Jon Lester

The Sox won last night, 4-1, over the Angels. My guy Jon Lester pitched, and did afantastic job: 7 innings, 7 strike outs, no earned runs.


Lester, of course, is our household hero, being an NHL survivor and all. There's a nice piece on SportsIllustrated.com about Lester, written by a guy named Arash Markazi, who writes a blog about baseball. The interesting part about the piece is that Markazi is himself an NHL survivor, having had an aggressive form while in his 20's, like Lester. Provides an interesting perspective on things, especially since Markazi links an earlier blog entry he wrote as a letter to Lester, giving Lester advice about dealing with his NHL. The blog entry from today is called "Lester Much More Than Pitcher With Cancer," and says that he has enough distance from it now that we think of him as a great pitcher, not as a cancer survivor. He was even booed in LA last night.


Well....not exactly. The stories about the game, and Lester's performance, typically still mention his being a cancer survivor (see the Boston Globe piece, for example). So it's still defines him. Not that I'm complaining -- anything that keeps cancer in the news, especially NHL, is fine with me.


But it's interesting to read about how Lester is handling it. He really doesn't know what to say when people say he's an inspiration to them. Which is understandable, given that he's a 24 year old kid. I barely know how to respond when people ask me about it, and I don't have the pressure of pitching in Boston.


(Though I would happily unleash my patented Clydesdale Knuckleball if the Sox would just return my calls.)