The big Boston sports story is the trade of Manny Ramirez. Universal Adam links to a plethora of posts. One of them is Dan Kennedy’s argument that the Red Sox did pretty well — financially, too, despite their agreeing to pay Manny’s salary for the rest of the season.
I was among those who thought that the Sox had given away too much: a hall-of-fame hitter, the $7M he will make for the rest of the season, and two young players. But Jason Bay seems like a pretty good player, is younger than Manny, and is under contract for next year. And neither of the young players is a top prospect. Most of all, Manny had to go.
The big word sports story is the Beijing Olympics. I don’t care about the sports so much, although the politics and the pollution provide an interestingly murky environment.
Birmingham? I refer to England, rather than to Alabama, and in particular to the Edgbaston cricket ground. Test matches, although they last five days, often end in draws. But this one is looking like another victory for South Africa over England, unless there are further heroics from Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff.