Greatest name in sports?

Coco Crisp, meet Lance Broadway, fresh off his first major league win. Lance Broadway, Coco Crisp, nicknamed partially after the Cocoa Krispies monkey. You make the call.

(Shame he doesn't play for one of the New York teams.)

Do you know....Coco Crisp? (MAGIC #45)

Did you know...

Covelli Crisp got his nickname from his grandmother (who called him Co, being too near death to waste time with two more syllables) and his sister and godbrother (who were making fun of his ears, reminiscent of the cereal box above)?

He and his wife are either deaf or strongly not English, and his child is paying the cost?

"We were watching Harry Potter, and the girl's name is Hermione. We thought they were saying Amailee. I wrote it down because my wife, Maria, was pregnant. When the credits rolled, we realized we were way off, but Amailee stuck. We even liked it more since it was different than the movie."

As a former New Haven Raven, he is one of too few players/people who still remember the team's existence? And when said team moved to New Hampshire, they nearly went with THIS team name?

His bat is finally starting to catch up with his glove?

Jacoby Ellsbury in his few games in the majors this year has a better VORP than J.D. Drew? (Just happened to find that in seeing Crisp's numbers. His value over any guy off the street, by the way, is a differential of 14.3 runs, not bad considering how he started.)

The prospect we traded for Coco is engulfed in the suck?

He'd like steroids testing to be more like DNA testing on a daytime talk show? (And who WOULDN'T?)

"You ever see Maury Povich, when they're talking about baby daddies and all that kind of stuff?" Crisp said. "They get the lie detector test and they're like, `Are you the father?' That's what they need to do. We need to actually see if they are the father or if they're not the father. The lie detector test."

His father was a boxer nicknamed Sugar Crisp? And his blind diabetic dockworking uncle is known as Post Waffle Crisp Cereal?*

The man in the Moose costume's a dead man?

*One of these ain't true.

GAME EIGHTY FOUR: C is for Cookie, TB is for 15 runs.

Oh, what a sweet sweet act of total brutality we inflicted upon the dorsal-finned. I've got a belly ache. There are four basic kinds of victories:

1)The squeaker/thriller, everyone's favorite because it follows the dramatic structure (Mamet, David, Three Uses Of The Knife, page 8.) Comes in comeback variety, the Cadillac of victories, and "phew" form, where victory seems certain, then less certain, then not at all certain until it's over at last.

2) The hard-to-remember game: your team takes lead, wins, maybe by three or four runs. Drama-free.

2a) The comeback turned "eh" game: often memorable, so it should be noted even if it is just a variety of 2.

3) The fantastic blowout (Night, Last, Red Sox 14, Devil Rays 4).



The blowout has a special place in my heart. It's like the bonus round in a video game, where you just shoot the targets knowing the targets won't shoot back; it's like the home run derby, only it counts for a win. I'll forever remember the Sox's most notable blowout as a sort of apex in one period of my life, post-college in New Haven without real plans but without real cares, writing at home when my girlfriend of the time called me from the game to tell me the Red Sox had scored 14 runs in the first inning, 10 before the first out was recorded. It was still early in the year, not even the midpoint (6/27/03), but it was a moment when I really thought this team could be not just good but special. (Of course, the Sox lost the game after, seemingly exhausted by all the swinging and running around the bases, a la the New York Yankees in the 2004 ALCS, where Game 3 bizarrely took more out of the Yanks than the Sox; I probably cursed their inconsistency again right then and started doubting the bullpen. You can't fight your nature.)



All hail Coco Crisp, even if we needn't all cover him in milk, which could be considered rude when not performed by a 6'4", 230-pound (listed weight) Dominican. Then again, if any baseball player could stay crunchy even in milk, it would be Coco Crisp, now with 14 essential vitamins and 5 RBIs in the same game! (Additionally, hail hail Mike Lowell; it shocks me to type this since it was the last thought on my mind when the Beckett trade went through, but I sure hope we can resign him.) (Wipes eyes in broad comic "Wha??" fashion, like the tap dancing cat in the clip below.)



I was considering doing a post consisting entirely of me typing "Coco Crisp hit a grand slam" over and over, so shocking was the event, but Coco is genuinely come alive. .265 is an accomplishment when you start off the way Crisp did, when Coco wasn't even hitting his outs particularly hard. J.P. Howell served 'em up, with extra chocolate chips, but it takes a genuine offense to knock any starter out in 0.2 IP. Beckett's back on a 30-win pace...in my own mind. Onto a real challenge, in Le Tigres. I'm at once bemused and repulsed by Gary Sheffield much as I am by Le Tigre, but I sure hate to see that goddamn bat waggle sending a threat with every wave at the Green Monster. Remember how he started this year? Where'd those 20 HRs come from? My guess: Jim Leyland ashed his 40th cigarette of the day on his locker, or did something else to jump start his pissed-offed-ness. All I know it's there's a lion in his lumber, baby, and it's ready to roar.

Keep the ball down, Julian. Way down.

GAME SEVENTY: Now give me my money back.

After a Wednesday night game at my house in which my main solace was the short trip home afterwards, in which I took bad beats from (how the fuck could you call the flop with a just a Queen? that wasn't a draw at all) and then just wholly misinterpreted (why would you bet that hard with a good hand?) the play of my friend Patrick, it was around midnight, I was wired, not drunk enough and with no desire to finish off the remaining beer (who brought Blueberry Ale?), and thoroughly steamed. There are cures for this mind state; last night, opening up the Sox-Braves recap was one.



Coco Crisp has himself confused with Jimmy Rollins as of late, and I hope he never remembers his own identity if this power surge can continue. Staked to a 5-0 lead before his first pitch, Julian Tavarez pitched his best game of the year, seven innings of shutout ball, giving up just three hits. The Braves put up all the resistance of a plate of nachos, the Yankees continued to validate Colorado and the Sox's recent problems with them, while also bumping up the number to Bo Derek. Soon thereafter, I fell asleep at last.



Today, I'm tired and a few dollars lighter, but at least some millionaires I'll never get to know made me feel briefly better by beating other millionaires. Unfortunately, this is a off-day. Leaving me way too much time to think about those fucking Queens. Now who wants to buy me lunch?

GAME SIXTY NINE: Cowboy and Indians.

The Texan with the big curveball was doing his thing, and probably coulda kept doing it for another couple innings when the rain came down, the rain came down-down, and when it stopped, the bullpen held the zero in place. Never trust a cowboy amongst [Indian Team Name Franchises]. Beckett even smacked an RBI double to finish his veritable Custer's Revenge on they asses. It wasn't on TBS for some reason, but I GameCast my way through it, and it was fun.



Coco Crisp made the greatest catch ever again, according to Beckett. (My call: not as good as this one.) I shoulda mentioned his weird power surge yesterday, especially since I still want Crisp to thrive as a Sox, and as one of the best defensive centerfielders in baseball, he has a lot more value than people think even when he's struggling. I heard he's batting .350 over his last few games, though. That's also worthwhile.



After tonight's rubber match, it's off to where the pets go for a series with the San Diego Celibates; the West Coast trip concludes in Seattle, where Beckett will be back to take down the Seattle Poseidons. When hopefully I'll have recovered from the spell of Gregg Easterbrook-like team renaming syndrome I'm suffering. No word yet on if the team will continue to the Dulles afterwards.