Larry the K's Lineup

  Today would have been my mother’s 102 nd birthday, as she was born July 28, 1919 in Newton. Sylvia Kessler has been gone for more than 24 years, a victim of dementia that was eventually diagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease. I wrote this column in September of 2017 to mark the 20 th anniversary of Sylvia’s death, and since then, the scourge of Alzheimer’s disease has only worsened. Caregivers and families of Alzheimer’s patients recently had their hopes raised due to Biogen’s latest drug, which was approved by the FDA only to have its high cost given as the reason why many insurance companies will refuse to allow it to be prescribed for Alzheimer’s patients. That figures, because families of Alzheimer’s patients have never had it easy. I remember only too well how the nursing facility that my mother spent the remainder of her life in, which was supposed to be a place that specialized in treating Alzheimer’s patients, failed to care for her even adequately, and was constantly sedat...

Today’s (Sunday, July 25) come-from-behind win against the New York Yankees, with the Red Sox scoring five runs in the eighth inning to rally from a 4-0 deficit to win 5-4 after being no-hit by Yankee starter Domingo Germán for seven innings was the Sox’ 32nd comeback win of the year. (Their 5-4 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday night (July 26), which was capped off by Alex Verdugo's two-run blast in the eighth inning to erase a 4-3 deficit was the club's 33rd comeback victory of the year.) It's wins like today's (Sunday, July 25) that is making this team remind me somewhat of the 1967 Red Sox Impossible Dream Team, who finished in ninth in 1966, but whose tenacity and spirit earned them the nickname the “Cardiac Kids,” as popularized in the famous Impossible Dream album about that magical season. The 2021 Red Sox share some 1967 DNA with all of its comebacks and some of the 2013 DNA with that squad’s veterans coming from other teams at relatively little mon...

  I wrote this column right after running the Arnold Mills Road Race in Cumberland, R.I. on Monday, July 5. The 53 rd annual July 4 th race (held on the Monday after the holiday because the Fourth fell on a Sunday), was my first real race --- also referred to as “in-person” during these confusing and tentative post-COVID-19 days --- in 20 months. Although I did slog through two virtual races in 2020 and a third this spring, I found those events tough to do, as they lacked that extra ingredient that a live race offers to motivate you to run your best; in other words, you’re running alone while doing a virtual race, and you don’t benefit from being pushed by your fellow competitors. This race turned out better than I imagined --- and in the end provided even more of a psychological, spiritual and mental boost than a physical one as it allowed the participants to share what had been missing all throughout the pandemic: human interaction. Enjoy this column --- whether you’re a run...

  There’s no question that our lives are infinitely better than they were last July 4 th , when things were just slowly starting to reopen and we were, as it turned out, almost 11 months away from restrictions being lifted in Massachusetts and across New England. Then, the Red Sox hadn’t even played a game yet --- they wouldn’t open their entirely forgettable coronavirus pandemic-shortened 60-game season until July 24 --- and the only fan interaction would be if you were willing to pay big bucks to put a cardboard cutout in the stands at Fenway Park. Fast forward a year later, and the first-place Red Sox and Yankees played in front of three consecutive sell-out crowds at Fenway Park last weekend (June 25-27), the Patriots will allow crowds to attend training camp at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro at the end of July --- and road races are back. I’ll be running my first “in-person” race tomorrow (Monday, July 5), the Arnold Mills 4-Miler in Cumberland, R.I., and will be looking forwa...

That play, in the headline, on the famous line from the original “Karate Kid” movie --- “wax on, wax off,” which is what the teacher tells his karate student during training --- aptly sums up how confused many officials and doctors are making the more than 65 percent of Americans with one shot and the nearly 50 percent who are fully vaccinated feeling as we approach the Fourth of July weekend. Confusion, yes; anger, too, over those officials’ eagerness to make the rest of us miserable just because millions of Americans --- including far too many in the South --- are foolishly refusing to get vaccinated, and in the process are endangering all Americans’ health. In case you missed it, the World Health Organization and so far Los Angeles County and some other government officials are trying to scare even vaccinated people by telling them to wear masks indoors again because of the Delta variant, and that’s today. After all, the way the coronavirus has been working, there’ll be a millio...