Now, Eckersley is phenomenal in the studio. I think most fans would agree he brings the hard-to-find combination of game experience, charisma, his own personal flair (and lingo), and a wealth of baseball knowledge to the table.

Remy on the other hand, brings those things but in a way that doesn't really function as well in an environment outside the booth. Before the last few weeks I would've guessed the exact opposite was true for Dennis Eckersley -- that he was a great studio guy but he was better in short bursts and small doses, not over the course of a three-hour game.

I would've guessed that and I would've been wrong.

Eckersley has been great in the booth so far. He and Orsillo have a great chemisty and they haven't worked together enough to have gone through the paces so, although there's been a bit of a "feeling out" period, Orsillo seems genuinely intrigued to have Eckersley in the booth and engages him throughout the game.

Watching the game last night, I thought the best parts of the entire telecast were what Eckersley brought to the table -- stuff that, I'm not afraid to say, Remy wouldn't have brought.

Remy and Eckersley both played for the Red Sox for several years (Remy for seven, Eck for six) and really know the ballpark, the club, the fans, and the city. But last night in particular, I thought Eckersley brought his personal experience to bear on the telecast.

He spoke extensively about what it was like to be a young player making your first start in Fenway, which Blue Jays pitcher Robert Ray was doing last night. He talked about the unique pressure a young kid has walking into a stadium like Fenway.

But I thought the most impressive parts were how honest Eck was about his feelings about the umpires when he was playing and the pressure he put on himself in between starts. It was just little things like how he would work out harder than anyone, run four miles a day just to pitch one inning, because he felt if he did that then he deserved to win.

Remy brings a lot, but that sort of honesty and experience as a top, top player, Remy just doesn't have.

Now, this isn't meant to be a "Remy vs. Eckersley" post, but only one that shows what Eckersley brings to these telecasts. He doesn't have Remy's unique air, he doesn't have the experience calling games, the experience within the game beyond playing the game. He doesn't have Remy's unique ability to become completely bored with the game and still keep the show interesting.

I had to have this pointed out to me, but the best part of most Red Sox games are when Remy goes off on a complete tangent about whatever is on his mind. He basically just leaves baseball behind and starts talking about whatever he'd like, and it works.

I can't ever see Eckersley doing that.

We're all pulling for Remy to get back as soon as possible and to hopefully beat this thing. But in the meantime, I'm alright with Eckersley bringing his own dirty, hairy cheese to the booth.

He'll be replaced by, of all people, Jon Gruden. Chucky joins Mike Tirico and Ron Jaworski to give us one of the most interesting booths of all time.

It'll be an interesting change to have a former NFL quarterback, a very-recently-turned former NFL head coach, and one of the better play-by-play guys in football in Mike Tirico. The most interesting interchanges should be between Jaworski and Gruden, especially given their personalities.

Jaworski, I feel, has been one of the best at explaining the Xs and Os to normal football fans since John Madden. You can say what  you want about Madden, but he was among the first to explain the subtle strategy changes that take place throughout a game. Not the greatest coach, he made high-level football strategy a common talking point over nachos and beer -- not an accomplishment you should overlook.

He had a schtick that was easily lampooned, though. Jaworski does not, which, given how sophisticated the average football fan has become about the league, is a welcome change. Jaworski will, however, now have somebody with real football chops in the booth to exchange talking points about. Hopefully, we'll even see some differences in opinion.

Jaworski is an incredibly nice guy on TV (I assume he's about the same off screen but I've never met him) and even when Tirico or Kornheiser made a point that didn't fly, Jaworski only gentle corrected him. Gruden, however, is going to stick to his guns (although he'll make far more defensible points that have to do with actual football.) and I wonder if Ron will defer to Gruden a bit.

Either way, it is the end of Tony Kornheiser on MNF, whether it's for the reasons he states or not. Regardless, I think it could be an improvement in the booth. While Tony always tried hard, his points weren't always salient. He's a great writer and a good sports mind, but his abilities lend themselves to seeing the big picture when all the evidence is in front of him.

As a writer, we're always watching games with an idea as to how the story is going to play out. Most of us will writer our game stories as it goes on and just make minor changes as the final minutes or outs play out. Every three-up, three-down inning by a great pitcher is the beginning of a historic 18-k performance, every time a team down 15 points goes on a 6-0 run it's the beginning of a huge comeback, and every bench guy who goes off for 12 points in the first quarter is going to drop 48 on the opposition. We're just wired that way.

When you take that mentality of trying to get ahead of the game to the booth and make a person say it out loud, it just sounds ridiculous most of the time. When we're wrong about those great stories and the game turns out to be pretty pedestrian (as it usually does), there's no delete key in the booth. Tony works on Pardon the Interruption because the game is already played out, he knows what happened and can then react to it, with the facts in front of him. It's just a different game.

I don't think he'll rank anywhere near the worst guys in the booth, but I don't think he ever really rose that high out of the middle of the pack as he was expected to. He may be the best cable sports show co-host ever, but as a booth guy, it just didn't work.

Now we have Gruden, who should be decent and could be exceptional. We've seen the MNF booth, since going back to ABC/ESPN, develop slowly and work out the kinks. The desire to return to the days of Howard Cosell was probably misguided, but now we have a football booth for a football-watching population that wants to watch and hear about, you know, football.

I think they may finally get it.

I have had this same conversation with friends in the past, and I've developed a bit of a theory, here. There are simply different types of smart. Everyone has friends who got all the plaudits in school, worked extremely hard, got the 4.0 in school and then fell flat on their face in the real world.

Everyone has friends who bombed school, skipped their finals to get high, drank every weekend, barely stumbled across the stage for their diploma and ended up making a million dollars in two years because they invented the Snuggie.

Is person A smarter than person B? No, they're just different kinds of smart. There's street smarts and then there's book learnin' and there's just not much in between.

Then there's Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell is like a great point guard, he makes everyone around him better. This is a longwinded introduction to what you've probably already read (his back and forth with Bill Simmons for espn.com), but I felt it had to be said. I feel smarter when I read what Malcolm Gladwell has to say.

They should assign his books for every college class, not because he has written anything about those subjects of interest, but you'd just have such an intelligence bump from being exposed to his takes on the world that you would perform better on the test.

I just finished reading that ESPN article (a few days late, I know, I'm graduating so I'm busy with finals and such) and I thought to myself, "Damn, if only I was one-tenth as smart as that guy." That got me thinking; Can you really fractionalize intelligence? What about greatness?

I didn't even know fractionalize was really a word until about five minutes ago. I thought I made it up. This is the effect Malcolm Gladwell has on the world.

Anyway, so here's my theory on greatness after having a lengthy, heated, and all-around lively debate about Jordan and Magic last night at work: there are levels of greatness, but they're not on any sort of normalized scale. There's no "black belt" or "yellow belt" of greatness. Jordan isn't a 10 while Magic is a 9 and Bird is a 9.5, they're all just great.

Now, you can argue that, among that level, Jordan stands out because of what he accomplished, but Jordan isn't 10% better than the guy who would be at level 9, he's infinitely better. There's no comparing Jordan to even, say, Pippen, in my book because Jordan is just Jordan and there's no two ways about it.

I'm of the opinion, though, that the Greatest of All Time arguments, while fun and a good way to really respect players from older generations, are ultimately pointless. It's like the Pele vs Maradona debate. When you reach that level you can no longer be passed, you can only be joined.

The only exception is if, in certain cases, a player simply uncovers a whole other level that nobody even knew about. That's where we should be having the debates. Not "How much better was Jordan than everyone else?" or "Who's the greatest between Woods and Nicklaus?" but, are these guys on a separate level from everyone else? Has Woods pushed greatness in golf to a different level? Will we know? Can we?

I'm going to grade him an incomplete there, because we don't know yet but if Woods continues on this torrent pace and passes Nicklaus, I think you have to say that he's on a new level and the only argument is whether Nicklaus, on further review, was there also. But beyond that, I think it's clear that they're far and away the best two players in the modern game.

Going back to my original point though: there are different kinds of greatness. Simmons and Gladwell touch on this but they don't really give it the full treatment. There are different levels of great, but there's different kinds, too.

There are guys who make everyone around them better, but aren't individually all that great. (Nash, I'd say. Never the most lauded guy individually for most of his career, but he deserves those MVPs because, although it was partly the system, he consistently got the best out of guys who are anything but consistent.) Then there are guys who are individually great, but struggle to really get anything extra out of their teammates. (Kobe. Enough said.)

Then there are the guys who are both. Sticking to basketball, you have Jordan, Bird, Magic, Russell, Duncan, Garnett, etc. Now, they all are individually great, but they also got the best out of their teammates. Now some did it because they just scared the crap out of their teammates (Jordan, Garnett), some did it by simply going out and gutting it and dragging their whole team up by their bootstraps (Bird, Russell), and then there are guys who did it by being there for their teammates, bringing it every night, occasionally having a huge game, and generally just being that fun to play with. (Magic).

Lebron, I think, has a real chance to join that third category. He's so fun to play with that it's fun just watching them play basketball. If they were just playing around, on some random playground, I would enjoy watching them play. Lebron is fun to watch because he's just a phenom, but the Cavaliers, as a team, are just fun. Period.

If you look at that group, though, (and there are probably plenty of guys that I'm forgetting) they all have two things in common: they all won MVPs and they all won titles.

Lebron just won the MVP. Guess which is next?

These are the things Malcolm Gladwell does to my brain. Thank God he's only in his mid-40s. He could pump out another 15 books, easy. It's like watching Lebron.

It's just fun. Period.

MLB is expected to announce the suspension today, according to their source.

Wow. Just...wow. I didn't know he had it in him. Really, Manny?

I mean, you're talking about one of the greatest home run hitters of all time, who has dealt with a number of injuries and always rebounded and seems impervious to the effects of age... Okay, now it makes sense.

Then again...Manny?I would've bet even money he'd inject himself with contact solution or cheerios before performence enhancing drugs.

I think we need an update to the Oh, Manny song.

Update: Manny released a statement saying he was given the substance by a doctor who said it was not a problem. He took it and it was laced with something that was banned.

This is why you go to your team doctor, folks. Then it's his behind when you test positive.

Now, whether you choose to believe Manny's testimony or not is up to you. I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it does raise considerable questions not only about Manny, but about the whole of baseball once again.

Well that didn't last long.

If you had hopes of the Celtics riding the high of a game seven win over Chicago and coasting to an easy game one win over Orlando, you're probably not in a good mood right now.

The Magic did, well, what the Magic do. Shooting 27 three-pointers and making 9 of them, the Magic were able to build a pretty sizable lead before the Celtics came storming back. Make no mistake, there were absolutely no surprises in this game. The Magic shot a ton of 3s, made a poor percentage of their free throws (76.2, still five points above their season average, sadly), and still took the defending champs down at home.

If the world comes tumbling down and historians have only this game tape to judge the 2008-2009 Celtics by, they'll probably express one thought: How the hell did this team make it into the playoffs, let alone out of round one?

Ray Allen continued his really-big-hit-or-really-big-miss playoffs with a 2-12 stinker for 9 points. You can't fault some of the performances he put in in the opening round, but it would be nice for the Celtics if he could bring that type of game every night.

The rest of the team played a pretty pedestrian game, with most firmly in the red in the +/- category except an apparently red-hot Scalabrine who put up a +22 in 27 minutes of time. Scal's line is a microcosm of the problems the Celtics face in this series. It's less about what the Magic can do than it is who the Celtics have to do without. That Scal is even being called on to play in such long stretches is the real hitch in the Celtics' plans to get out of this round, although you can't fault the guy's effort.

The rest of the bench (that actually played) was alright. Marbury was efficient if not spectacular off the bench and Eddie House played a good 13 minutes, with a decent line of 6-3-3 while shooting 40%.

Overall, though, everyone just looked (understandably) tired.

The Celtics came out flat and stayed that way for much of the game until Orlando really took their foot off the gas. Brian "Momentum" Scalabrine checked in with 8:36 left in the third quarter and the Celtics suddenly took off. Coincidence? Well, yeah.

The old adage is that basketball is a game of runs, even at this high of a level. One team goes on a 12-4 run, the other responds with a 15-3; these things happen. Momentum swings are at the heart of each and every basketball game and playoff series are decided based on how teams respond to those runs, both for and against.

This series, especially, is going to prove that point. The Magic are the epitome of a streak shooting team. They're going to rain down three point shots, passing out of the post for that corner shot, especially. When they get hot they're going to be able to put up a bunch of points and put them up fast. At the same time, they're going to go cold and have a really hard time holding on to even the largest leads, as we all saw on Game one.

Charles Barkley said after the game on TNT's postgame show that there are times when you can "win a game without winning a game." Now, it sounded, if you can believe it, even dumber coming out of Charles Barkley than it does in print, but it actually makes sense, as most things Barkley says do in their own unique Alabama way.

The Celtics lost game one on tired legs, poor execution, and by letting the Magic's lead build to such a point that they just couldn't come back, despite their effort. It didn't take any extraordinary effort by the Celtics to come back, however.

That's where the Celtics are finding the victory in this, because they know that the Magic can't hold them down, despite Howard's defensive prowess and those tired legs. They know it. The Magic know it. They know the Magic know it. That's the edge, and that's the reason you should ignore the obituaries on the Celtics 2009 playoff run that you'll probably read in at least one place tomorrow.

A few calls here and there and the Celtics are waking up to game stories tomorrow that are talking about a great game one comeback rather than the early hole they've put themselves in, but the Celtics know they're not out of this yet.

That's where the benefit of experience lies in this series. The Celtics know they can probably go to Orlando and get a win, that's well within the realm of possibility. The question is can the Celtics maintain the intensity needed to prevent Orlando from building such large leads and, when the Celtics build their own leads, keep Orlando from getting hot from behind the line. It sounds simple, but this series is going to boil down to the simple things: intensity, execution, and effort. The Celtics, even without Garnett, should be able to win this series. It would've likely had to go seven, even without the early setback, and the road is certainly more difficult now, but it's very possible.

If I were Dwight Howard, the unquestioned leader of this team, I'd be livid in that locker room tonight. A win by 5 when you were up 28 with barely more than 20 minutes left to play is not the way to start a playoff series, even if your play style means you're subject to letting leads slip.

The Magic are going to win this series one way: by making the shots that they can make, feeding the ball to Howard inside, and putting as much pressure as possible on the Celtics. The more tired the Celtics get, the worse they're going to play. If the Magic can outhustle the boys in Green, this series is as good as over. If the Celtics can find something, anything left, well they've got a lot left to play for.

I mean seriously. Just look at this post on ESPN's True Hoop recapping the 10 best moments of this series. It's been six games and there's already 10 moments that, in any other year, would trump just about anything else in round one. And there's already been 10, and that's leaving some out.

I thought about the game today while at work and realized, yeah, the Celtics let the game slip away with dumb mistakes and dumber fouls, but was there really any doubt this series was going seven? We should've seen this after game 2.

I really can't figure out what could possibly happen in game seven that would top the first six games of this series. I mean, what could happen next? Quadruple overtimes? Perkins shattering the backboard? Rose and Rondo combiniing for 40 assists? The entire building going up in flames? Joakim Noah grabbing a clutch rebound to ice the game for the Bulls then dunking in his own basket and then running around high-fiving the Celtics fans with floor seats? I'm prepared for anything.

The truth is this entire series is one long ESPN instant-classic. No, neither of these teams is likely to win the NBA title this year. Yeah, the overtimes have probably completely wasted any chance of these teams being able to get out of round two simply because of sheer exhaustion. But who cares? It's great basketball between two great teams. It simply doesn't get better than this in round one. Ever. I'm calling it, this is the best round one series in NBA history. There. I said it.

Let's just start with the Rondo/Rose matchup. Chris Paul and Deron Williams may be the better point guards in this age group, but Rondo and Rose aren't far behind and this series just seems like the opening chapter of what could be a long rivalry in the East.

(Sidenote here, with Willams, Paul, Rose, and Rondo there are now four phenomenal young point guards in the league, and we likely get Ricky Rubio and Brandon Jennings next. When's the last time there was this amount of depth at the game's most creative position? I don't mean like Gilbert Arenas/Baron Davis/Iverson type score-first point guards, but guards who actually facilitate the whole teams' offense but who can still score when necessary. It's great.)

The Rondo/Rose matchup has been the highlight of the series, so far, I think. The block by Rose was epic. Completely off balance and off the ground when Rondo starts his fallaway, he made Rondo's shot look like it was launched by a four foot guy with B.J. Raji's wingspan.

Missing the free throws at the end was hardly the way to finish the game, but Rose played out of his mind, matching Rondo step for step. Basketball is one of the few sports where you can get these sorts of matchups and really see two guys go head to head. Football's too team oriented and you don't play both ways. Baseball you get those matchups in pitcher vs. batter but not guys who play the same position. It happens sometimes in soccer but only for midfielders. You get it in hockey a little, but it's still more of a Anything-You-Can-Do-I-Can-Do-Better situation (as I'm sure we'll see with the Crosby/Ovechkin matchup).

The only other sport I can see it happening is boxing. That's what this series has boiled down to: a slug-it-out boxing match between two hungry teams, each trying to just knock the snot out of the other guy.

Some of the best basketball played yet in these playoffs has been in this series. The steal by Noah, the block by Rose, Allen's insane game last night, Perkins' arguably perfect game five, Pierce's spin and shot over Rose, Pierce's pull-up jumper x3, Ben Gordon's multiple huge shots peppered through the series, it's all been there.

It's not all pretty, though, that's for sure. These teams are both capable of some great basketball, but that's not necessarily what's been on display. It's been a mix, I'd say. For all the beautiful jumpers and defensive play on offer, there's been a lot of ugly to go around.

The Rondo foul, Davis deciding to punt the ball into Row Q, Pierce passing up an open-look off a screen to drive and have the ball stolen BECAUSE HE WAS ATTEMPTING TO KICK IT OUT TO BRIAN SCALABRINE and then fouling out to boot. Can we diagram that play, for a moment?

Did he see the headband and think it was Eddie House? So here's the checklist of things you have to do to lose a playoff game to the Bulls if you're Paul Pierce:

1. Pass up the open jumper for three after a solid screen.

2. Drive to the basket to drag the help defender over.

3. Make the worst hip feint in the history of hip feints so that nobody actualy believes you're doing anything but a drive and kick.

4. Stare down the teammate you're trying to pass to like you're Rex Grossman.

5. Lose ball.

6. Foul needlessly out of the game.

So there you have it, a boneheaded play in six parts, by Paul Pierce. I can't get too angry at him since he is one of the main reasons why the Celtics are where they are, but he better have a big game seven in him, because he's got to make up for this one.

Either way, see you after Game 7. Well, maybe after Game 7 and a nap, this series is too much for me.