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Connelly’s Top Ten: Dempster, 49ers, Christmas Vacation

1. Patriots vs. 49ers:

* Brady or Montana – it’s not even close. Give Brady Jerry Rice, John Taylor, Roger Craig, Dwight Clark and he would have won seven Super Bowls
* Ryan Dempster’s post season ERA 6.35
* Patriots only have a first, second and third round pick in the first six rounds in this year’s draft
* Can they get up for two huge games in six days?
* Another free Sunday afternoon to help decorate the tree
* San Francisco has five runners who have runs of 24 yards or more
* San Fran has rushed for 16 TD but only allowed THREE
* Aldon Smith has 19.5 sacks
* David Akers is 7 for 15 from 40 yards and out

2. Red Sox management drunken sailors:

* $13mm a year for a pitcher who is 124-124 lifetime
* $13mm a year for a back up catcher / below average first baseman that had 80 hits to 125 strike outs last year (0.64 – in comparison Johnny Pesky in 1947 207 hits to 22 strikeouts 9.41)
* $13mm for an lead off hitter that had an OBP of .296 when he led off in 2012

3. Lakers three coaches this year:

* Mike Brown 1-4
* Bernie Bickerstaff 4-1
* Mike Dantoni 4-9

4. College Football:

Barry Alvarez is coming back to coach the University of Wisconsin for the Rose Bowl. For his efforts, the retired coach will be paid $168,500 if he wins – good gig.

5. Marlins/Red Sox:

Members of the 2002 Florida Marlins that were in the Red Sox program: Josh Beckett, Kevin Millar, Mike Lowell, Carl Pavano, Julian Taverez, Alex Gonzalez, Ryan Dempster

6. Jason Terry vs. Ray Allen so far this year

Player	MIN	PTS	Shots	FG%
Jason Terry	30.4	11.4	8.8	.451
Ray Allen	27.0	12.4	8.5	.494

7. Amazing Stats:

In honor of Ryan Dempster how about some Red Sox pitchers that had a .500 career record:

* Bill Dineen……….85-85
* Tom Gordon……..25-25
* Dick Pole………….14-14
* Alfredo Aceves 12-12
* Lynn McGlothen 9-9
* Ken Ryan……………9-9
* Zane Smith………..8-8
* Jeff Fassero……8-8
* Paul Byrd…………..5-5
* Andy Hassler……3-3
* Rick Aquilera……2-2
* Eric Gagne………..2-2
* John Halama…….1-1

8. Old School:

Red Auerbach’s playoff record before drafting KC Jones, Tom Heinsohn and trading for Bill Russell: 19-30

After: 80-39

9. Just a Little Bit Outside:

The movie Christmas Vacation earned $71mm at the box office (original Vacation earned $61mm)

10. Randomocity:

* Hats off to Ben Affleck for earning a Golden Globe for Best Director of Argo – it’s been a long trip
* What’s worse: a cough or the taste of Robitussin cough syrup?
* I guess Dempster is slow to the plate – baserunners were 22 out of 26 stealing bases
* Charlie Brown Christmas is a great soundtrack
* Harry Agganis hit .261 as a Red Sox
* Angels just gave $125mm to Josh Hamilton who has averaged 134 games the last three years and during that time his average went from .359 to .298 to .285 / He has hit .227 in 132 post season at-bats
* Have you seen the Silent Night basketball game at Taylor University:

Tags: Connelly's Top Ten, Top Ten

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