Was it 1986 or 2007? The TD BankNorth Garden was rocking last night as the Boston Celtics opened the new NBA season with a 103-83 win over the Washington Wizards.

Gang Green was led by three guys named Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen as the trio contributed 67 points. Pierce led the team with 28, while Garnett chipped in 22 points, 20 boards and 5 assists to go with 3 blocks and 3 steals. Allen meanwhile had 17 points as the game was never in doubt from the middle of the second quarter.

The group has been nicknamed “The Big Three” but they have a lot of work to do to match the accomplishments of the original trio of Larry Bird, Robert Parrish and Kevin McHale. One young fan had a sign that said “RED SOX PATRIOTS CELTICS The Big 3”. The Sox won the World Series on Sunday while the Pats are unbeaten and looking for a 4th Super Bowl.

And both teams were there on Friday night rooting for the Celtics. Red Sox owners John Henry and Larry Lucchino were there and they brought the World Series trophy as well as players Tim Wakefield, Jacoby Ellsbury and Manny Delcarmen. The Patriots, who fly to Indianapolis today for their game with the Colts, were represented by owner Robert Kraft and players Wes Welker, Laurence Maroney, Junior Seau and Vince Wilfork.

The Wizards were led by Gilbert Arenas, who this week on his blog claimed victory, who had 21 points and former UConn player Caron Butler who added 18 points.

Prior to the game the team named the court after late team president Arnold “Red” Auerbach who passed away four days before last seasons opener.

Box Score

Day 6 of the offseason and the Boston Red Sox made some more moves as far as their roster goes. They picked up the options on the contracts of Tim Wakefield and Julian Tavarez. They also picked up Sean Danielson from the St. Louis Cardinals as the PTBNL in the Joel Piñero deal. John Farrell also made it official that he wasn’t in the running anymore for the Pirates job. So while you wait for college football to start, check out the headlines from the Boston area media.

Farrell, Wakefield will be staying put [Boston Globe]

Pitchers stay put [Boston Herald]

Farrell rejects Pirates’ bid; Tavarez and Wakefield returning [Pro Jo]

John Farrell declines chance for Pirates managerial interview [Boston Herald]

Sign Schilling? [ProJo SoxBlog]

For more headlines and stories, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Providence Journal, and Hartford Courant websites.

The super sexy Texy from Center Field has more video of Jonathan Papelbon for you. This time it’s his interview on FSN New England.

The very beautiful and elegant Yankees Chick has her top 10 reasons why ARod declared free agency.

Even though her team has sucked as of late, the hottest USC fan on the planet, Gridiron Goddess, gives you her college football picks for the weekend.

Sarah from Babes Love Baseball welcomes you to the Girardi era in Yankee land.

Scott from BostonSportz.com wants you to know Manny invited us over for drinks.

Jason from My Baseball Bias looks at the options to replace ARod at third for the Yankees.

I Didn’t Know There Was Baseball in Ireland has a New York Yankees to Boston Red Sox fan conversion application for Yanks fans.

Richie Rich from Home Run Derby has a look at some Red Sox jack-o-lanterns.

Anthony from the Oriole Post put Scott Boras and ARod in his idiot file.

Awful Announcing has a video on why the soon-to-be newest ESPN announcer didn’t dress as a prostitute for Halloween.

And last but certainly not least, Fitzy from the Townie News has his Wicked Pissah World Series champs webcast up for your enjoyment. As always, videos from Fitzy are NSFW so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=
http://youtube.com/watch?v=d-xseZ2OlCI[/youtube]

Boston Red Sox designated hitter David “Big Papi” Ortiz was a guest on the Late Night With Conan O’Brien show on Friday night November 3rd. It was typical Papi with his witty sense of humor. He even was wearing a jacket he probably bedazzled.

He said the Red Sox wouldn’t have gotten where they got this year if it wasn’t for Mike Lowell and looked at the camera and told Theo to sign Lowell. But the best part of the interview was when Conan asked him about what advice he gives the media when they leave and he tells them to “go home and get some ass!!”

Enjoy the video of Big Papi on Conan.

Boston Red Sox outfielder Manny Ramírez made an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Friday night and it was like he was the mayor of Boston. This was a guy who really hasn’t spoken that much to the media the past few years and all of the sudden has been a chatterbox.

They talked about their mutual love of cars, “Manny being Manny” and a few other things. After the show was done, Manny and Leno were going car shopping together to find a ’56 Imperial for Manny’s collection of cars.

Enjoy this video of Manny on Leno

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISGk-0nwnOA]

Buy some great baseball equipment and start training to be more like Manny Ramirez! If you have some great exercise equipment and some ambition you can be a sports star too! Or maybe you just want some softball equipment for the office team. Get your equipment soon!

Who likes food? Who likes football? Is there anything that goes together better than food and football? I think not. Football is the totally American sport. And come to think of it so is overeating.

It doesn’t matter if you prefer the college game or the pro’s it’s all good. It doesn’t matter if you like to tailgate before the game or just eat in the comfort of your own living room there are so many choices. You can be elaborate or simple, have breakfast or dinner or even snacks.

That brings me to the best website for tailgating I’ve ever seen and it’s really easy to remember it’s tailgating.com. Joe Cahn is the founder of the site and the Commissioner of Tailgating. In 1996, Joe sold his business the New Orleans School of Cooking and chucked it all to go tailgating.

Joe Cahn is the world’s only professional tailgater. He tailgates at football stadiums, NASCAR tracks, and any other event where they party in the parking lot. Now in his twelfth season on the road, he has driven the JoeMobiles over 500,000 miles, visited hundreds of cities, and has seen thousands of fans and has eaten his way through over 500 tailgate parties.

Joe has been to 31 NFL stadiums, 123 college stadiums and 9 NASCAR Tracks and his website is a culmination of everything tailgating. There’s even a tailgating gear section for the latest and greatest in gadgets.

But of course the best part is the food. And tailgating.com has recipes for stuff out the cooler, griddle, grill, oven, and pot. There’s breakfast items, appetizers, dips, spreads, salsa, salads, breakfast, chili, seafood, marinades, nuts, stews, soups, beef, pork, seafood, poultry, vegetables, desserts and drinks.

And starting with this weeks Patriots game preview we will be linking to the recipe section of tailgating.com each week so you can either plan ahead for the parking lot or go shopping for the house.

Enjoy the games.

Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird and Swin Cash made a triumphant return to the UConn campus as they were part of a Team USA squad that beat the UConn women 90-74 in front of 9,057 at Gampel Pavilion. Taurasi had 14 points, Bird chipped in 8 points and Cash added 4 to the cause. Lisa Leslie led Team USA in scoring with 19 points while former Tennessee guard Kara Lawson had 15 and former LSU star Seimone Augustus had 14.

Junior co-captain Renee Montgomery led the way for the Huskies with 17 points while freshman sensation Maya Moore had 14 points. Charde Houston showed off a new look and added 13 points.

UConn started the game by taking a 2-0 lead but a Bird three-pointer gave Team USA a lead. The Huskies eventually went up by six points in the first half but were overtaken by the more experienced Team USA team as they closed the 1st half out on a 9-0 run to take a 45-32 lead into the locker room.

More of the same in the second half as Team USA used their experience to build their lead. UConn got it as close as six points but Team USA just had too much for the Huskies.

UConn will have one more exhibition game, this Tuesday night at 7:00 PM, when they host Southern Connecticut State University at the Hartford Civic Center. The SCSU Owls are ranked 2nd in the Division II preseason poll. Southern Connecticut won the Division II championship last season.

Continue reading →

In part 2 of Barry Bonds interview with Jim Gray on Countdown With Keith Olbermann that aired tonight, Bonds says he feels “singled out” for being a target with the performance-enhancing drug problem that MLB has.

Among other things he said was the he won’t bring any baggage to the team he will play for next season. I guess that means he will be packing light next season.

Enjoy the video.

Thursday night’s Bonds interview videos.

Steve sent me this gem from ESPN.com. Take a look at the first picture that was a located on the front page of ESPN’s website.

Now take a look at the experts picks.

By Steve’s count and mine, that would be 3 out of 5 experts picking the Colts. I guess you don’t have to be able to count to work at the Worldwide Leader.

to Steve for sending this along to me.

More news from the Red Sox this afternoon concerning a few contract matters.

The Red Sox have picked up the options on Tim Wakefield and Julian Tavarez for the 2008 seasons. Kevin Cash declined his assignment to Pawtucket and has elected to become a free agent.

With the Red Sox picking up Wakefield’s option, the pitching rotation under contract for next season consists of Wake, Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz. Bringing back Schilling would only strengthen the starting rotation. The Red Sox could also explore a #4/5 starter in free agency or via a trade.

It could be possible that the Red Sox will let Tavarez compete for a starting position but I think he will end up in the bullpen.

The two guys that caught Wake this year, Doug Mirabelli and Cash, are now both free agents. With both of them having proved they can catch the knuckler, it is highly likely that one of them will be back with the Sox in 2008.

The Red Sox also announced that they have received the player to be named later in the deal that sent Joel Piñero to the St. Louis Cardinals. They received outfielder Sean Danielson. Danielson will be assigned to the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs roster.