Wednesday, April 9, 2008 After so many years, cheers Sun, The (Lowell, MA) ­ Author: The Lowell Sun

By David Pevear

dpevear@lowellsun

BOSTON ­­ The man who once symbolized Boston baseball heartbreak emerged into the bright sunshine yesterday and walked slowly toward the Fenway Park pitcher's mound.

So many thoughts raced through Bill Buckner's mind.

Ours, too.

Might emotions within this persecuted baseball soul boil over? Might he who has endured cruelty hear hypocrisy in the cheers that warmly embraced him?

Might he flip the Opening Day crowd the Byung­Hyun Kim salute?

Buckner had thought long and hard about accepting the Red Sox's invitation to make that long walk. The crowd cheered wildly as he walked in from left field.

Buckner wiped tears from his eyes.

"I really had to forgive ... not the fans of Boston, per se. I would have to say in my heart I had to forgive the media," Buckner said later. "You know, for what they put me and my family through."

With two World Series titles already in the bank this glorious century, the Red Sox organization is healing psychic scars of the past century. The man through whose legs Mookie Wilson's slow roller once rolled threw a perfect ceremonial strike yesterday.

"Probably about as emotional as it can get," said Buckner. "I wish I didn't have to walk all the way from left field. Too many things (to think about). Just good thoughts. Which is a nice thing."

The rings were handed out to another World Series champion in Boston.

The Red Sox then went out and whipped the Detroit Tigers 5­0. The cursed past has become the buried past. Buckner threw out the first pitch. Kevin Youkilis fought back tears and sought out Buckner to shake his hand. Youkilis then went out and played his major­league­record 197th consecutive errorless game at first base.

"To be honest with you, I've never almost been in tears for somebody on a baseball field," said Youkilis. "I think that was just the most unbelievable thing. It shows how great a man Bill Buckner is. There are not too many people who can do what he did today ­­ face thousands of people that booed him ... did horrific things toward him."

Terry Francona's boys have buried the slow roller in Shea Stadium 22 years ago. The 58­year­old Buckner is now seen clearly as the borderline Hall of Famer he was, a .289 lifetime hitter who won the 1980 National League batting champ as a Cub.

During two full seasons and parts of three others with the Red Sox, Buckner gave their fans all his aching legs could give them

How unfair is it to judge such a career on one 10th­inning error in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, a series the Red Sox went on to lose to the New York Mets in seven games?

"Is it all right to disrupt people's lives over a baseball game, or ruin people's lives?" Buckner added. "Not that it did mine. I'm pretty tough mentally. But the hardest part was my family, my kids, and I'm still dealing with it. I have a son (Bobby) playing college ball (at the University of Texas). I have a daughter who played softball. And there were times they had to deal with it. I didn't think that was fair. That made me a little bitter. But I'm over that."

Buckner asked his daughter Christen, who sat among the media as a television reporter for a station in Boise, Idaho, "Are you over that?"

"She's one of you guys now, believe it or not," said Buckner. "So I guess I've accepted you guys back in the family."

Buckner's wife Jody sat off to the side, less forgiveness showing on her face.

Boston sports gods Bill Russell and Bobby Orr were on the field when lefty Buckner threw his ceremonial strike, part of a wide­ranging celebration of Boston's sport champions past and Papi. Billy Bucks helping to celebrate a Red Sox World Series championship upstaged even Orr and Russell.

The crowd's reaction to Buckner and his reaction to the crowd was "one of the most special things I've ever seen," said Francona.

Buckner's former teammate, Dwight Evans, caught the ceremonial first pitch. He sat beside Buckner as his old friend faced the media.

"Nobody played harder than Bill," said Evans. "Nobody prepared themselves as well as Bill Buckner did. And nobody wanted to win as much as Bill Buckner did."

Buckner recalled also being warmly greeted by fans when he returned to the Red Sox in 1990, four seasons after Game 6. He had been released by Boston during the 1987 season. He re­signed with Boston in 1990 and here played the final 22 games of a 22­year career.

A family commitment had kept Buckner from attending a 20th reunion here in 2006.

A month and a half ago, Dick Bresciani, the Red Sox's vice president/publications and archives, extended to Buckner an invitation to throw out the ceremonial first pitch yesterday.

"I didn't think I was going to do it," said Buckner. "I told Dick I'd think about it. I made up my mind that I wasn't going to come. Then I prayed about it a little bit. Here I am. Glad I came."

Friday, August 24, 2007 These guys won't give you the shirt off their backs Sun, The (Lowell, MA) ­ Author: David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com

I am here today to talk to you about a serious maturation disorder that robs millions of adults ­­ usually male ­­ of their dignity, their self­esteem and their children's respect.

I am talking of course about adults who wear other adults' names (and numbers) on their backs, usually the names (and numbers) of much younger adults who hit or throw hard.

Their concession­stand diets stretch the fabric between the letters spelling "BRUSCHI" or "SCHILLING" until it screams. Having "YOUKILIS" or "ORTIZ" or "BRADY" or "HARRISON" stitched on their official MLB or NFL­licensed jersey backs, they feel empowered to call the home team "We."

"We got to get us another relief pitcher," they will say. "This Gagne is killing us."

"We need Harrison to be fully healthy again," they will say. "If he is, nobody will want to mess with us."

What these we­the­sitters­and­watchers do not realize is that the players whose very names they wear on their backs do not count them among the "we." (No disrespect intended.)

Players often equate success on the field with circling their wagons around "the 53 guys in this locker room" or "the 25 guys in this clubhouse."

Everyone else ­­ fans, media, owners ­­ falls under the category of "distractions and potential water­bottle throwers."

No champagne­soaked player after winning a Super Bowl or World Series has ever said, "The only people who believed we could do this are our never­say­die fans out there wearing our names and numbers on their backs."

No, they say, "The only people who believed we could do this are the 53 guys in this locker room."

"We love our fans," said Patriots strong safety Rodney Harrison, who, trust me, is highly respectful of fans and media and worth rooting for. "But we don't care (what their expectations for us are). It doesn't matter about the public. It just matters about the 53 guys in this locker room, and the coaches, and trying to get better every day.

"We know you guys (in the media) will turn on us and stab us in the back (laughing). No disrespect. You guys are doing your job, and we understand that."

After what age does wearing another person's name on their back rob a person of their dignity and self­esteem?

16? 17? 18?

Certainly it is healthy and normal for anyone younger to partake in innocent hero worship, though as Sonny LoSpecchio pointed out to 9­year­old Calogero "C" Anello in "A Bronx Tale": "If your dad needs money, go ask Mickey Mantle. See what happens. Mickey Mantle don't care about you. Why care about him?"

One colleague of mine suggested that jerseys with players' names on them do not need to be put away until college

graduation, since college is an expensive postponement of adulthood.

Recognizing that adults wearing other adults' names on their backs is a disease like the degenerate gambling it often accompanies, I am more open­minded. My rule is that any player whose name is stitched on the back of your jersey must be older than you are.

Dead guys are permissible.

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 SI got the wrong team Sun, The (Lowell, MA) ­ Author: DAVID PEVEAR, Sun Staff

Sports Illustrated was at least in the right neighborhood when it named the World Series champion Red Sox as its "2004 Sportsmen of the Year." The magazine missed by only 30 miles.

Bill Belichick or the entire team that Belichick, Scott Pioli and Bob Kraft have forged down the road from Fenway in Foxboro would have been more fitting choices.

This is not meant to denigrate the Red Sox or their historic October. (OK, maybe it is.) But our precious local football team, winner of two of the last three Super Bowls and 25 of its last 26 games, is again being greatly under­appreciated.

The Red Sox join the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" U.S. Olympic men's hockey team and the 1999 U.S. women's soccer team as the only teams honored en masse by SI. Meanwhile the team usually held up the highest as embodying the true essence of teamwork plows on through rain and mud without

its two starting cornerbacks, making a wonderful mockery of NFL parity.

There is nothing idiotic about the Patriots. Belichick has become this generation's Vince Lombardi, a cliche'­laden football coach whose simple lessons transcend football. In all walks of American life, the gospel of Bill is being applied.

Red Sox GM Theo Epstein, a smart cookie himself, acknowledged being influenced by the Patriots as he assembled his World Series champion. This included his pulling the trigger on the Nomar Garciaparra trade. No one sourpuss is ever bigger than the team. From the moment three seasons ago that the Patriots broke from 35 years of Super Bowl pre­game tradition by spurning individual introductions to run out all­as­one into the Louisiana Superdome, the old­fashioned American virtue of selfless teamwork was hip again.

Too much of the Red Sox's curse­busting revolves around a less endearing Americanism: Money talks. In their historic comeback against the Yankees in the ALCS, the Red Sox showed the heart of Patriots. They went on to earn the distinction of having the highest payroll of any World Series champion in history.

The NFL as currently constituted is the closest thing to a level playing field that civilization has yet known. Operating brilliantly in this level environment the Patriots may come the closest to an ideal team that the sports world has seen.

Since every NFL team is sufficiently bloated with TV money, money has little to do with the Patriots' dominance. Everybody has money. The Patriots have become a budding dynasty through coaching genius and hard work. They win with other team's rejects yanked off the practice squad. They win with wide receiver Troy Brown playing cornerback. They

win with linebacker Don Davis playing safety. They win with painful injuries that they never talk about.

There are no bloody­sock melodramas in Foxboro. Tom Brady has been listed as "probable" with a sore shoulder for going on two years now. But the ball still gets to where it is supposed to get on time.

Their uniqueness, professionalism and extraordinary consistency is sadly starting to be taken for granted. The Patriots deserve to be cherished. Their only sin apparently is not having gone 86 years between championships.

Friday, June 12, 2009 Like most boxing flicks, 'The Fighter' should pack a punch at box office and in Lowell Sun, The (Lowell, MA) ­ Author: David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com

Will it nail time­tested boxing­movie themes on the noggin, gaining traction within a genre crowded with classics?

Filming is set to begin July 6 on The Fighter, a biopic starring Mark Wahlberg as Micky Ward, the former rock­jawed junior welterweight champion from the Highlands of Lowell. There is that puncher's chance this could be the next Raging Bull, Rocky, Requiem for a Heavyweight or Body and Soul.

Because unless a Roman numeral gets attached to the title, it is hard to make a bad boxing movie. The sport lends itself to brutal brilliance. The sweet science even permeates several film classics that are not boxing movies, like From Here to Eternity and On the Waterfront.

"I coulda been a contender," Marlon Brando as ex­prizefighter Terry Malloy tells brother Charley, played by Rod Steiger, in On The Waterfront. "... Instead of a bum, which is what I am."

For Wahlberg's character to speak that much, though, will require much fictionalized dialogue, jokes renowned boxing historian Bert Randolph Sugar, the man of the ever­present fedora and cigar.

"Micky is one of the quietest, shyest, sweetest people I've met," says Sugar. "Marcel Marceau might say more. (Wahlberg) is going to have to speak more than Micky does, because silent movies went out about 1927."

Ward made his noise in the ring. On his list of all­time Greatest Boxing Trilogies, Sugar in 2007 ranked the Ward­Arturo Gatti sustained violence ninth. Sugar will share a podium with Ward this weekend during festivities surrounding induction ceremonies at the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y.

"Nobody can play Micky. Micky is Micky," Sugar says of the challenge facing Wahlberg to accurately portray Ward in the ring. "Nobody can play these people (in the ring). As good an actor as Paul Newman was, he wasn't Rocky Graziano (whom Newman played in 1956's Somebody Up There Likes Me). Graziano had a face that was the city of New York. Paul Newman was one handsome dude."

Stepping into a boxing ring takes guts. So does Wahlberg stepping into the ring with Brando, Newman, Robert DeNiro, Anthony Quinn, Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Kirk Douglas and Daniel Day­Lewis, acting heavyweights who have memorably portrayed fighters.

Even Humphrey Bogart's final on­screen appearance was in a boxing movie. In 1956's The Harder They Fall, Bogart played a sportswriter tangled up in boxing's seamier side, which, for Hollywood's purposes, is often boxing's best side.

Maria Matz, coordinator of UMass Lowell's film­studies program, says boxing being a "one man versus the world kind of sport" consistently translates into compelling story lines with classic heroes and anti­heroes. Her favorite boxing movie is the first Rocky movie.

"The idea of self­sacrifice is obvious in these movies," says Matz. "The passion, exhaustion, deceptions, joys, pains, wins and even deaths of boxers (appeal to moviegoers)."

Standing in a ring "basically naked ... except for something that maybe says Everlast" bares boxer's souls to their audiences, says Sugar, as they engage in a business that inevitably attracts characters difficult to dream up.

Sugar says there are more good boxing movies than there are movies about all other sports combined.

"It's easy," he says. "There are only two people in the ring. Their canvas is the canvas of the photographer. They can be made into vessels of hope, banality, anything. The sport is easy to understand ­­ hit and don't be hit. No signals called at the line of scrimmage."

Most actors work and study hard to accurately portray boxers, says Sugar, noting DeNiro's immersion into his Oscar­winning role as former middleweight champ Jake LaMotta in 1980's Raging Bull. Wahlberg, who grew up in Dorchester, has trained ferociously to do Ward justice on film.

Errol Flynn as former heavyweight champ Jim Corbett in 1942's Gentleman Jim is the actor who most accurately portrayed his subject in the ring, says Sugar.

"(Flynn) was an ex­boxer," he says, "and from what I've seen of Corbett's fight films, Flynn emulated him exactly."

So what is Sugar's favorite boxing movie?

Body and Soul, he answers.

In that 1947 movie, John Garfield earned an Oscar nomination for his role as a money­hungry fighter whose rapid rise attracts the shady characters inevitable in most great boxing movies.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 Indy 500: What is the fear factor? Sun, The (Lowell, MA) ­ Author: David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com

Canadian Alex Tagliani is the polesitter for the 100th­Anniversary Indianapolis 500 on Sunday. Average qualifying speed: 227.472 mph.

Fifty­two years ago the Indy polesitter was Johnny Thomson, "The Flying Scot" from Rogers Street in Lowell. Average qualifying speed: 145.908 mph

Really fast is a lot faster than it was 52 years ago. Within this roaring realm of death­defying aerodynamics, really fast is also now considered a lot safer.

Fourteen drivers have been killed in the Indianapolis 500 itself, the most recent in 1973 when Swede Savage succumbed to complications 33 days after a fiery crash.

Twenty­four other drivers have been killed in practice or qualifying since 1911, most recently polesitter Scott Brayton during a practice run in 1996. Safety technology can never outrace the perils of ultra­competitive creatures strapped into 650­horsepower, 1,500­pound open­wheel vehicles, and dying to be first.

I'm not a big auto­racing fan. And I can barely change a tire. But as a kid I religiously watched ABC's tape­delayed coverage of the Indy 500. The Indy 500 was a Memorial Day habit before we dumbed down into NASCAR Nation.

Even on tape­delayed TV, the Indy 500's danger was palpable ­­ my yearly thrill fix before resuming studies of baseball box scores.

Last week car owner Roger Penske and his Indy 500 drivers, three­time champ Helio Castroneves, Will Power and Ryan Briscoe, were guests on the Charlie Rose Show. They explained the preciseness required to drive 225 miles­per­hour in cars hypersensitive to their touch for three hours. "Just a gust of wind at that speed..." said Power, leaving the rest to the awful imagination.

Rose finally asked what all of us who drive 65 (or thereabouts) wonder: "Fear? Is there any fear?"

"We definitely have respect for the dangers involved," answered Briscoe. "But it sort of drives you to be so focused on not making mistakes. There's no doubt that racing around

Indy doing 225­230 miles­per­hour with concrete walls, it's dangerous ... If we're perfect out there, then danger shouldn't be a problem."

In other words, if these guys miss the cutoff man, they might die.

My fascination with the 500 was renewed several years ago while writing a story about Thomson's induction into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame. Thomson raced at Indy from 1953 to 1960, finishing in the top­five three times. His best finish was third in 1959, the year he won the pole in a car painted pink.

But two weeks before that 1959 Indy 500, Jerry Unser Jr. was killed in a fiery crash during practice. That prompted the sport's governing body to mandate drivers wear flame­retardant suits. Another driver, rookie Bob Cortner, was also killed in practice that year. Tony Bettenhausen Sr. survived his car flipping before the 1959 time trials. Two years later, though, he was killed in a crash during practice.

The winner of the 1959 race, Rodger Ward, four years earlier was part of the four­car accident at the Brickyard that killed Bill Vukovich.

The Indianapolis 500's official website recently conducted a poll to choose the "The Greatest 33" drivers in the history of the event. Thomson failed to make the final cut. Still, his candidate page includes audio of track historian Donald Davidson saying, "Johnny Thomson is remembered as being one the nicest people who ever ran at the Speedway .. very shy, a redhead, blushed very easily, very quiet, but boy, stood on the gas."

Unfortunately, when I did my story about Thomson, I could not ask him what Rose asked Penske's drivers last week: "Fear? Is there any fear?"

Thomson had long since been killed racing. On Sept. 24, 1960, at age 38, he died from injuries sustained in a sprint­car crash on a dirt oval at the Allentown (Pa.) Fair. His left leg was nearly severed.

Five years earlier, Thomson had suffered five broken ribs, a broken shoulder and jammed vertebra in an accident on a track in Langhorne, Pa.

Fear?

I don't think so.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013 Patriots weren't so smart with Hernandez Sun, The (Lowell, MA) ­ Author: David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com

Watching TV footage of Aaron Hernandez, handcuffed and disheveled and being taken by police from his North Attleboro home Wednesday morning, "The Patriot Way" again rang hollow in this troubled football fan's head.

Always smarter than everyone else. Those are Bill Belichick's Patriots.

But not smarter in this case. Sadly not.

More than six hours after his arrest, Hernandez appeared in Attleboro District Court to be charged with first­degree murder. The 23­year­old from Bristol, Conn., is being held without bail, charged in the execution­style killing of Odin Lloyd, 27, of Dorchester, a semi­pro football player who was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancee. Lloyd's body was found June 17 in an industrial park a mile from Hernandez's home.

Certainly the Patriots could never have imagined Hernandez would someday be accused of such a hideous crime. But a lot of other teams presumed dumber than Belichick's outfit worried that drafting the supremely talented Hernandez in 2010 might result in a bad ending of some sort.

Belichick apparently bought whatever reassurances his coaching pal Urban Meyer provided about Hernandez's character, enabling the Patriots to steal the University of Florida star in the fourth round. Belichick calls these "value picks." All other NFL teams were mocked for lacking Belichick's ingenuity to take a gamble on a versatile weapon who had won the John Mackey Award as the best tight end in college football.

(The Mackey Award's vetting also took a hit on Wednesday, since the award is supposedly presented to the collegiate tight end who exemplifies the "play, sportsmanship, academics and community values" of the great John Mackey.)

What could all those other NFL teams possibly have been thinking?

Well, probably that while football was important to Hernandez ­­ as Belichick likes to say in describing the ultimate character criteria ­­ other questionable activities were just as important to Hernandez, making the elusive tight end too

great a risk. Those other teams perhaps wondered whether Meyer's word beyond X's and O's lacked validity. Because while the Gators racked up two national titles during Meyer's six years in Gainesville (he is now coaching at Ohio State), they had roughly 30 arrests. The Orlando Sentinel reported last week that Hernandez was arrested at Florida in 2007 while still a juvenile following an altercation at a campus hangout, and also was later questioned by police about a shooting. Guns and Hernandez seemed frequently in close proximity.

Within days of the Patriots stealing Hernandez in that 2010 draft, the Boston Globe reported the tight end had failed multiple drug tests for marijuana while at Florida. Hernandez countered that, hey, it was only one drug test he failed.

But USA­Today reported last week that worries about Hernandez's character and associates prompted at least one NFL team to remove him from their draft board. ESPN's Chris Mortensen reported other teams did so as well, including teams that previously had taken chances on so­called risky players.

But not the Patriots. They were too smart. They kept Hernandez on their board.

Not long after Hernandez was arrested Wednesday morning, the Patriots released the 2011 Pro Bowler. This perhaps exhibited a smidgen of Patriot Way principle, since the timing reportedly could make it more difficult for the team to recoup the $9.79 million Hernandez has already collected on a five­year, $40 million contract extension signed last August, and causes salary­cap miseries. But really, what choice did the Patriots have? It made no sense keeping on the roster a player who probably had no chance of playing this season, not to mention it would have been unconscionable to keep an accused murderer on the payroll hoping he might beat the rap.

Of course, bonus money and salary­cap ramifications and wondering who is left for Tom Brady to throw the ball to come September pale in significance to Lloyd's awful fate and his family's grief and heartache.

And whether Hernandez was drafted by the Patriots, some other team or no team at all, he still probably would have wound up in a courtroom somewhere facing murder and gun charges. He is what he is.

When last August the Patriots showed faith in Hernandez by signing him to that five­year contract extension, which included a $12.5 million signing bonus, he cut a $50,000 check for the charitable foundation named in honor of Myra Kraft, the late wife of Patriots owner Bob Kraft. Hernandez that day spoke emotionally of Bob Kraft and the Patriots changing his life and of his commitment "to play my heart out for them, make the right decisions, and live life as a Patriot."

Hernandez now faces the possibility of living his life behind bars. A Patriot despised. A Patriot who lost his way.

February 10, 2014 Professionally speaking, he likes hockey as it is now Sun, The (Lowell, MA) ­ Monday Author: David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com

Believing in another U.S. hockey miracle became a moot belief once NHL players began skating in the Winter Olympics in 1998.

Should the U.S. team win gold in Sochi, it would be a minor upset (Russia, Canada and Sweden appear the favorites), but certainly no impossible dream come true. We have Patrick Kane for crying out loud.

But back in the day of us still sending fuzzy­cheeked collegians to hack down the Iron Curtain, I got a chuckle when subsequent U.S. men's hockey teams were expected to skate up to ridiculous expectations following the 1980 miracle in Lake Placid.

The very definition of "miracle" suggests a highly irregular occurrence requiring divine intervention.

Home­ice advantage helps, too.

Had, say, the 1984 or 1988 U.S. hockey team also won the gold, 1980 would have no longer seemed a "Miracle on Ice." It would in retrospect have seemed the mighty Soviet hockey machine simply succumbed to a common hockey predicament ­­ running into a hot goalie (Jim Craig).

If you judge the two teams on future NHL performance, the 1984 U.S. team with Chris Chelios, Pat LaFontaine, Ed Olczyk and Al Iafrate had more raw talent that the 1980 miracle workers. But the coaching dropped off significantly from Herb Brooks in 1980 to Lou Vairo in 1984. Add in the burden of expectations and unlikelihood of another miracle happening so soon, and that 1984 team went 1­2­2 and finished seventh.

It definitely was not their moment.

The U.S. in fact did not medal again in hockey until unleashing its NHL players and winning silver to Canada's gold in 2002 and 2010. The 2010 gold­medal game in Vancouver, won by Canada on Sidney Crosby's OT goal, was about as good as hockey gets. Frankly, I like Olympic hockey the way it now is ­­ no miracles, just sustained jaw­dropping skill.

But there is escalating talk that these Olympics could be the last with NHL players for a while. Certainly NHL teams' concerns are understandable. They have millions invested in players risking injuries amid two weeks of patriotic furor. The NHL goes dark for 16 days while 150 of its best players skate off to thrill the world. Who knows how much will be left in these players' tanks when they return for the NHL stretch run and Stanley Cup playoffs?

But given that the NHL ranks a rather distant fourth among the four major North American professional team sports (despite providing more passionate nightly entertainment than the NBA), you would think the NHL still eager to win over new fans watching the best hockey tournament there is.

There are a few promotional obstacles. Because Sochi is nine hours ahead of us, hockey games will not be seen live in prime time. The 2018 Winter Olympics are in South Korea. Again not the kind of prime time bang the NHL got when the games were in Salt Lake City in 2002 and Vancouver in 2010.

There is also the specter of false advertising. Because anyone introduced to NHL players through the Winter Olympics will likely suffer a severe letdown while watching their first Sabres­Panthers regular­season game. Wednesday, June 25, 2014 Every four years, it's a reminder

Sun, The (Lowell, MA) ­ Author: David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com

The exact juxtaposition, I do not quite recall.

But the contrasting athleticism on display was hilarious.

On Sunday I clicked back and forth from the U.S. vs. Portugal World Cup soccer match to the final innings of the Red Sox vs. A's game. At one point I clicked from watching athletes in Navy SEAL­like physical condition sprinting and sprawling during an all­out nationalistic test of stamina and will played out in a stadium deep in a tropical rainforest ... to David Ortiz's belly bobbing as Big Papi did his wounded­dog jog after swatting a 10th­inning home run during one of those minor exertions required of him every 40 minutes or so, when Ortiz wanders from the dugout, bat in hand.

Ted Williams once said that hitting a baseball is the most difficult feat in sports. It is damn hard, as the 2014 Red Sox have quite clearly demonstrated. But harder than hitting an on­the­mark bicycle kick while approaching total exhaustion?

And so, as happens every four years, I am reminded of why soccer has had such a hard time seizing a major hold of this country. It just looks too hard; too much work needed to score, too cardiovascular for a country that prefers a national pastime that moves to the beat of a McDonald's drive­thru.

I do not mean to pick on Ortiz and his lovable girth. This is not a column about tirelessly whining over official scorers' decisions. The fact is most of the over­bulked athletes in North America's four major professional team sports, conditioned for sudden bursts in an endless stream of timeouts, would have difficulty maintaining a World Cup pace for any more than 10 minutes. The over/under on NFL linemen tumbling into a gasping heap and screaming to be

hooked up to the nearest medical machinery would be 15 seconds.

With all due respect to the NFL Combine, soccer players at the World Cup­level are the best athletes in the world. This belief is based on simple sheer numbers. More kids in more countries dream of growing up to play for Real Madrid or Manchester United or Bayern Munich than dream of winning an Olympic biathlon or being a situational pass­rusher in the NFL or being a DH for the Red Sox.

In fact, roughly six billion of the people on the planet don't know who Ortiz is. The most world­renowned player on John Henry's payroll isn't Ortiz, it is for the time being serial­biter Luis Suarez.

Soccer's talent pool is immense; by far the largest of any sport. And the more athletes you have to draw from, the better athletes you get. And this pool is not limited by socio­economic, climatic or physical­stature boundaries.

The front of The New York Times sports page this past Sunday featured a photo of impoverished indigenous villagers in the Amazon basin, with no access to electricity, watching Brazil play Mexico on a television powered by a gas generator.

The Economist recently wrote about former rebels in the jungles of Myanmar having no recent access to television. But in their pickup games they remembered how to mimic Cristiano Ronaldo standing over a free kick.

Among our four major professional team sports, only basketball is a world game. While growing worldwide, hoops is still nowhere near as expansive as soccer. Baseball and hockey are international, too, but their geographic scopes are

limited. Neither sport really flies in the Congo. As a test of physical endurance, only multi­overtime Stanley Cup hockey among our core sports comes close to a Group of Death match.

Should the United States, through some improbable course of events, actually win this World Cup, it would make the Miracle on Ice seem a mere pebble in the Sahara. It would be America's biggest sports story ever.

My guess is Germany spanks us Thursday, sending our Group of Death fate to a process every red­blooded American NFL fan knows well: the headache­inducing playoff tiebreaker.