By Kim J. Harmon

Hey, you gotta have sympathy for Murph, former assistant football coach at Newtown High School. Seems that Murph (now the head football coach at Masuk High School) got the call a couple of Sundays ago from his AD, Dave Strong, asking him to coach the girls’ lacrosse team since the former coach abruptly quit. Six days later, Murph – who had never even seen a lacrosse game before, he says – is on the sidelines coaching the Panthers in their first game ever (and that includes pre-season scrimmages, of which there were none). Yep, you gotta feel for him . . . but speaking of the Masuk girls’ lacrosse team, it was obvious that even for a first-year team there were some pretty good athletes out there. Give them a good year or two to really understand the sport and then we’ll have the makings of a really good rivalry here . . . I probably should have stopped back behind the high school on Monday – instead of just concentrated on the boys’ track meet – to mutter a few words of encouragement of coach Dan Winsett. Seems Mr Winsett, who was subbing one day on the tennis court for coach Kathy Davey, was pursuing his 250th career win. This goes back, I guess, to his salad days in Ohio (where he picked up his unfortunate love for the Cleveland Browns) and spans baseball and tennis (but not his days as junior varsity volleyball coach here at Newtown High School). Too bad the girls couldn’t come through (they suffered a 4-3 loss to Bunnell), because Mr Winsett is one of the all-time great guys. Hope he gets another shot at it . . . man, talk about the vagaries of New England weather – on Sunday I’m outside playing Wiffle© Ball with my son, Ben (and promptly losing, I might add), and it is so raw I can’t even get a solid hit (that’s as good an excuse as any, I suppose). Then on Monday, at the boys’ track meet here in Newtown, it is like SUMMER has descended upon us. You got guys with shorts and no shirts walking around like it’s July, for crying out loud. It’s a wonder we don’t ALL get sick . . . it was nice to catch up to Sean Martins at the Newtown High School girls’ track meet on Tuesday – although I didn’t care to be reminded of how old I’m getting (thanks a lot, Sean!). I remember coming to Newtown back in 1993 and one of the first pictures I took was of Sean diving with the Newtown High School swim team and we silhouetted his head in the photo so that it covered up the O in SPORTS on our banner (he still has that, he said). Now he tells me he has been out of school for more than two years. Man oh man . . . a rather ribald statement was seen on the back of the t-shirts worn by the Weston High School girls’ track team on Tuesday, which said, “If you can see ours, we must be kicking yours.” That doesn’t apply, though, if you’re about to get lapped in the 3,200-meter run . . . sure looks like EXCITEMENT will be the name of the game when the Newtown High School softball team gets on the diamond this spring. Last Thursday, Kristin Caposella tossed a two-hitter AND drove in the only run of the game in the bottom of the seventh-inning in a 1-0 season-opening win over Brookfield and then on Monday, the ‘Hawks drop a 2-1 decision to Pomperaug in the bottom of the eighth inning at Community Field in Southbury. If THAT is going to be the theme for the 2001 season, it is going to be a heck of a ride . . . getting back to the sympathy thing, I’ve got plenty of sympathy for fans of the Boston Red Sox – like my brother, Moe, and my mom (wherever she may be right now). To wit – their best player, Nomar Garciaparra, is bothered by a sore wrist for over a year and the time he decides to have surgery (and start four months of rehabilitation) is the day before the first game of the season, NOT back in October like any other sane player would have done; their manager hates the general manager; the manager can’t get along with Carl Everett, one of the most dangerous offensive players on the team; their $20 million-a-year man, Manny Ramirez, is slightly hobbled and probably still irked about the thought of being moved to another position; one of their big boppers, Dante Bichette, wants out of Boston; their best pitcher, Pedro Martinez, pitches well enough to win in his first game but his own teammates can’t score any runs for him; and a pitcher they get off the scrap heap, Hideo Nomo, tosses a no-hitter in his first start of the season (he will then, in pure Red Sox tradition of course, get shelled in his next three appearances). I mean, you can’t MAKE this stuff up . . . I came back from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York (which had eight inches of snow on the ground Sunday and no hope of playing any high school ball in the near future) with a yearbook that’s up to date to the 2000 induction. Inducted last year was 19th-century infielder Bid McPhee (one of the original Cincinnati Reds), who went through his entire career without wearing a glove (gloves were only worn, then, to protect the hands and not for fielding aids). He said, at the time, “This glove business has gone a little far. True, hot-hit balls do sting a little at the opening of the season, but after you get used to it, there is no trouble on that score.” Well, maybe he should have worn a glove, because (according to the Baseball Encyclopedia) the guy made 64 errors in 1884, 65 errors in 1886 and an astonishing 72 errors in 1887 . . .