David Carty's Homepage

David Ortiz is an American citizen, proving that 279 career home runs make you king of one nation, but a U.S. citizenship is worth so much more. It seems like such a simple thing, to be a U.S. citizen, but citizenship has to be earned...well, unless you were born here.

My colleague here at the Globe (note how I wrote colleague, though I've never met her personally) Yvonne Abraham wrote about her experiences with citizenship a few months ago, but other than the high profile candidates (see: #34), it's a rite of passage for so many to-be-Americans that is largely forgotten about and overlooked.

I feel like dis-citizenship should be equally as much a rite of passage for our nation. First up on my docket, Elijah Dukes, Pacman Jones, Paris Hilton, and Mike Tyson (just don't tell him I said so). Some people just don't deserve to have any freedoms whatsoever. Hell, all of these people have been arrested at least once. They gave up their right to be considered fully mentally-functional human beings long ago.
____________

A couple interesting articles from the New York Times today. One is a story about a family who basically had a giant scavanger hunt installed in their house. Excellent job by Penelope Green. Not only is this basically every kid's dream, but there's a nice touch of sentimentality there. The prize wasn't hidden treasure; it was a father's love...or whatever you want to say to make you throw up a little bit. I thought it was nice.

And another story that bewilders me to some degree. According to science (which can prove or disprove any theory in the known world), heterosexual women are more attracted to nude women than nude men.

I knew it! Actually, there are a few things that I find puzzling - and fucking hilarious - about this piece. Doesn't this seem like a bit of a sleazy operation? Was this conducted in the backseat of someone's dirty minivan or a one-bedroom apartment downtown? If it were conducted in some kind of labratory, I'd be shocked if any arousal whatsoever took place. I'm just curious to see how these test were conducted. I know they used a photoplethysmograph, which measures heart rate, respiration, and whatnot, but you'd think there would be more to this test. Either way, it just kind of reeks of creepyness. That being said, I'm glad there is being studies devoted to such an important topic, as opposed to stupid stem cell research or leukimia or something lame like that.
____________

Tim Donaghy keeps talking and now the game that everyone thought was rigged is back in our attention. While maybe not as offensive as the boy-band stylings featured by Scot Pollard and Hedo Turkoglu, this certainly poses at least as equal a threat as the hair fiasco of the late 90's/early 2000's.

The NBA has already lost a ton of credibility over this whole Donaghy thing. Each foul call is disputable 90% of the time, so when you throw a monkey-wrench into the situation, it turns the sport upside down. Now every official is under fire. How does this impact the way we view a sport struggling with credibility issues as it is? The NBA received an A in diversity, but fans still aren't relating to the big salaries and questionable decisions of some of the world's best basketballers. Luckily, the NBA got their dream matchup...but even THAT makes you think. If the NBA imposed their will in 2002, as Donaghy suggested, who's to say they didn't do it again in these playoffs? If this was an organic NBA finals matchup, it sure worked out pretty well for the NBA...makes you think.
____________

Yin and yang.

Trevor Linden (check out those Canucks threads on draft night), one of professional sports' all-time great guys in calling it quits.

While Milton Bradley, cleansed of his hunger for umpires, has advanced to menacing broadcasters. He really must've heard too many Parker brothers jokes as a kid...
____________

Wikipedia Randoms

Another soccer player. So far, this isn't quite as random as I thought it's be. Today, Suriya Domtaisong gets the call. He's on the Thailand national team as a striker. He also plays for Bangkok University. Come on, we all know at least one kid from high school who applied there as a joke. I hope it wasn't their only option.

Michael Bay thinks it's a little over the top. Paris Hilton was offended by its shameless self promotion.

It's the Larry O'Brien trophy - and it's taking over the NBA finals.

By all means, try to avert your gaze. You can't. It's everywhere. During pre-game introductions, two giant replicas stand in the teams' way of taking the court, bathed in a hue of fireside-like light.

During the game is no different. A giant child-like drawing of basketball's holy grail nearly swallows the Boston Celtics center logo. Both jerseys - Lakers flavor and Celtics - have small stitched emblems. Just off Causeway street, another giant replica sits.

They are everywhere! It's the invasion of the inferior trophys! Body snatchers they are not, but they've snatched enough of my attention throughout.

I just wonder if basketball executives are aware of their attempts to undermine the legitimacy of their own trophy. Do they really feel it necessary to saturate us with imagery of their championship wares?

It's a vain, feeble attempt to pair basketball's championship with the likes of the Stanley Cup and the Commissioner's Trophy. Are cartoonish drawings and large replications really befitting of promoting a championship trophy?

If fans bring their own replicas, it's one thing, for the NBA to shove imagery down our throats is another.

This year, the L.O.B. trophy turned 30 year old. Maybe a mid-life crisis is to blame. It's had it's historic moments, sure, but a reminder of it's shape and size don't need to be visible every ten feet.

It's bad enough that the NBA has players and coaches abandon all thoughts of karma and voodoo to pose for pictures with it. Now players get to wear bad fortune.

Any given player may wearing up to two or three per game. The Celtics feature one on top of the shoulder of the warm-up jersey and one on the shoulder of the playing jersey. Kevin Garnett pounds his head against an emblem before he goes to work against the purple and gold. The trophy is checkered behind players and coaches alike at post-game press conferences. Oversaturation is the name of the game.

Necessary? Not at all. We know what it looks like.

The NHL may be lightyears away from the fanbase and support that this year's finals have received, but they feel no need to burn the image of the Stanley Cup into our eyes. In fact, when the cup made a pre-emptive appearence in this year's game five in Detroit, it was frowned upon. They don't need reminders. It makes the journey sweeter to see it for the first time.

Can we give basketball's two most prolific franchises some credit? They know what they're playing for.

The players know glory can't be stitched onto a jersey, drawn onto center court, or inflated on the sidewalk. Only one team can be called champions and there's only one actual trophy to go around.

After the toll of the final horn, Pittsburgh Penguins fans could only stand and applaud. Their team had just lost a deciding Stanley Cup game six at home. They missed crucial chances. They looked flawed, even foolish at times throughout the championship series. Still the fans clapped. Their team had lasted all of six games with the Detroit Red Wings and they were proud of it.

Surely, this was not the outcome Pittsburgh had in mind when the trade deadline rolled around. The Penguins mortgaged a slice of their future to come away with the pick of the trade litter, Marian Hossa. And so along they sent a gift basket of future success, (Colby Armstrong, Erik Christensen, Angelo Esposito, and a first-round pick) for their half-season rental. They tore up their mission statement and said "aw, heck!". For all that investment, it was a matter of inches and seconds that kept Hossa's last-ditch tie attempt out of the net.

Combined with Sid the Kid, hockey's crowned prince, and Evgeni Malkin's MVP campaign, the Penguins began a Stanley Cup run in earnest. They destroyed the very destroyable Senators, trampled over the feeble Rangers, and beat up on an injured Flyers team, all the while losing two out of fourteen playoff games.

Perhaps the Pens' biggest boost came between the pipes. Marc-Andre Fleury lost half his season to injury and nearly had his job snatched by appearing-from-thin-air Ty Conklin. His career was marked with inconsistency and failure to meet expectations. The whispers were deafening. The former number-one overall pick had all the tools, none of the track record, and dwindling time to prove he could turn in around.

Then, in the postseason, he played the best hockey of his life. Yet, all it did was delay the inevitable.

Who outside of the 313 area code - or possibly someone with an unnatural affection for buffalo wings - was not rooting for the Penguins? How could you not? It's almost unholy. Hockey's prince, 20 years of age, barely able to grow something resembling a playoff beard, yet fighting a battle against men and often winning. But this team was so much more than your run-of-the-mill NHL squad. This was hockey's version of the Yankees - everyone else's term, not mine. They have bruisers, they've had success, and they have Eastern Europeans - what's not to dislike?

It was good versus evil. Unfortunately, evil was too good.

No, they're beyond good. The Detroit Red Wings are the gold-standard for franchise success...in any sport. Better than the Yankees or Red Sox. Better than the Colts or Patriots. Better than the Lakers, Spurs, or Celtics. They're just better.

While we're not facing the Cold War any longer, a rift still exists between the United States and much of Eastern Europe and Russia. Scouting Russian players has never been easy. Bringing them overseas can be even harder. But the Red Wings make it look so easy. Four of the Wings' top five regular season scorers are Eastern Europeans drafted in the second round or later (Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Nicklas Lidstrom, and Jiri Hudler). Their captain, Lidstrom, is the first European to ever capture a Stanley Cup title as a captain. It's his fourth championship.

Hockey started the European expansion before basketball ever jumped on board. These days, many basketball teams are taking a step back from overseas talent - only three or four Europeans are projected to be drafted in the first round of this year's NBA draft. Baseball's Latin expansion took place over a number of years. Today, baseball teams have branches in Latin countries, scouting and developing Latin players are done by Latin officials in Latin countries.

The Red Wings have bucked the trend. They've adopted the sons of Mother Russia and her bordering countries for the greater part of two decades. They try to be humble and chalk it up to luck, but other NHL teams never seem to get that lucky. Surely, there is something they know that other personnel departments would like to know.

Sure, there's been some postseason disappointment, but what currect dynasties haven't had such problems? Kobe's Lakers struggled post-Shaq, the Patriots have gone Championship-less for three seasons, and the Red Sox dynasty - still strange to say - has only won two titles. The Yankees farm system was non-existent after their 90's run, the Celtics built through trades and have yet to win, and the Colts took home only one Lombardi trophy.

Since the early 1990's, nobody in any sport, salary cap or otherwise, has done it better than the Detroit Red Wings. In 16 seasons (starting in 1991-92), Detroit...

• won four Stanley cups, more than any other franchise
  
• never finished under .500 and never missed the playoffs (they are the only team in the NFL, NHL, MLB, or NBA to accomplish that)
  
• haven't scored below 93 points in a season, not counting the strike shortened season in 1994-95 when they scored a league best 70 points (15 NHL teams scored less than 93 points last season alone) and have scored over 100 points in 12 of those seasons, including EVERY season since 1998-99.
  
• led the league in points six times and won their division 12 times.
  
• have played in a staggering 214 (127-87) postseason games for an equally ridiculous average of 12.5 playoff games per season
  
• has moved forward after the retirement of Steve Yzerman and Scotty Bowman and the departure of Sergei Federov

The Detroit Red Wings story is remarkable and the franchise should stand the test of time as one of hockey's greatest franchises, even if they are lacking a few more Championships than past teams.

Where else could a 46 year-old defenseman become the oldest man to ever win a Stanley Cup? Who else could survive having a future hall-of-fame goaltending legend flounder his way to the bench in lieu of a 35 year-old superstar? Where else could a struggling defenseman, shunned in Boston, awful in Calgary, and irrelevant in Los Angeles, find redemption and log key minutes on a Stanley Cup champion?

Only one team; a team that has defined dominance in a salary cap era that trends everything towards parity. A team where Jiri Fischer and Vladimir Kostantinov, who both nearly died next to their teammates, are family.

And a team where even the defeated home crowd at Mellon Arena must stand up and applaud.

I have been awful when it comes to updating this thing, so if anybody checks this awful attempt at a blog. But, as a way to try to keep this updated as frequently as possible, I'm introducing a semi-regular-let's-hope-I-keep-doing-this-segment called Scatterbrained, with random observations or thoughts around the world. Yes, it will revolve mainly around sports, but I'll also try to throw in some real world applications and things like that. Anyway, here's to good intentions...or, since it's a blog, perhaps bad intentions.
____________

In his first appearence back, John Smoltz blew a save and blew out his shoulder. He had tried to switch to a 3/4 motion to ease the pain of throwing. He also says that he plans to return in 2009.

There's a lot of absurdity in the above. A 41 year old pitcher thought it was a good idea to change the pitching motion that give him 200 wins, 150 saves, and 3,000 strikeouts to ease the pain in his throwing shoulder and, on top of that, he thinks he's going to return next season and be of some value to the Braves? Prove me wrong John...
____________

Barack Obama announced victory last night, Hillary Clinton announced...nothing, and Bubba Clinton announced party at his house. Hillary's "committed to uniting [the democratic] party" by, apparently, refusing to accept reality for a little while longer. Obviously, she can't continue to swallow the blue pill. I mean, doesn't this thing seem a little ridiculous? It's kind of like a Royals/Rangers game in September. Get riled up all you want, it's still a futile exercise.

Then again, after 2000, who knows?
____________

It's been said elsewhere, but regardless of how much of a sportsfan you are, read Joe Posnanski's blog. Some of the best reading you'll see anywhere.
____________

The new incarnation of American Gladiators has been a guilty pleasure of mine, albeit one I'm slightly ashamed of. And when I'm not watching my future fiance trample the meek or contemplating Titan's braziere size, I'm deciding whether or not I like the contestant and root fiercely accordingly.

But this season, there are a few things that have thrown me off the bandwagon with the show. One being my complete inability to commit to watching any television program since 24 postponed it's 7th season (Hell's Kitchen was also another casualty. I miss Chef Ramsay's verbal slayings). I call it the 24 hangover and I'm still feeling the effects. The one thing that drives me crazy about Gladiators this season has nothing to do with Hulk Hogan's speech ineptitudes, but instead the manner with which they end the show.

Granted, Gladiators generally made some improvements to the Eliminator (such as putting a McDonald's ball pit at the bottom of the handbike to slow down would-be cheaters), but they made a crucial and cruel mistake at the end. Some geniouses decided it would be a grand idea to plunge the two competitors into the Gladitor ocean in their most physically taxed state. Sure, it wasn't enough that you had to face gorilla-sized humans in events where their objective is to destroy you, then talk to Mongoloid Hogan about how "awesome that was, brother, dude", but at the end of the grueling event when oxygen is about as valuable a commodity as a full tank of gas for an SUV, now you must swim. It's cruel and, while there are spotters to quickly grab said dying individual, it seems a little too dangerous and extreme for me, brother.
____________

The Penguins won game five of the Stanley Cup in three OTs and drew pretty good ratings in the process. Hopefully people will be watching tonight when Sid the Kid and company win game six at home and force a game seven at the Joe on Saturday.

A little presumptuous? Perhaps. We'll see.
____________

Can every writer in America please stop taking the "It's time to take the Rays seriously because nobody right now thinks they're for real" spin? I had them projected to finish above .500 and challenge the Yankees for the Wild Card. So far, the Yankees have only challenged themselves and the Rays have proven to be everything they could be and more. If there's anybody left that is NOT taking them seriously, they either know something we don't know or are an idiot.
____________

This Nick Kazcur story is just strange. Call him, agent #77. Spygate, HGH, general surlyness, and now drug use has been an offseason story on more than one occasion. No wonder the rest of country hate the Patriots.
____________

As Packers' running back Noah Warren and deceased Washington Redskins player Sean Taylor have illustrated, self-defense weaponry for NFL players is often of the strange variety. In this case, you can score it bedpost-1, machete-0.
____________

Pitch and Catch:

(Here, in the assumingly, regular segment, I'll talk about some notable pitching performances from the night before.)

- Joba Chamberlain (2.1 IP, 62-32 PC-ST, 4 BB, 3 Ks, ER) threw only about half of his pitches for strikes, but avoided a bases loaded jam (and the loss) as the Yanks were spanked 9-3. The jury's still out on this one. Sunday, he's up against Zack Greinke. What a tough way to open up your second life as a starter (Roy Halladay last night, Greinke on Sunday).

- Pedro Martinez (6 IP, 109 PC, 3 ER, 3 Ks) pitched surprisingly well and deep in his first start back from rehab against the Giants. A 109 pitch count seems a little high for my liking, but he spun some of his best breaking pitches at the end of his outing, fanning Brian Horowitz and Fred Lewis, and getting Travis Denker to ground out. If Pedey can become a good offspeed pitcher, maybe the guy does have some fuel in the tank.

- Randy Johnson (6.1 IP, 8 Ks, 3 ERs) passed Roger Clemens-McCready on the all-time strikeout list and is second only to the ol' Texan himself, Nolan Ryan, yet he somehow lost to Seth McClung (6 IP, ER, 4 Ks, 6 HA)?!?

Curiosities: Max Scherzer (1 IP, 3 ER, 3 HA) - time for a demotion?; Edwar Ramirez (0 IP, 17-3 PC-ST, 3 BB, 1 HA, 4 ER) - allergic to strikes?; Texas Rangers (7 ERs vs Cleveland, but managed a 12-7 win) - is the pitching that bad (cause the Tribe's hitting sure is)?; Zack Greinke (April: 3-0, 1.25. May: 2-2, 4.39. June: 0-1, 12.00.) - back down to earth?; R.A. Dickey (5.2 IP, 3 HA, 6 Ks, 0 ER) in relief of Erik Bedard (3.1 IP, 7 HA, 1 K, 4 ER) - choose the knuckler over the buckler?
____________

Wikipedia Randoms

Each week, I will go to the fabulous website that is Wikipedia or click the "Random article" page and we'll see what comes our way. If the topic is interesting, I'll dig a little deeper and try to reveal some more info about the person.

Today, it's Tina Wunderlich a german soccer defender. Lucky me, I happen to get a sports article! Too bad she wasn't a Swede or perhaps even a Russian (shut up, this isn't the cold war anymore, Joe McCarthy!), they have the natural good looks. But as it is, she's pretty legit. She recently signed on for a 16th season with FFC Frankfurt team of the UEFA (the longest serving member). She won three UEFA Cups (2002, 2006, and 2008) and six league titles with the team.

Good to see this little Wikipedia randoms experiment worked on the first try. I guarantee next time I'll get something miniscule and/or depressing, like David Faustino or Tiny Tim.

Til next time (hopefully sooner rather than later), keep Nick Kazcur away from your medicine cabinet.