On New Year’s resolutions, the Red Sox, Ricky Craven and Rocker

Resolutions, questions, this, that, and another thing or two.

I resolve that the next time I write a Hampton Clarkson story, I will get his school right. I knew that he attends Worcester State (not Westfield State). I knew it when I typed Westfield State. I knew it when I proofread Westfield State.

As penance I resolve to attend a Worcester State game next year. I will load up the family and go, uh, all the way to Castine. Hampton and the gang play at Maine Maritime Academy next year.

I resolve not to secretly curse Bangor’s Jesse Speirs and Tim Hardy and Hampden’s Jeff Bouchard for their youth and golf talent. (But it’s really not fair that they’re so young and good.)

I resolve not to tear up when Dan Duquette gets the ax. If he gets the ax. Speaking of Mr. Personality, has it been proved that Duquette and Cy Sperling are not related?

You know that Major League Baseball has a serious public relations problem when Commissioner Bud Selig is sitting next to Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura at a congressional hearing on baseball’s antitrust exemption – and Ventura is the one making sense.

OK, admit it. Raise your hand if you’re like me and thought Bangor had no chance in either of its state championship games during the year.

Not jumping on the bandwagon here, but Ricky Craven proved what some of us here thought could happen. Put him in a team that has both good management and good equipment, and he can win. He has to be the comeback man of the year.

Comeback woman? How about Christine Snow-Reaser of Dayton, who in June discovered uterine cancer had attacked and destroyed the fetus she was carrying. After surgery, Snow-Reaser went on to win the Maine women’s division of the Beach to Beacon 10-kilometer road race in August.

Talk about your ghost of Christmas past. There on ESPN the other night was baseball players’ rep Donald Fehr. I resolve not to refer to him as the Pillsbury Doughboy (for at least one week, or until he sends the players on strike, whichever happens first).

Now that Carl Everett is gone, do we really expect the Red Sox to start acting like the Cleaver family? Personally, I wouldn’t expect them to form a circle before games, join hands, and sing “Kumbaya.” They are still the Red Sox, after all.

Which means at some point, Pedro Martinez and manager Joe Kerrigan will come to loggerheads. Manny Ramirez will slide back into his cocoon after early success, and Johnny Damon will decide, like every other player with speed who has come to Boston – Otis Nixon, Jose Offerman, to name two – to stop stealing bases.

When did the ground stop causing a fumble?

Two-parter: When did team nicknames become mascots and why?

How much money would you give to be in the Texas Rangers clubhouse when Carl Everett and John Rocker sit down for a game of cards together? This could happen:

Jurassic Carl: “Got any 2’s?”

Rocker: “Go fish, you $#%&!”

One of my true pleasures this past year was watching John Bapst’s Zack Means work a soccer ball. Now a colleague tells me he believes Means may be an even better hockey player.

I resolve to lose at least part of the weight Charlie Milan III constantly tells me I need to lose.

One of the surprises of the year had to be Milan’s Maine Heat team winning the World Team Candlepin Bowling Championship. Winning it wasn’t really the surprise. They’ve always had the talent.

The surprise was that they won it in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and not at Bangor-Brewer Lanes.

In the famous last words department – “I am not worried about that. I won’t be fired. We’re talking about Notre Dame here. That’s not the way things are done at Notre Dame. That’s why I took this job in the first place.”

That from ex-Notre Dame head football coach Bob Davie, 48 hours before he was, uh, fired by Notre Dame.

I resolve not to write another New Year’s resolution column until December 2002.

And as always, we leave with a New Year’s toast from Col. Sherman T. Potter, commanding officer, 4077th M.A.S.H.

“Here’s to the new year. May it be a damned sight better than the old one.”

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net.