Mark Blount, Have A Safe Trip!!!

First off, sorry I have been absent from the blog. Last Thursday, my computer just went ballistic, Windows wouldn’t start, all hell broke loose. After 5 calls to Dell Customer Support(which is based on in Bonglapore, India) I finally gave up and decided to fix it myself. After replacing the hard drive, buying Windows XP with service pack 2, drinking a lot more beer than normal, and telling my 7 month-old son “Play in your Exersaucer, daddy is almost done” only to discover the driver I downloaded didn’t work. I was stuck with Windows millennium, a monitor with only 16 colors, and having to run a dial-up version of AOL 5.0. Finally, yesterday, I bought XP, installed it into my brand new hard drive, installed a new CD burner for good measure, formatted the other 2 hard drives I had in case of emergencies and finally was able to get onto the internet using my DSL. If you had the opportunity to walk by my living window and thought you saw a 275 pound guy trying to do a cartwheel in the living room, you were not having a bad reaction to prescription drugs, it was really happening.

Now, onto the fun stuff. After a year and half (which, btw, coincides with signing a 6 year $36 million-dollar deal) of watching Mark Blount suck the life out of the Boston Celtics, my childhood hero Kevin McHale (Minnesota T’Wolves GM) came to the rescue of the Celtics once again and completed a trade that gives the Wolves Ricky Davis and Mark Blount, while giving the Celtics Wally Szczerbiak (I spelled that without looking at his name) and Michael Olowokandi (cap relief). Life is good. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and the 2005 version of Jon Koncak has left the TD Banknorth Garden. This guy was a bigger stiff then the guy who dies on the NY subway last week who was found after 6 hours of train riding. You knew what Blount was going to give you every game. 10 points, 2 rebounds, 5 turnovers and heartburn, which does not show up in any boxscore. He can only work from the left block, he constantly drops the ball, gets stripped of the ball, or trips over his own feet. His next post-up move will be his first. Outside of an ok outside jumper, he brings nothing to the table except for a name that makes you think about drug use. This is the best trade of the Danny Ainge era. Now, let’s find a coach for this team who has a clue. Too bad Wally and the Kandi Man won’t be playing against the Tru Warrior, Ron Artest, tonight. That would make for some Tommy Heinsohn TV comments. Have a great weekend, I am off to the casino to kill time before the Super Bowl.

You Will Never Replace a Legend, You Just Have to Remember How Great They Were…

My Friday the 13th morning started out innocently enough. My 7 month old crying because he was hungry, my dog scratching on the door to get out. After I fed my son and brought my dog outside, I came in to make some breakfast and listen to the Morning Jab. However, Matt Spiegel and Bill “bland as a stale cracker” Leckis were on, and I knew something was up. I heard local commercials, which when the sattelite goes down you won’t normally hear, you hear all the national ads. I went on to the Jab website to see if something was wrong and sure enough, I saw a post talking about a tragedy and how thoughts and prayers were with Frank Fixaris’s family. That is never a good thing, but after perusing the local news sites and discovering that Frankie had passed away due to a fire, the appetite went away and the sadness of the situation started to hit me. There will be no more live renditions of Paul Simon, no more Shoe hitting the dump button because Frank was tired of hearing about Pete Rose. No more great insight into the world of all sports. I was never a golf fan, but Frankie made you interested enough to listen to it because he knew what was going on. He hade great takes in every sport, and no matter who got booked as a guest, he had a question for them, and the question was usually a tough one and it usually drew out an interesting response. I will miss his stories about Johnny Most, the great Yankees and old time baseball stories, before juice and amphetamines and expansion. I will miss his stories of pro football back when it was the NFL vs the AFL, about the great Celtics teams of 50’s-70’s. More importantly I am going to miss his analysis, because he always knew what was going on, who was doing what and why a team was having problems. I talked to him on numerous occasions calling into the show and he was always gracious, conversational and had a response for your question. The outpouring of emotion from the community of Big Jab listeners shows how much he truly touched our lives, even if it was for only 3 hours a day. Everyone who ever had the opportunity to call into the show and talk with Frankie got to talk to a legend, and that in itself is pretty special. This won’t get a ton of play in the national media, and frankly, who cares? Frankie was THE premier sports caster/reporter for the state of Maine for the last 35 years and he is going to be sorely missed. Always remember, “You can never replace a legend. You just have to remember how great they were.” Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to spend some extra time with my kids, because something like this reminds you that spending time with your loved ones is something that noone should ever take for granted. My thoughts and prayers are with the Fixaris family, the Big Jab family and everyone else affected by this needless and horrible loss. Oh and by the way Frankie, if Bret Boone does make the Mets roster this year, I am blaming you, because I know you will have something to do with it. That my friend, would be Bullsh*t! God Bless Ya Frankie, we are going to miss you.