The contrasting plights of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox this season are mirrored by the way their two Class AAA minor league franchises have helped out their parent clubs this season. While Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Pawtucket have been running 1-2 virtually the entire season in the International League’s North Division, and are scheduled to face each other in the first round of the playoffs beginning next Wednesday, this success on the field has not carried over to the developmental process for Scranton/WB. And now that the Yankees have been virtually eliminated from the American League playoff picture, their lack of success this season on the field has already given Scranton a major lift at the Triple-A level. Who would have guessed at the beginning of April that Melky Cabrera, Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Kei Igawa would be key players for the Little Yankees in late August? Not Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ GM. That’s for sure.
By TERRY NAU Sports editor PAWTUCKET – Mike Schmidt likes to talk baseball. That much became quite clear on Thursday evening when the Hall of Famer sat down for a short interview with the media prior to Pawtucket’s game against Syracuse at McCoy Stadium. “I’ve been here before,” said the man who smashed 548 home runs during a 20-year career with the Philadelphia Phillies. “I was drafted by the Phillies (in 1971) and came right out of Ohio University and joined their Eastern League team in Reading. We went on the road and I played my first professional games in Pittsfield. I’m pretty sure our second series was here in Pawtucket.” Schmidt, in town to promote awareness of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH), more commonly known as enlarged prostate, presented an agreeable and open mind to questions about his baseball career and the things he has seen and learned during his life in the game.
Tom Brady is 31 years old and has a sore foot. That’s the least of the New England Patriots’ problems, from my way of thinking. I’d be more worried about a first-team defense that got pushed off the ball on Sunday night in the first quarter of what became a meaningless 27-10 preseason loss to Tampa Bay. Watching inside linebacker Tedy Bruschi get squashed by a Buccaneer lineman is a sad reminder that this core veteran, this team leader, is becoming a detriment to the defense. Tampa Bay emphatically moved the ball downfield in the first couple of series, running the ball straight at New England’s front seven, and blowing them off the ball. That’s just basic football. If this latest Patriots’ defense can’t stop the run, how can it stop the pass?
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