Sports Then and Now

The Los Angeles Angels kept the Red Sox on their backs throughout their American League Playoff Series.

The Boston Red Sox offense finally found their bats, but the bullpen couldn’t hold a late lead as the Los Angeles Angels surprisingly completed a series sweep to end the 2009 season for the Sox.

It was a disappointing end to a season that was filled with peaks and valleys.

The Red Sox began the season seizing a lead of as many as five games in the American League East before injuries started to erode their pitching depth.

After slumping in July and early August, the Sox rebounded to clinch their sixth playoff appearance in the last seven seasons.

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The Angels and Red Sox are familiar postseason foes as this will be the third straight season in which they have squared off.

If something seems familiar about an American League Division Playoff matchup between the Los Angeles Angels and the Boston Red Sox, it isn’t your imagination. The Angels and Red Sox are meeting in the opening round of the playoffs for the third straight year and fourth time in six years.

The Angels are hoping that this time the final results will be different than in those three previous meetings. Boston swept the Angels out of the playoffs in 2004 and 2007 and then last season won the best of five series in four games with the only Los Angeles win coming in 12 innings in game three.

Both the Angels and Red Sox spent much of the 2009 season seemingly biding their time waiting for the playoffs to begin.
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While hanging around Fenway Park one afternoon last month, I found myself with an hour or so to kill before the Cask n’ Flagon opened for business. I spent a few minutes talking to my buddy Mike at the Sausage King and then moseyed over to do some shopping time with one of the street corner t-shirt entrepreneurs.

Once I was done thumbing through t-shirts that explained what A-Rod allegedly does to Jeter and what Jeter then in turn does to Teixeira, I spotted a less explicit dud which read, “Caution Yankees: Objects in Rear View Mirror Are Closer Than They May Appear”.

I chuckled and knew this fine looking, 100% cotton dud would find it’s new home to be smack dab in the middle of a bunch of previous “must haves”.

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