Rained Out

On Marathon Monday, Shank wove a few sports together and called it a column:

Two of sport’s best — Eliud Kipchoge and Shohei Ohtani — were in town, but rain fell on their parade

One can make a case that the world’s two greatest athletes were both in Boston Monday, performing less than a half-mile from one another.

But our sloppy spring weather was the ultimate winner. New England’s April remains undefeated.

Kenyan superstar Eliud Kipchoge, the undisputed greatest marathoner of all-time, finished a disappointing sixth in the 127th Boston Marathon, logging the worst time (2:09:23) of his epic career. His countryman Evans Chebet was the winner for the second straight year.

Meanwhile, over at ancient Fenway Park (forever 15 years younger than our Marathon), Shohei Ohtani, the Babe Ruth of the 21st century, pitched two hitless innings and cracked a couple of singles but his mound start was cut short by car-wash rains that repeatedly stalled play in a 5-4 Angels victory over the Red Sox.

Marathon Man

As most of you Massholes know by now, the Boston Marathon will not take place today; it's rescheduled for Monday, September 14. Our Man Dan manages to get a story out of this, and who better to help with such a column than Mr. Boston Marathon himself, Bill Rodgers?

No Marathon Monday.

No early morning buses shuttling runners to within walking range of the starting line. No piles of sweat pants and pullovers discarded on Hopkinton common. No kids along the route with orange slices and cups of water. No undergrads from Wellesley cheering runners when they pass through the Scream Tunnel. No massive gathering at the Newton firehouse on Comm. Ave. No breakfast club Red Sox fans atop the Green Monster, turning away from the infield to watch runners come into Kenmore Square. No thousands of Mylar sheets sheltering runners as they stagger from Copley Square after finishing the race.

For the first time since 1896 there will be no Boston Marathon in mid-April. This is the spring of 2020, which we will remember as a time when every path and roadway was Heartbreak Hill. If COVID-19 allows, the 124th Boston Marathon will be run on September 14.

Bill Rodgers, who won the race four times between 1975-80, says, "The world is upside down now, but it will be righted. It’s like a marathon, you feel your way through it. Think of the days ahead and what you’ll be aiming for. But right now, we’ve got to deal with this.''

There weren't too many comments on this article, but this one was really tasteless funny:

Sea Bass

4/19/20 - 5:31PM

And now, a moment of silence for the late great Rosie Ruiz.

Overrun

Aw for chrissakes! (It's Easter; just had to get that in.)

The CHB thinks no one outside Boston had heard or -- or cared about -- the Boston Marathon prior to last year's bombing.

Friends and relatives in other parts of the country could never be expected to understand any of it. We were the only ones who acknowledged Patriots Day and found nothing odd about a major league baseball game starting annually at 11 a.m. on the third Monday of April. We were the only ones who knew Clarence DeMar, Johnny Kelley, Billy Rodgers, the Hoyts, and Heartbreak Hill.

Seriously?

Has he not heard the names of the past winners? Lelisa Desisa Benti? Wesley Korir? Geoffrey Mutai? How many of these folks grew up with the O'Learys and the O'Malleys down on Center St in Rozzie?

The last time an American won the women's division was 1985; the men's was 1983, or about the last time The CHB went to the can without a cocktail in hand. This is a major international race, watched all over the world, the first leg (get it?) of the Marathon Grand Slam.

And no, contrary to Shank's melodramatic prose, the Marathon does not stand as "a symbol of American freedom and a population refusing to cower to terrorism." That would be the Freedom Tower.

No, the Marathon is an event, not a monument. And healing will come when overwrought sportswriters describe it for what it is, and nothing more.

Out of Touch

Unbelievable. The same guy who has spent a career whining about how men in tights are overpaid and underappreciative of their luck in life now has the gall to say "We know our place. The games are entertainment."

If only he could show that perspective when people aren't getting killed.

The Day After

Shank writes about yesterday's bombing at the Boston Marathon.

You live here, so you got the calls. And the texts. And the e-mails.

Are you safe? Are you OK? Were you there? Is everybody in your family all right?

This was one of those days when you found out how many great friends you have. Worldwide, word spread that Boston — the Boston Marathon — was under attack, and folks from other corners of the country and the world reached out to find out how you and your family were doing.

More end to more innocence. One of our best days is forever tainted. The 117-year-old Boston Marathon will never be the same. The journey from Hopkinton to Boylston Street is now a 26.2-mile stretch of yellow police tape. Do not cross.