Page 20 - Dick Flavin News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Late in the afternoon of Saturday, June 8, 1946, Boston was struck by a violent thunderstorm. Winds raged at 80 miles an hour, and in one four-minute period a half inch of rain deluged the city. As night fell, there were lightning bolts that came so often and so vividly that it was as if "night turned into day." Trees were uprooted, telephone poles were knocked down, and widespread power outages were reported. It was said to have been one of the worst storms of its kind the city had seen in 60 years. Fortunately, the Red Sox game with the Detroit Tigers that afternoon was already over by the ...

Several seasons ago, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, none of them said, "Thou shalt not change the distance between the pitcher's mound and home plate." It was a bunch of guys who, after fiddling around with a variety of distances way back in the 19th century, decided the distance should be 60 feet, 6 inches; God had nothing to do with it. Therefore, we can safely conclude that, to consider changing the distance between the pitcher's rubber and the plate, does not constitute a transgression against divine law as some traditionalists would have us believe. So, ...

A week ago in this space your humble correspondent prattled on at length about the Red Sox/Yankees playoff game of 1978, in my opinion the best baseball game I ever saw. As luck would have it, I had the good fortune to moderate a panel discussion with old Red Sox and old Yankee players held less than 48 hours before baseball shut itself down due to the coronavirus. Representing the Yankees were Bucky Dent, Goose Gossage, Graig Nettles, and Mickey Rivers, all of whom played key roles in that game. On the Red Sox side were Luis Tiant, Bill Lee, Bernie Carbo, and Wade Boggs. Tiant and Lee were b...

"This a desecration of the grand old game!" I harrumphed self-righteously when Major League Baseball announced the new rule prior to the 2020 season, such as it was. To think that every extra inning would start with a runner already installed at second base, violated every die-hard traditionalist bone in my body. The thought of a pitcher losing a game because he gives up just a ground ball that advances the runner followed by a sacrifice fly was antithetical to everything I believed -- or thought I believed -- about baseball. This new rule is worse than a gimmick, I decreed. It is unadulterat...

It was half a century ago when the Louisville Colonels, the Triple A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, were for all intents and purposes kicked out of Kentucky when the state decided to remodel the stadium in which the team had been playing into a football-only facility. The Colonels, which had been well supported by a loyal fan base, were cast adrift, left to search for a new home. They found one in Rhode Island and that, in a nutshell, is how the Pawtucket Red Sox were born. After a few years of struggling, entrepreneur Ben Mondor took over ownership and built the team into one of the most s...