Category: Boston MA (Page 5 of 13)

It’s Beanpot Monday!

1 February, 2010 / Kat

Ahhhh, Beanpot Monday. The most wonderful time of the year.

Per usual, I’m all over the Beanpot like wanna-be rock stars up on MySpace. Catch my extensive overview of Beanpot Players to Watch on Beantown Athletic Supporters. Tonight, I’ll be live tweeting for BU Today along with several of my co-workers and students, and you’ll also be able to catch my reports direct from Twitter.

Later this week, I’ll be profiling the Charity Beanpot Challenge, a game featuring Beanpot alumni and supporting the Travis Roy and Mark Bavis Foundations.

Happy Beanpot Monday!

In a Four-Year-Old’s World, Jason Bay is Still a Member of the Boston Red Sox.

1 January, 2010 / Kat

Let's Go Fishing - a childhood fave for me and thousands of other kids

Playing “Let’s Go Fishing” with my favorite four-year-old (a cousin of my fiance’s) this New Year’s Day with the dull portion of the Winter Classic flickering in the background, the topic of conversation turned from what kindergarten would be like next year to the Boston Red Sox. Favorite Four-Year-Old, like every child born and raised in the Greater Boston area, understood that he was a Red Sox fan prior to understanding that hands were for picking things up, not chewing on.

Over the summer, Favorite-Four-Year-Old and I had played “Big Papi” and “Jason BAAAYYY” in his backyard – a catch-tag megamix named after his two favorite members of the Red Sox roster. This afternoon, I wondered if he knew what had conspired a few days before.

We held our faux primary colored fishing rods over the faux thrashing primary colored fish. I sighed, and asked the question that had to be asked. “Who is your favorite Red Sox player?”

Favorite Four Year Old’s head snapped up, forgetting about the fish. “Jason BAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!” he exclaimed, proudly, with a giant grin on his face. He quickly returned to faux-fishing.

I was left with a dilemma. Was I susposed to be the one to have the “free agency” talk with Favorite Four-Year-Old, or was this a talk that his father or grandfather needed to have with him? This was an important talk in the life of a young sports fan, and I felt that it needed to come from a close relative, and not just little ol’ me.

I looked around, trying to find Favorite Four-Year-Old’s father. He was busy in another room eating. His grandfather was no where in my sightline either. Favorite Four-Year-Old didn’t seem to sense the turmoil within me.

So I said nothing and set to not lose too poorly in “Let’s Go Fishing.” In that four-year-old’s world, Jason Bay could still be his favorite Red Sox player. If only just for one more day.

Uneasy Moments in Dunkin’ Donuts

20 September, 2009 / Kat

Not an iced coffee, but an example of how much both my cat and I run on Dunkin'. And why it's weird to go in their as a Bills fan.

Not an iced coffee, but an example of how much both my cat and I run on Dunkin'. And why it's weird to go in there as a Bills fan.

Sunday morning, I woke up earlier than usual, and decided to take advantage of this extra time and do laundry. I got ready, threw on my Buffalo Bills sweatshirt, Bills earrings and jeans, and beat the crowd to my local Allston laundromat by all of five minutes. I snapped up my three washers, started my laundry, and headed over to the Dunkin’ Donuts across the street. This is the DD’s where one of the employee’s routinely refers to me as “Ms. Cinna-mina-mon”, after the morning I was more dead to the world than usual and couldn’t say cinnamon to save my life. (Because I live on a small cinnamon iced coffee with cream and sugar. If this is not drank in the morning, than my day will be largely unsuccessful.)

Being 8am on a Sunday morning in Allston, Massachusetts (aka college party central of America), my usual swamped Dunkin’ Donuts was dead. One person in front of me getting a Coolata, one person at the doggie window getting something equally as complicated, so my Bills clad self waiting patiently in line, ready to order my iced cinnamon when it was my turn.

Someone else entered the Dunkin’ Donuts and got in line next to me. He cleared his throat and then stifled a laugh. I snuck a glance. This young man was wearing a new but fashionably antique-y looking Pat-the-Patriot-sporting New England Patriots sweatshirt.

Sitting at the Dock of the Bay

6 August, 2009 / Kat

We all have bad days, weeks, months, years. What happens when we suffer from one? We hit the bar, we sneak out of work early, we take a nap, we play with our cats, we get a manicure. And, most of the time, no one gives us a hard time about it.

Unless you’re an athlete. Because if you are an athlete, sports fans – fickle ones, at that – make it their own pastime to comment about your bad day, remind you about your bad day, and hold it over your head for days, weeks, months, years, lifetimes on end.

Heaven forbid said bad day occurs due to an injury. Then you’re “injury prone,” “weak,” “not a professional,” “disingenuous.” Injury equals weakness, and unless the limb is severed, many believe you ought to be out on the field, ice, court, or pitch. Continue reading

Dear The Sports Hub: Please, Just Hire a Woman.

14 July, 2009 / Kat

Dear 98.5 The Sports Hub,

You were quite the topic of conversation on Tuesday, appearing literally out of nowhere with the sudden morning announcement of the demise of WBCN. With your August 13th arrival, Boston will be home to four sports radio stations – fitting really, given that Boston is the capital of obsessive sport fandom.

Before you go around stealing talent from the existing three stations (which you are already rumoured to be doing), let’s talk about one aspect of Boston Sports Radio that no one ever mentions:

Where are the women?

Yes, there is a woman, Jayme Parker, who does WEEI’s Sports Flashes on occasion. And WEEI.com recently hired a recent BU grad to host it’s morning video clip segment and do brief sound bites. Yes, many of the upper administrators calling the shots on WEEI and ESPN890, like Julie Kahn (Vice President of Entercom Radio New England) and Jessamy Tang (General Manager of 890ESPN), are some strong-willed and successful females. But besides that, Boston sports radio is all male dominated.

In 2009, when one of the most consistent and coveted football analysts/hosts of the past decade is female (Suzy Kolber), and when the Red Sox beat writer for the largest newspaper in Boston is female (the Boston Globe’s Amalie Benjamin), and when our regional sports television network host is female (NESN’s Kathryn Tappen), why are females largely absent from manning the microphones in Boston’s sports radio scene?