his salary as well. He appeared in 46 games, all out of the bullpen, for the Sox in 2007.

Update: Kevin Youkilis submitted a number of $3.7 million while the Red Sox have countered with $2.525 million. The Red Sox number for Synder is $725,000.

Andre Tippett, a 5-time Pro Bowler as a New England Patriots linebacker, has been named a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. This is Tippett’s second consecutive year as a finalist and he is one of 14 former modern-era players up for consideration.

The Hall of Fame’s 44-member Selection Committee will chose between four and seven of those former players for induction into the Hall’s Class of 2008 on February 2nd in Phoenix Arizona.

Tippett, a linebacker with the team from 1982-92, made 5 consecutive Pro Bowls from 1984-88 and was named to the NFL’s 1980’s All-Decade team. Tippett, a second round pick in 1982 out of Iowa, holds the franchise record with 100 career sacks and 18.5 sacks in a season. He was inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame in 1999, where he is one of ten members to be honored by the team.

Tippett currently works for team as it’s executive director of community affairs.

As first reported by WDBO Radio in central Florida a temporary restraining order has been issued against New England Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss after an alleged incident earlier this month in Florida. 

Rachel Washington, of Ft. Lauderdale FL alleges that Moss hit her and prevented her from seeking medical treatment on January 6th.  The incident would have happened during the Patriots bye week, Washington alleges the incident occurred in her home.

According to the order, Moss has to remain 500 feet from her, her car and her home.  A hearing has been scheduled for January 28th. 

Moss addressed the allegation this morning at Gillette Stadium:

“First of all, you all probably heard about these allegations. All I want to say is that they are false allegations. It’s something I’ve been battling for the last couple days, threats of going public if I didn’t pay X amount of dollars. Before people rush quick to judgment, I think you need to find out the facts about really what is really going on.”

Mike Reiss of the Boston Globe has the morning responses from Moss outlined in his Reiss’ Pieces Blog.  Moss made an initial statement and then decided he would answer some questions from the media.

Update: second part of Moss questions.

Former University of New Haven Chargers head football coach and current Dallas Cowboys assistant Tony Sparano has been named head coach of the Miami Dolphins by general manager Jeff Ireland on Wednesday morning.

Sparano was chosen over three other candidates and was given a $10 million four year contract to turn the 1-15 team around. This is Sparano’s first NFL head coaching job, he lead UNH from 1994-98 before moving onto Cleveland, Washington, Jacksonville and Dallas as an assistant.

Sparano is expected to take some of his former Dallas co-workers with him to South Beach as many of the Cowboys coaches contracts have expired.

If you have some extra money that’s burning a hole in your pocket and you’ve been dying to freeze your ass off in Foxboro on Sunday afternoon you can get yourself a pair of lower level sideline tickets courtesy of the Kraft family.

All you have to do is donate $2,900 to high school athletics through the Patriots Charitable Foundation and you get a pair of seats to the AFC Championship game between the New England Patriots and the San Diego Chargers. $2,542 of the donation is tax deductible and 100% of the donation is split between the six high school athletics associations in New England.

The tickets will be sent to you via FED EX at the address you provide.

 

The New England Patriots announced late Monday that tickets for AFC Championship game against the San Diego Chargers will be placed on sale Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. via Ticketmaster.  No tickets will be sold at the Patriots box office at Gillette Stadium.

On Tuesday, January 15, over 55,000 fans on the Patriots season ticket wait list will have an opportunity to purchase those tickets through an advanced private sale. Any remaining tickets, plus a limited number of pre-held individual ones, will be made available to the public on Wednesday January 16 via online sales at Ticketmaster’s website or by phone at 617.931.2222 or 508.931.2222. 

Visa is the only form of payment that will be accepted. 

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The Washington Wizards used a 25-6 run in the final quarter to erase a 14 point Boston Celtics lead on their way to an 88-83 win at the TD BankNorth Garden in Boston.

The loss was the second in-a-row, with the back-to-back loses coming at the hands of the Wizards, and 3^rd in their last four games as the Celtics dropped to 30-6 on the season. It is the first losing streak of the year.

Former UConn Husky Caron Butler was the guy who did the Green in when he pushed Paul Pierce away and hit a runner in the lane with 19.8 seconds left to give the Wiz an 84-83 lead. Butler had 21 points and Antawn Jamison added 20 points and 10 rebounds in the win.

The Celtics, had a chance to tie in the waning seconds but another UConn product Ray Allen missed the three. The Green were led by Kevin Garnett who had 23 points, 9 boards and 6 assists, Pierce added 18 points and Allen had 16.

Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling and his wife, Shonda, took in the game courtside tonight.

The Celtics will try to snap the skid at home against Portland on Wednesday.

The Result

The Jacksonville Jaguars came to play and they played for most of the game. But when it came to crunch time the little things hurt them. Bad penalties, bad decisions by their coach and in the end the pressure on a fairly inexperienced quarterback added up to yet another win for New England Patriots as they beat the Jaguars 31-20 at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro MA on Saturday night in the AFC Divisional round.

Led by the all round play of running back Laurence Maroney who ran for 122 yards and had another 40 yards receiving and Tom Brady who was damn near perfect as he went 26 of 28 and threw for 3 TD’s. His two incomplete passes were actually a pair of drops.

The offense tonight was more of the precision spread it around offense we’ve seen in the past from this team instead of the high powered offense they had this year. Four different players had rushes and 8 different players had receptions as Jacksonville concentrated on Randy Moss who had just 1 catch for 14 yards but had more receiving yards than Ben Watson who caught two TD passes.

The Jaguars hung tough as Garrard was pretty good himself and he had to be as the Jaguars decided they were going to rely on the pass as he went 22 of 33 for 278 yards 2 TD’s and 1 INT. He had several passes that went for 10 or more yards including big gainers of 34, 29, 25, 19, 18 and 15 yards. That’s too many single plays that become first downs and give up too much field position.

The Patriots did what they had to do to win and they did that for the 17^th time this season.

Scoring Plays

1^st Quarter

• JAX – Garrard 8 yard pass to Jones – kick good – Jaguars 7-0
• NE – Brady 3 yard pass to Watson – kick good – tied 7-7

2^nd Quarter

• NE – Maroney 1 yard run – kick good – Patriots 14-7
• JAX – Garrard 6 yard pass to Wilford – kick good – tied 14-14

3^rd Quarter

• NE – Brady 6 yard pass to Welker – kick good – Patriots 21-14
• JAX – Scobee 39 yard field goal – Patriots 21-17
• NE – Brady 9 yard pass to Watson – kick good – Patriots 28-17

4^th Quarter

• JAX – Scobee 25 yard field goal – Patriots 28-20
• NE – Gostkowski 35 yard field goal – Patriots 31-20

Offensive Player of the Game

Laurence Maroney ran 22 times for 122 yards and 1 TD he also caught 2 passes for 40 yards.

Defensive Player of the Game

Vince Wilfork had 5 tackles and Rodney Harrison had 4 tackles, 3 assists, knocked one pass down in the end zone and had a late INT to help seal the win.

Continue reading →

Excuse me while I interrupt the Patriots game to tell you that another Boston team, the Celtics played tonight.

Just a few short hours after Roy Hibbert gave the Georgetown Hoyas a 72-69 win over the UConn Huskies, the Boston Celtics took the Verizon Center court to take on the Washington Wizards. The end result was the same as their New England brethren as the Wizards got past the Celtics 85-78. The Celtics now have lost 2 of their last 3 games.

The Wizards were led in scoring by DeShawn Stevenson who had 19 points. Former UConn Husky Caron Butler had a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Antawn Jamison also had a double-double for the home team with 10 points and 16 rebounds.

The C’s were led by Kevin Garnett who had 19 points. Paul Pierce chipped in with 15 points and 6 assists. Eddie House came off the bench to score 10 points while another former Husky product, Ray Allen, had a poor night from the field (3-13) and finished with just 8 points.

Playing on back-to-back nights seemed to slow the C’s down as they had their worst offensive output of the season and committed 21 turnovers. Washington didn’t do much better taking care of the ball as they turned it over 20 times.

Antonio Daniels gave the Wizards the lead with a 3-pointer down the stretch and then the Celtics fouled Stevenson as he was shooting a 3-pointer. He made all three free throws to seal the deal.

Now when I always say free throws win games, I really do mean it. Look at the Wizards free throw numbers, 27-of-30. That’s how you win games folks, make your free throws.

The Celtics were without the services of point guard Rajon Rando, who hurt his back in last night’s win over New Jersey.

The Green will get a chance to avenge the loss to the Wizards as they will host them on Monday night at 7:30 PM at the TD BankNorth Garden.