By Eddie Baker
Sports Editor
2/12/09
Rich Hill, who only a year ago was rated as one of the top young pitching prospects in baseball, has been traded by the Chicago Cubs after a down year with injury problems to the Baltimore Orioles. This means that he will be in the American League and a lot more Milton fans and his friends can see him pitch. And Baltimore is a lot closer to Milton and is more of a tourist attraction than Chicago is.
Rich should really get a chance to pitch for the Orioles, who really need pitching. Let’s all wish this really good Milton athlete well.
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Former Milton High School hockey star and two-time Patriot Ledger All-Scholastic at the high school, Paul Golden, now a sophomore at Providence College, is playing hockey for the Friars. After leaving the high school, Paul went to Thayer Academy where he starred in hockey and was the school’s most valuable hockey player in his senior year.
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We certainly want to congratulate a fine, versatile Milton athlete, Paul Connor, the well-known football and track star.
Paul was invited to the Mass. Elite Meet for runners who compete against the best in all classes from all over the United States. He won the 600 two weeks ago at the Reggie Lewis Center with the fine time of 1:23:31. Paul will be running the 400 in the spring.
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Well-known Weymouth Club star Sally Goldman will be running a tennis, fitness and art program for boys and girls ages 6 to 13 during February vacation week, Feb. 17 to 20.
The cost is $69 a day for members and $79 for nonmembers. This fee includes lunch and the program goes from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. You can attend for as many days as you desire. For more information, call the Weymouth Club, where the Milton star works, at (781) 337-4600.
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Well-known Milton swimming star Claire Street made some waves in the swimming pool in the fall, swimming for Notre Dame Academy in Hingham. She qualified for the Division II state finals. Notre Dame, coached by Mike Riley, won its fourth consecutive state championship this year.
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We got a letter from frequent writer and well-known Merchants star, now living in Florida, Francis “Inga” Walsh. Inga says that he was talking to former Merchants President Tom Gunning. Tom says that he has been reading this column for years and does have to admit that over the years, I have improved my spelling. Tom hopes to throw his cane away by spring.
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Former Milton High football and basketball star, and Massachusetts Maritime football star, Eddie Villard, son of patrolman Ed Villard, is now working in Kentucky and playing in a hockey league down there.
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There has been plenty of good skiing this year at the Blue Hill Ski Area and good coasting around town. What do you think? Should coasters be required to wear helmets?
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We will miss him. Always liked it when I turned on radio station WBZ and Gil Santos was doing the sports. Well, after many years of sports reporting for the station, Gil has retired. He had a great voice and always seemed pleasant.
He will, however, continue doing the New England Patriots games, where a member of his broadcast team is well-known basketball and softball enthusiast, and Milton star, Roger Homan.
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Glad to hear that well-known swimmer Mary Sacco is feeling a little better after not feeling so hot for a while in January.
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Nothing remains the same forever. Over the year, if you went to a sporting event at Boston College and you ran into members of the well-known, sports-playing Corcoran family, many of who went to BC, they were cheering for the Eagles. When I went over there two weeks ago things had changed. Former St. Sebastian’s star Tim Corcoran is now attending and playing for the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and they were playing BC and beat them. The two teams play again this weekend: Friday at BC and Saturday at Lowell, both nights at 7 p.m.
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Curry College had a good turnout recently of high school football players who are thinking about attending Curry in the fall.
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Don’t expect to get either the TV coverage or the newspaper coverage of the Boston Red Sox in spring training this year, as both of these media outlets are cutting way back on sports.
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Have you seen where former Boston Celtics star and longtime Minnesota general manager Kevin McHale has really turned the Timberwolves around since he took over as coach? They had a 10-3 record for the month of January.
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Division I men’s basketball teams that don’t make the men’s 65-team NCAA Tournament or the 32-team NIT Tournament can still probably play in a tournament if they want. The CollegeInsider.com 16-team tournament will make its debut in March and the 16-team college basketball 2009 tournament, started last year, is on again.
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It can’t happen with this economy but the use of three officials in pro basketball games, and now in most college games, really makes a difference.
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A lot of University of Connecticut basketball fans that we have talked to believe that Connecticut is a real threat to win both the men’s and women’s national basketball titles.
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North Carolina seems to be just about everybody’s pick to win the ACC championship in baseball this spring but Louisiana State University is USA Today’s pick in the college baseball pool.
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The Orleans Cardinals of the Cape Cod Baseball League are no more; they are the Orleans Red Birds starting this year.
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Clemson University, popular lately with a lot of Milton athletes and located in South Carolina, has an enrollment of slightly fewer than 18,000 students.
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We mentioned a couple of weeks ago that former well-known Milton High star Patty O’Neill is a well-known birder. Well, Patty got in touch with us to say that 2008 was a big year for her, as she got to see her 5,000th bird, which is about half of the world’s birds. Number 5,000 was a Cape Rockjumper near Cape Town, South Africa.
While in South Africa, Patty saw nearly 400 species of mammals, including baby lions, elephants and giraffes.
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The new, beautiful Milton Library, which many Milton athletic stars have been involved in, has an opening date of April 2, which is just about six weeks away. They are really going to have to get going to get it finished to open on the 2nd.
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One of Milton High’s best-known (he coached Little League for years) and most versatile athletes, Dick Gallery, hasn’t been feeling up to par this winter and has been housebound. Give him a call.
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I was glad to see that the Red Sox signed Jason Varitek, who everyone says is one of the best handlers of pitchers around, and calls a good game. Last year he didn’t throw out many runners, though, and his hitting was poor. I hope that they can give him more rest this year.
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I will always remember January of 2009 as being one of the coldest, iciest and snowiest months ever and, because of this, one of the longest.
I also saw two of the longest sports matches I’ve ever seen: On television, I watched Rafael Nadel beat Fernando Verdasco in five sets with three tiebreakers in the semifinals of the Australian Open. I also saw the Stonehill women’s basketball team beat Bentley in four overtimes. This caused one of my friends, Tim Knightly, to tell me to get a life.
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Don’t think that Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, etc. are the only places for senior citizens’ specials. The Milton Animal League is offering cats, age 7 or older, with all of their shots, to Milton seniors for $75. Every senior should have a pet.
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The Milton High boys’ basketball team is getting ready to play in the state basketball tournament, which they last won in the 1995-96 season. In girls’ basketball, the team won it in the 1989-90 season.
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I am not high on Manny Ramirez as a person at all, but as a hitter for the Red Sox at Fenway Park, I thought the only two better were Ted Williams and Jimmie Foxx. A pure hitter, he could really go to all fields. His attitude is poor, though, and this will probably really hurt your team.
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We ran into Cape Cod Freddie the other day in Milton. Freddie doesn’t come over the bridge much anymore, but he would be interested to know what happened to all of the pheasants that used to be here in Milton.
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Congratulations and best wishes to well-known Milton horse enthusiast Tony Guest, who now lives at Marina Place. His birthday is Friday, Feb. 13.