The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Decision to bring Ivy tourney to Yale bit of a head scratcher
This week’s Gravy coming to you from Foxborough, where it’s mandated by Massachusetts state law that no one can drive more than 15 seconds on any road without coming across a Dunkin’ Donuts or a billboard featuring a grinning Rob Gronkowski.
⏩ Far be it for us to complain about the Ivy League basketball tournament being played at Yale next season. It’s a great event that brings a slice of March Madness excitement to our backyard.
That said, the choice is a bit of a head scratcher.
Yale’s Lee Amphitheater is a charming facility that is sure to be rocking with sold out crowds over the twoday tournament. But it’s sort of like holding the Super Bowl at Yale Bowl. Sure, it’s a cool, historic building. It’s also illequipped to handle almost every aspect needed for an event of that magnitude.
Yale, whose athletic administration is second to none, will make it work. They’ll find ways to accommodate a crush of fans, media and — between the men’s and women’s participants — clear locker room space for eight basketball teams.
But it won’t be easy. The Ivy League is also selling itself short by choosing a venue with a seating capacity of 2,800 at a tournament that’s drawn crowds of over 8,000 at Penn’s Palestra the past two seasons. That’s a lot of ticket revenue left on the table.
Most unsettling is that the Ivy League says it will continue to explore options. Three years after agreeing to institute a league tournament, the league still doesn’t have an idea of what to do with it. And there’s no solution in sight.
⏩ Yale men’s lacrosse has been building to this moment for the past seven years under coach Andy Shay. It’s got a deep offense led by the nation’s best player, Ben Reeves, a relentless defense and solid goaltending — all the tools necessary to beat Duke for the national championship on Monday afternoon at Gillette Stadium.
⏩ Chalk up Hanley Ramirez as another free agent signing gone terribly wrong for the Red Sox, who’ll swallow $15 million to wash their hands of his bloated contract. Between Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval (Boston pays him $20 million a year to play for someone else) and Rusney Castillo (making roughly $12 million to play in Pawtucket) the Sox will cough up $45 million this season for three guys no longer on the roster.
Boston remains a championship contender without Ramirez. But that’s a lot of money wasted on past mistakes.
⏩ One more reason to love the quirkiness of baseball? This week, Texas Rangers pitcher and Andre the Giant lookalike Bartolo Colon turned 45. It also marked the MLB debut of Juan Soto, a 19-year old Braves prospect. Soto was born in October 1998. By that time, Colon had pitched in 50 big-league games over two seasons.
⏩ The Celtics and Cavs have played six fairly uninteresting games so far, at least in terms of on-court drama. Maybe tonight’s Game 7 will come down to the wire. Not that we’re complaining.
⏩ Jordan and Russell have more rings; Kareem and Kobe have more points. But LeBron James is the best basketball player of all time.
⏩ Before he became head lacrosse coach at Wesleyan, which plays for the Division III national championship today, John Raba was a two-sport star at the University of New Haven. He was a dangerous running back and kick returner as an all-New England football player, and an AllAmerican lacrosse player. He was inducted into the school’s athletic Hall of Fame in 2010.
⏩ Line of the week that I wish I wrote comes from Dan Wade via Twitter: “So the Stanley Cup Finals will pit sin city, a den of vice and corruption where the worst of the worst gather, against Las Vegas.”
⏩ If Jackie Bradley Jr. isn’t living on borrowed time in Boston, he should be.
⏩ The YES Network airs a number of jokey promos about their nine-man broadcast team, eager to let viewers know they’re aware that there are a lot of people shuttling in and out of the Yankees’ booth over the course of a season.
What YES doesn’t acknowledge is that there’s a lot of dead weight in that booth.
This week’s road series at Kansas City and Texas was handled exclusively by a pair that doesn’t get nearly enough time in a congested rotation. Ryan Ruocco (who YES didn’t think was important enough to include in those promos) and David Cone kept things fun and interesting and exciting. The lack of self-promoting catchphrases and joyless analysis (*COUGH Kay and Flaherty *COUGH) was quite refreshing.
They’re easily the best combination of the bunch and should handle the bulk of the season.
⏩ To be fair, we’ve always enjoyed Ken Singleton, who’s retiring this year, and Paul O’Neill, this generation’s Phil Rizzuto.
⏩ As for those Red Sox broadcasts, NESN still hasn’t recovered from dumping Don Orsillo.
⏩ Orange resident and Yale graduate Greg Mangano hit the game-winning 3-pointer to lift his Karhu Kauhajoki team to Finland’s Korisliiga League basketball title. Mangano had 22 points in the final and averaged 18.1 points for the season. The 6-foot-10 Notre Dame-West Haven graduate has played professionally overseas since leaving Yale in 2012.
⏩ It’s hard to imagine the West Haven Twilight League without Vin DiLauro, the patriarch who directed one of the nation’s oldest amateur baseball leagues with boundless energy and enthusiasm for so many years until his untimely passing in January.
The league will soldier on in his memory. Its 86th season will commence on Thursday evening at 5:45 with a dedication ceremony at Quigley Stadium, a night to remember DiLauro and all he did to champion amateur sports in Greater New Haven. Donations to assist the league can be made at the gate or at www.whtl.org.