I meant to post these earlier in the day but how can you not love the New York tabloids after yesterday’s embarrassing loss for the New York Yankees.

Nominations are now being accepted for the New England Sports Blog of the Year and Best Blogs Covering the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins and Patriots

Boston, MA (April 16, 2009) – TruFan.com, a social network dedicated to local sports fans, announced today that nominations are now being accepted for the first annual New England Sports Blog Awards, a special awards program to honor and celebrate the region’s fast growing community of sports bloggers and the professional sports teams they follow.

The inaugural New England Sports Blog Awards are presented by Ace Ticket, one of the nation’s leading ticket agencies that provides its customers access to the best seats for sporting events, concerts, theatre and special events in Greater Boston and across the country.

Award Categories

• Best Red Sox Blog
• Best Celtics Blog
• Best Bruins Blog
• Best Patriots Blog
• New England Sports Blog of the Year (all blog categories are eligible)

How to Enter/How to Win

• All sports bloggers who write blogs devoted to covering and commenting on one or all of Boston’s four major professional sports teams are encouraged to enter. Fans are also encouraged to nominate their favorite New England sports blog on TruFan.com.
• Nominations for all award categories can be submitted at http://www.trufan.com/BlogAwards from April 16th to April 27th.
• After the nomination period, four nominees will be selected as finalists for each award category through fan balloting. Fans and bloggers can vote for their favorite New England sports blogs at http://www.trufan.com/BlogAwards April 29th to May 11th.

Awards Ceremony

• The winning sports blogs and bloggers will be announced on May 12th at a special awards ceremony at McGreevy’s located at 911 Boylston Street in Boston, Massachusetts. A $2,500 grand prize will be awarded to the winner of New England Sports Blog of the Year. Additional prizes will be distributed to the other award category winners.

About Trufan.com

• TruFan.com is a social network dedicated to the local sport fan. TruFan.com is focused on empowering fans and enhancing their overall online experience by providing access to timely and relevant sports media that has been enhanced by other fans that share their passion for the home team. TruFan.com members add to sports media content with their own videos, pictures, comments and more.
• Trufan communities include Sawxheads.com, Patsheads.com, Celtshead.com and BlackandGoldheads.com. Trufan.com is privately held and based in Brighton, Massachusetts with an office in North Adams, Massachusetts. For more information, please go to http://www.trufan.com.

Please take a moment to nominate SOX & Dawgs as your favorite Red Sox blog and best New England Sports Blog.

The Boston Celtics hopes as repeating as NBA Champions were dealt a big blow today when head coach Doc Rivers announced that Kevin Garnett’s balky knee won’t allow him to participate in the postseason.

“This was an honest run today, you couldn’t fake your way through it . . . and the guy is a warrior, you can see him trying to mask it, but after 20 minutes of running, there’s just no way. I don’t see it. I just don’t. And I’ve flipped completely because I was watching him move, and he looked great, and then . . . after today, there’s no way he can play.

The Celtics will now need Glen “Big Baby” Davis to step it up along with the other role players as well as Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. Can the Celtics get it done without KG?

Only time will tell.

Garnett expected to miss entire playoffs [Celtics Blog]

After retiring from coaching the Oakland Raiders in 1979, John Madden joined the broadcasting ranks. Now in 2009, Madden is retiring from broadcasting as he announced today.

“You know at some point you have to do this — I got to that point,” Madden said on his Bay Area radio show Thursday. “The thing that made it hard is not because I’m second guessing, ‘Is it the right decision?’ But I enjoyed it so damn much.

“I enjoyed the game and the players and the coaches and the film and the travel and everything.”

He will be replaced by Chris Collinsworth in the NBC Sunday Night booth.

Madden retires after 30 years in booth [ESPN.com]

As I linked to this morning in the UConn Huskies Daily Roundup post, UConn Huskies women’s basketball senior point guard and now member of the Minnesota Lynx Renee Montgomery has been selected as the winner of the Honda Award for women’s college basketball.

Here is the press release:

Renee Montgomery , a senior at the University of Connecticut, has been chosen as the nation’s top collegiate female athlete in basketball. The honor was based on the results of national balloting among 1,000 NCAA member schools as part of the Collegiate Women Sports Awards program, now in its 33rd year.

Montgomery’s victory will earn her the 2009 Honda Sports Award, given annually to the top women athletes in 12 NCAA-sanctioned sports, along with automatic nomination for Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year. UConn players have won the Honda Sports Award for basketball six times in the past. They include: Rebecca Lobo (1995), Jennifer Rizzotti (1996), Shea Ralph (2000), Sue Bird (2002) and Diana Taurasi (2003, ’04). Both Lobo and Rizzotti went on to win the Honda-Broderick Cup as Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year.

Montgomery, who is known to be a strong team player, said: “I’m appreciative of the Honda Award because they only choose one player, so it’s exciting. With everything that’s happened in the past week I thought things couldn’t get better and then to learn I’ve won the Honda Sports Award is like a bonus and a blessing.’’

Montgomery, a four-year starter as point guard for the Huskies, was the #4 draft WNBA pick this year, chosen by the Minnesota Lynx. A native of St. Albans, West Virginia, she captained her team to an undefeated season this year, culminating with the NCAA championship in which she scored 18 points in the final game. She received both the Big East Sportsmanship Award and the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award and was a WBCA, USBWA, and AP First Team All-American. Montgomery is one of only three players ever at UConn to boast 1500 career points and 500 assists, and she is the only player in school history to rank in the top-10 in points, assists, steals and 3-pointers. She started 139 consecutive games in her college career – the longest streak in the nation – and also played in 150 games, a program best. She is also the first-ever active player inducted into the University of Connecticut’s Huskies of Honor. Montgomery is a communications major with a 3.1 GPA.

Previously announced Honda Sports Award recipients are Texas Tech’s Sally Kipyego for cross-country, Susie Rowe from the University of Maryland for Field Hockey, Casey Nogueira from the University of North Carolina for soccer, Nicole Fawcett from Penn State University for volleyball and Dana Vollmer from UC Berkeley for swimming & diving. Honda Sports Award winners in golf, gymnastics, lacrosse, softball, tennis and track & field will be announced in the coming months. The Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year will be determined by separate balloting involving all NCAA-member institutions and the winner will receive the Honda-Broderick Cup at a ceremony in New York in June 2009.

Travis Buck barely beat out a bases loaded infield single that scored Rajai Davis to give the Oakland A’s a 6-5 walk-off win in 12 innings over the Boston Red Sox in front of a chilled crowd of 22,132 at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.

Javier Lopez started the bottom of the 12th for the Red Sox (2-6) in relief of Jonathan Papelbon and walked the first batter he faced in Jason Giambi.  Lopez then got Matt Holliday to ground out to short with Giambi advancing to second. Lopez then walked Jack Cust and Bobby Crosby to load up the bases for Kurt Suzuki.

Before the at-bat, Davis came into pinch-run for the Giambino and Lopez ended up striking out Suzuki. This set the stage for Buck who hit a chopper over the head of Lopez that Pedroia fielded but just missed getting Buck by a step and Davis crossed the plate to give the A’s (4-4) the walk-off win.

Daisuke Matsuzaka started for the Red Sox and was just downright awful. He ended up leaving the game after the 1st inning with what the Red Sox called arm fatigue. Dice-K gave up 5 runs on 5 hits and 2 walks, throwing 43 pitches in the process.

Up until Lopez, the Red Sox bullpen was outstanding as Justin Masterson, Manny Delcarmen, Ramon Ramirez, Hideki Okajima and Papelbon combined to pitch 10 innings of shutout ball with 12 strikeouts. Masterson was the savior though as he was able to give the Red Sox 4 innings of work and had 6 strikeouts.

Dana Eveland started for the A’s and got roughed up. He went 4 2/3 innings, giving up 5 runs on 8 hits and 2 walks while striking out 3. Five A’s relievers combined to pitch 7 1/3 innings of no run, 4-hit ball and had just 2 walks while striking out 7.

J.D. Drew led the way for the Red Sox with a 3-for-6 showing which included an RBI. Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, Jason Bay and Mike Lowell all had 2 hits each with Youkilis and Bay adding an RBI while Lowell chipped in with 2 of his own.

The Red Sox will try to head back to the east coast with a win on Wednesday afternoon at 3:35 PM EDT and they pin their hopes on the knuckleball of Tim Wakefield. He will be opposed by rookie Brett Anderson.

Boston Red Sox @ Oakland A’s 4.14.09 box score

According to Jim Fuller of the New Haven Register and Rich Elliott of the Connecticut Post, UConn Huskies women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma will be named the coach of the USA Women’s Basketball Team for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Auriemma will be the coach of USA Women’s Basketball for the next 3 years and the team will play in the FIBA World Championships in 2010 in the Czech Republic from Sept. 23-Oct. 3. He will coach the team through the 2012 Summer Olympics.

He has some Olympic experience as he was an assistant in 2000 under Nell Fortner, who is now the coach at Auburn.

The announcement should become official tomorrow afternoon at a press conference on campus at UConn.

New gig for Auriemma [Elm City To Eagleville]

Geno To Be Named Olympic Coach [Rich Elliott – UConn women’s basketball]

During the 5th inning of last night’s Boston Red Sox 8-2 loss to the Oakland A’s, Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy made a $5 bet that former Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra would swing at the first pitch.

If you don’t remember, Nomar is well known for always swinging at the first pitch as he done in his first two at-bats of the night.

[flash http://ianbethune.com/gambling1.flv w=416 h=278]
video courtesy of NESN

Nice of Orsillo to collect on the bet and not give RemDawg a chance to win his money back.

Some bad news for the Boston Red Sox who are already thin at the shortstop position.

Amalie Benjamin of the Boston Globe and Joe McDonald of the Providence Journal are reporting that Jed Lowrie will be placed on the 15-day DL with a wrist injury. Gil Velazquez has been recalled from Pawtucket to take his place on the roster.

Nick Green will probably take over the every day shortstop duties until Lowrie and/or Julio Lugo return from their injuries. Green is in the starting lineup tonight.

Velazquez recalled. Lowrie hurt? [Projo Sox Blog]

Lowrie to be placed on DL [Extra Bases]

This has been a very sad past few days for the baseball world as Mark “The Bird” Fidrych passed away at the age of 54 this afternoon. He was found by a family friend underneath a dump truck that he had been working on at his home in Northboro, MA.

He was drafted in 1974 by the Detroit Tigers and made his MLB debut in 1976 where he took home AL Rookie of the Year honors. A rotator cuff injury cut his career short in 1980.

My condolences go out to his family and friends as well as the Tigers organization.