All We are Saying, Give Them a Chance

(This column, and many others, appear on my two sites ... DigitalSortsDesk.com and DigitalSportsDesk/SportBlog.com)

By TERRY LYONS

BOSTON - April 12, 2016 — Today is game No. 7 of the brand new 2016 baseball season, jammed with 162 games for the Boston Red Sox and their American League rivals. It’s time to hit the “Panic Button.” As I’m reading it today, the boo-birds are already flocking and the sky is falling over Fenway Park.

Sox ace David Price was mowing down Orioles early in his Fenway Park debut in a home team uniform on a day deemed so special that the two greatest players in NBA and NHL history, Bill Russell and Bobby Orr (apologies the The Great One) were on site to pay tribute to the Sox. Then, the roof seats caved in as Price was responsible for five runs, all earned, as he allowed more than three earned runs in a start at Fenway for the first time in his career. 

While the ace faltered, the Red Sox offense rallied to tie the home opener at six apiece before newly acquired closer Craig Kimbrel came in to mop things up in the top of the ninth. The sequel? Hit the Panic Button II.

Kimbrel was making his first appearance at Fenway as a member of the Red Sox, of course, and allowed a three-run blast off the bat of Baltimore’s Chris Davis in the top of the ninth inning. It was the first time the million dollar arm reliever had ever surrendered a home run with multiple runners on base. The Sox lost their first hope game for only the sixth time in the last 24 seasons and only the second time in the last dozen years. Cue the boo-birds.

But, seriously.

One game does not a season make. The 3-3 Sox will face the undefeated Orioles again today and tomorrow. There’s a long way to go. However, in this “cheap shot via twitter” universe we live in, it’s so easy to take a swipe at those who suffer in the MACY*S window that is sports.

Build-up PGA phenom Jordan Spieth and prepare to crown him “the next great player, PGA Tour Player of the Year and “back-to-back” Masters champ and see what you get? An epic meltdown, yes, but a choke? No. Jordan Spieth has many a major ahead of him and he will stand in the winner’s trophy presentation spotlight more than his fair share of times. He is not a “choker” and will never be. He is a champion.

In these United States, we just love to build up our heroes, then we love to mock them as we tear them down. It is as American as political chicanery. 

Which brings me to the boo-birds.

We read the snarky twitter comments and heard the boos come raining down on Pablo Sandoval as the Red Sox masterfully produced their opening day ceremonies and introductions. Pablo’s belt buckle quickly became a Giphy sensation, right alongside of the “cryin’ Michael Jordan” memes. A week into the season and fans who consider themselves loyal and knowledgable are all too quick to bury the Panda.

I’m not sitting here, like a cheerleader or team spinster. I’m just wondering why?

Is it the contract? Is it the weight? A weight he carries around on his Mack Truck frame or is it the far heavier weight of expectations and pressure he carries everyday as he drives to the park or stops in a store?  At those times, he’s being adored and asked for autographs with smiles and a “you can do it” front.

Do fans snark and boo only when the fans, in vast obscurity with 31,159 others at the park, armed with Twitter and a gif-maker?  Or is it the more dangerous fan in a more camouflaged setting in their living rooms, kickin’ it back in their PJs on the coach, who become the slayer of Panda?

All we are saying? It’s G7 of the 2016 baseball season. Give them a chance.

Moving Day Has a New Meaning for Jordan Spieth

By Terry Lyons @terrylyons @DigSportsDesk

NORTON, Mass - September 6, 2015 - The third round of every PGA Tour event is always referred to as “moving day.” The term simply describes the importance of the third round, coming a day after the cut is made and the tournament’s most noteworthy contenders buckle down to play their very best and frequently hurdle some of the pretenders on the leaderboard. Because of the Labor Day holiday weekend, “moving day” comes on Sunday, not Saturday, for the Deutsche Bank Championship, held at the Tournament Players Club situated halfway between Boston and Providence.

For Jordan Spieth, one of the top three golfers in the world today largely because of his victories at The Masters and U.S. Open this year, moving day at the DBChampionship, the de facto “quarterfinals” of the PGA Tour’s contrived FedExCup playoff system, came at its regular time on Saturday. Except, this week, the young talent’s move was to pack up his bags and return to his hometown of Dallas, Texas after missing the cut and a piece of the $8.25 million purse at Deutsche Bank.

Sunset at the 18th hole of TPC-Boston, site of the DBC Championship

“I’m going to take some time away,” said Spieth after his 75-73 opening rounds scorecard from Boston sent him on his way. “It’s probably going to be good for me to take at least four days and not touch a club. Maybe get back with (swing coach) Cameron (McCormick) and just go through a normal routine. Nothing is different.”

Nothing is different?  I beg to differ. Since August 16, when he finished an impressive second to Jason Day at the PGA Championship in Wisconsin, Spieth has now missed the cut in his last two tournaments, both FedEx Cup Playoff events in The Barclays (NJ) and here at the TPC-Boston. 

After missing the cut at The Barclays, Spieth chose not to return home to Texas and went back to the lab, so to say, by staying in New York on the weekend of August 29-30 and traveling the short distance to Boston from NYC, seemingly a very smart strategy to get back on track.

“I went to the city, played a round at (the prestigious North Jersey course) Baltusrol and then rested Sunday,” said Spieth to the Beantown scribes before the Deutsche Bank tournament teed-off. “I figured we’d come up here, versus anywhere else. To fly three and half hourse back, then four hours back up here, to be honest it was going to be a bit more of a pain.

“The best practice we could get is playing the course (for) that week,” he explained. “If I could get on these greens, versus in Dallas where it’s 110-degrees. It’s hard to practice a full day in Dallas at this time of year. Cameron came up and we worked all Monday and Tuesday and got a lot of good work it. There wasn’t much to fix.

“It was more what I was making up in my head,” said Spieth, as honest as a long summer day, but obviously fading just as it’s doing in New England as an early September morning thermometer read 48 today. “I was creating bigger problems than there really was. I wanted to get some speed work and putting work,” Spieth added about his pre-tournament practice strategy.

So what is Spieth’s frame of mind now, that he’s missed his second consecutive cut but will rank No. 2 in the important FedEx Cup points list when the tour heads to Conway farms GC in Lake Forest, Illinois September 17?

“It’s almost like a bad dream,” he said, again so honestly and soul bearing. “Again, I don;t feel like it’s that far off, even though my score is far off. I just (need to) wake up and get the putts to go in again. That’s where I feel it’s at.

“I had a really bad 'self-talk’ week, something I haven’t experienced in quite a while. It maybe heightened by everything that’s happened this year and just being so used to being in contention. I need to walk with some cockiness in my step these next two tournaments. I don't have to fix much in my game other than work really hard on my putting, going into Conway, and then, mentally, I can control that. I can control walking with the cockiness, whether things are going good or bad, and that’s what you have to have inside the ropes.

“I’ll bring it when we get to Chicago.”

If Spieth gets some rest in his own bed and can regain his mental toughness and putting stroke, both Dallas and then, Chicago, will be sweet home.

***

(This column was written for Digital Sports Desk (dot) com - Please visit and follow the site on Twitter @DigSportsDesk)

Sports Good Guy wins Cool Fantasy $1M with Crazy US Open Finish

A Father’s Day summer evening turned into night and golf fans around the world surely shook their heads in disbelief when the 17th and 18th holes at Chambers Bay brought about the strangest of finishes to the 115th United States Open golf championship. The four-day tournament was near its conclusion and the prime time US television audience stayed glued to their High-Def TV sets which delivered the grimaces of PGA Tour pros Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson into the living rooms of many casual sports fans, some longing for a Game 7 of the completed NBA or NHL seasons but left with nothing else to watch but the major golf championship.

What those primetime Fox Sports viewers couldn’t see or feel as the sun set near the Puget Sound were the heart palpitations pulsing through Carl Bassewitz, a veteran sports industry good-guy who was playing Draft Kings PGA Millionaire-maker daily fantasy game for the very first time. Bassewitz, watching on his TV, a half continent away from the action, double and triple-checked the scores of his six player fantasy team that he selected. His lineup featured Spieth but not Johnson, and also included, Louis Oosthuizen (T-2), Kevin Kisner (T-12), Tony Finau and Patrick Reed (T-14) and Jason Dufner (T-18).

That “fantasy team” combination delivered Bassewitz to the dream world of all fantasy sports players, as he turned a single $20 entry fee into a cool $1 Million dollar prize. In doing so, Bassewitz outlasted 143,000 entrants who ponied-up the $20 fee with hopes of a $1 million when they chose their lineups for six golfers, staying under a $50,000 cap, as per usual in the Draft Kings golf game. One such player, the second place finisher who is only known as “Headchopper” who is known as a professional in the fantasy sports world, needed Johnson to finish ahead of Spieth. But Johnson’s improbable three-putt on the 72nd hole of the tournament gave the U.S. Open title and its $1.8 million first place purse to Spieth, while delivering a cool mil to Bassewitz and a not-so-paltry $877,144 runner-up prize to both Johnson and Oosthuizen.

When reality set in, Bassewitz realized he’d made more money than the U.S. Open runner-ups!

For the rest of this column, click HERE