Happy Birthday, Bob Ryan. The long-time Boston Globe penman turned 65 today. He’s had a fairly illustrious sportswriting career – Bill Simmons once called him the best basketball writer ever. Another fun factoid I just learned from his Wikipedia page is that he once directed fans to his Wikipedia page instead of admitting to a mistake that he made in an article when he was questioned about it on Around the Horn. Also it says on there that him and Peter Gammons started as interns at the Globe on the same day back in the 70s.

Happy Birthday from me, Bob. I’ve decided it would be weird to post a birthday message on your Facebook wall so I’m not going to do it – it’s weird enough that you accepted my Facebook friend request in the first place.

What can’t he do? What can’t @The_Real_Shaq do?

On Monday night, Shaq led the Boston Pops orchestra in three songs as conductor. It was the latest stunt in his season long quest to immerse himself hilariously in the New England culture. As a native New Englander, I have three words for the big bandleader: Revolutionary. War. Reenactment.

(video and photo via Boston.com)

Celtics lead Miami by 15 at halftime. Bored? Head over to Amazon and sample clips from the Dwight Howard charity album. Because hearing 9-seconds of Dwight’s stylings on Whoop There It Is (Hoop there It Is!) and Can’t Touch This (Howard Time) is at least as exciting as Lebron to Eddie House for brick.

This 11-track album of mostly cover songs* also features Day-o, ABC, Shout, Jammin’ and others. A portion of the proceed go to the BETA Center (www.betacenter.org), the Orlando, FL based organization whose mission is to provide children and parents with the knowledge and support needed for strong and healthy families.

*Track 11 is titled Shoot For the Stars and I can’t confirm, but I think it’s a Superman original track. Or it’s a Natasha Bedingfield cover (according to songs titled Shoot For The Stars on YouTube).

Dwight Howard releases CD for charity (MyFoxOrlando.com)

Shaq’s weekend in Boston: He crashed a wedding. He sat on a bench. He almost took some kid to the arm bar. He picked on Big Baby. He wore the same American flag fist tee the whole time. He went Big Aristotle all over the Harvard University bookstore.



I was too frightened by how small that paper soft drink cup looked in his hand to understand that last part. I’m sure it was enlightening.

(via SLAM)