John Sterling, Ted Turner and TBS, the all-time oddity that was the 1985 Rick Camp Game, sweeping Sox, Celtics media

Thursday 5/7/26

I saw a video of a Sixers fan leaving Madison Square Garden in which a Knicks fan, in the middle of a hostile throng, ripped at the jersey he was wearing. Assaulted him, that is. It was wall-to-wall with people. They crowd was on the verge of swallowing this guy up.

People commenting condemned this behavior. I look at this and I see what losers people are. These were adults. Rotund adults, often. Adults of various ages. Middle aged adults. How do you get like this? You're a beer-bellied forty-three-year-old who looks fifty-seven stuffed into a Knicks jersey, with no life or achievements of your own, with the intellect of...what, exactly? A child? Certainly not all children.

I feel like you it helps to fail at being anything for a long time to become like this. Granted, children can be nasty, ignorant little monsters. But guys like this are veterans of failing as a human, with no abilities of their own and living with that reality for decades. That's how you become someone who behaves like this.

Anyway, those commenting said swearing at such a person and giving him the finger is fine, but physical assault goes too far. These people, in their way, are almost as bad. You'd like to think it goes without saying that everyone should have the expectation of not being sworn at and/or given the finger anywhere they venture in our society.

You should be able to wear a Yankees hat in the middle of the bleachers at Fenway and not have someone tell you to go fuck yourself. That's not a thing that should ever be happening. It doesn't "come with the territory."

We haven't just lost our way. We have no clue what our way is supposed to be.

Red Sox with their first sweep of the season over the Tigers in Detroit. They Sox caught a break when Skubal couldn't go, but they pitched well. Last night, they struck out a ton, but played some defense, stole some bags.

Wilyer Abreu had a rough night at the plate but he made two fine catches in right. First one--coming when it did and with guys on base--was key. Sox might have lost if he didn't make that play. Chad Tracy is 6-4 in his first 10 games. Hey, it's better, right? And that's technically a .600 winning percentage. Rafaela also made a nice grab in center and Duran threw someone out at second after he barehanded a ball in left, which he had to in order to cut down the runner.

The catch expectancy percentage--or however the stat is phrased--for that first Abreu catch was like 35%. That wasn't a play that 35% of right fielders make. And I don't think that percentage is specific to him. That wouldn't make sense. It was a difficult play--he had to slide and barely got it before it hit the grass.

The Red Sox, somewhat surprisingly, have five shutouts now, which is tied for the MLB lead.

Thunder versus Knicks? Avalanche versus Hurricanes?

I think Mike Vrabel could end up being done in New England. He could end up being done even if he doesn't get fired or step down. All kinds of ways to be done. He's such a scumbag.

Tracy McGrady is Jaylen Brown's "mentor"? That's so ridiculous. The whole mentor/mentee thing is.

Yesterday it came out that Vrabel and Dianna Russini--more on her and The New York Times later when we do a series on entries on the paper--rented a boat for several hours in 2021 when she was pregnant with the child she eventually named "Michael." Oh.

What a couple of slop buckets of human beings. What are the chances that wasn't his kid? But you're all about family and accountability, right, Vrabes?

Such a loser. He's so smart, though, because that's what everyone tells me. Maybe say that 800 more times, Tedy Bruschi. So smart!

Tom Curran is immediately out of his depth the second he's not licking boots for the New England Patriots. How does he know so little about other sports? I'm not saying he knows football--he knows how to lick those boot bottoms.

Chris Forsberg also isn't good at his job, as with most people in media. Cushy gig. No talent. I actually listened to him say that it was a good idea for Joe Mazzulla to start the likes of Ron Harper Jr. in a Game 7. The same Ron Harper Jr. who played five minutes and went scoreless, just like the other two "are you kidding me?" starters that Forsberg said should have been in there went pointless.

No one in Boston sports media licks boots like Celtics media members. Sure, Curran is stiff competition and such a toady-weasel yes-man for all things Patriots, but he's just one guy, whereas the Celtics have a legion of these guys.

As I've said before, people lazily called Tommy Heinsohn a homer. He was highly critical of the Celtics, though, when merited. More critical of them than the opponent or the officials. He would say some things.

Yankees announcer John Sterling. One of the last of a certain kind of announcer. He'd also say some things. Wasn't that long ago he had said that the Yankees ran the bases like a bunch of drunks. A homer, yes, but also a critical homer. That's the only kind of homer that "works" when it comes to these things.

Sterling was a less wordy Jack Edwards. A Jack Edwards' uncle type. That is, older, less hotheaded, more under control, but still a song-and-dance man after a fashion.

Ted Turner also died. A core baseball memory for me was watching the Braves on TBS. A lot of bad Braves teams. But I loved baseball and you can get interested in the careers of so many guys when you love baseball and I think TBS helped in fostering these things. I knew a lot about 1980s Atlanta Braves catchers, for instance, and enjoyed thinking about them. Bruce Benedict, Alex Trevino.

You got to see all these National League stars, and here in New England you would have otherwise missed out on that without the Superstation. And then we have something like Turner Classic Movies, with everything that has added to the film lovers' world, and the people it's gotten hooked on classic films. TCM has always done it right, too. No commercials, thoughtful, accessible commentary, smart programming choices, broad selections.

TBS broadcast one of the strangest games in the history of sport, that being the July 4, 1985 contest between the Braves and Mets, the so-called Rick Camp Game. There was a ninety-minute rain delay, so the game started late, and then there was another rain delay, which resulted in Mets' starter Dwight Gooden being lifted. This was the year that Gooden had maybe the greatest season ever had by a pitcher.

The game went into extras...and then kept going and going...the Mets went ahead in the eighteenth inning, and Braves pitcher Rick Camp had to hit for himself in the bottom of that frame. Camp had never homered in professional baseball, including the minors. So what does he do at some godforsaken hour of the night with hardly anyone still at the ballpark? He jacks one out.

The game continues, the Mets grab a bunch of runs, and in the bottom of the nineteenth, Camp comes to the plate again, but this time Ron Darling struck him out, ending the game. But because this game started on the Fourth of July and there was a plan to set off fireworks afterwards, and not wanting to waste those fireworks one supposes, the Braves' stadium people touched them off at 3:55 in the morning here on July 5. The game last more than six hours, with two hours on top of that in rain delays.

And you could have seen the whole damn thing on TBS, which was called by no less than a pre-Yankees John Sterling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ndfBkZtuqU